Beneath his armor Kabeer Gbaja-Biamila is just your average mild-mannered Pro Bowl defensive end
by Eddie Matz
In the dark and drafty basement of Kabeer Gbaja-Biamila's Wisconsin home there is a cove, hidden behind two shining wooden doors with golden knobs. Should you enter this cove, you will behold something rarely viewed by mortals, a fantastical array of, yes, DVDs. But no ordinary DVDs are these. Here are Batman, Batman Returns, Batman Forever and Batman & Robin. Here are the Spider-Mans, both of them. And of course, here are all the Supermans. "Any movie about a superhero," says the Packers defensive end, gazing wide-eyed into the cove (some might call it a closet) on a cloudy June afternoon, "and I gotta have it." And while these DVDs look and sound unbelievable on Gbaja-Biamila's home entertainment system, that's not why he's hooked. The real reason this 6'4'', 246-pound man loves superheroes is because his life plays out as if he were one.
Much like Bruce Wayne, Peter Parker and Clark Kent, Gbaja-Biamila is sorely misunderstood. Teased and tormented six days a week by those around him for being different, on the seventh day he dons his green-and-yellow supergarb and wields speed-rushing, QB-sacking superpowers. For three hours every Sunday, Gbaja-Biamila becomes KGB. For three hours every Sunday, all is forgotten. As for the rest of the week, well Gbaja-Biamila is the first to admit he doesn't fit in. "My best friend on the Packers is probably Betsy Mitchell," he says in a lisping singsong that sounds alarmingly like Mike Tyson's, only louder. For those unfamiliar with Green Bay's staff, Mitchell is a psychotherapist who consults for the team. "I talk to her at least once a week." Mostly they chat about the best way for him to deal with the constant teasing he gets from his teammates. "If you saw how they treated Kabeer," says his wife, Eileen, "you wouldn't believe it."
To be fair, the players are only following the lead of Jethro Franklin, Green Bay's former D-line coach. Franklin was at Fresno State when he met Gbaja-Biamila, a prospect from LA's Crenshaw High. "He was a long, gangly, pimple-faced kid," says Franklin, who left the Pack for USC last January. "He could also play ball."
In 2000, Green Bay took Gbaja-Biamila in the fifth round out of San Diego State. As fast as a running back but weighing only slightly more, he was parked on the practice squad until Franklin-who spent the 1989 season with Seattle-made the rookie his project. He taught Gbaja-Biamila how to dip his shoulder and rip through a block, and how to plant his inside foot and accelerate toward the QB. He also treated his protg like that gangly kid he'd met years earlier. It didn't matter that KGB had nine sacks in his first four games the following year, or that he went to the Pro Bowl in 2003. Franklin didn't let up. "As he became more productive, he could have become complacent," Franklin says. "I tried to make sure he didn't." So while KGB's 13.5 sacks were second in the NFC last year, and though he is one of only three players (Simeon Rice and Dwight Freeney are the others) to post double-digit sacks the past three years, his teammates keep piling on too.
He asks too many questions, they say. In practice, in meetings, in locker rooms, Gbaja-Biamila is constantly firing queries, like a war movie machine gun with endless ammo. Little do the other Packers know that this is Gbaja-Biamila's way of battling a wicked case of ADHD (attentiondeficit/hyperactivity disorder) that went undiagnosed until his junior year at San Diego State.
He's cheap, they say. So cheap that when the D-line began having weekly dinners, Gbaja-Biamila (two years into a seven-year, $37M deal) insisted that each player direct-deposit a part of his paycheck into a special meal account. They don't understand that this is how you operate when you're one of seven kids and your Nigerian immigrant dad hasn't worked since learning he had Parkinson's in 1999.
He's out there, they say. It's one thing to secretly worship Michael Jackson, quite another to play VHS footage of yourself dressed in black loafers and white gloves, moon-walking to "Billie Jean" in a college talent show.
Truth is, the only time Gbaja-Biamila isn't mocked by teammates is on Sundays. That's when that white G on his hat turns the 27-year-old father of two into somebody else. Faster than a scrambling QB, more explosive than Wile E. Coyote's Acme cannonball, able to beat tackles with a single step, KGB's signature has become the dip-rip Franklin taught him. "He gains more ground with his first step than anybody I've seen," Franklin says. By his third step, KGB is in position to lower his inside shoulder, turn his inside foot toward the pocket and blow by the blocker.
And like any self-respecting superhero, he saves his best work for the toughest circumstances. On the same December day in 2002, Gbaja-Biamila's mother, Bola, died in a car accident shortly after his first son was born. Less than a week later the 235-pound KGB-15 pounds lighter than usual because of the stress-lined up against Minnesota's Bryant McKinnie, a.k.a. Mt. McKinnie. With 29 seconds left in the fourth quarter, on second and 21 from the Vikings' 23-yard line with the Pack leading 26-22, KGB slipped by the 6'8'', 335-pound McKinnie and got his hands on Daunte Culpeppper. At first the Vikings QB escaped toward the right sideline, but KGB sprang up, chased Culpepper down and jarred the ball loose, preserving the win. And building on his rep.
Much like Freeney of the Colts, Gbaja-Biamila is a player who can turn a pedestrian real-life D into a viable fantasy option. When he's not mugging QBs (50.5 sacks in 42 career starts), he's forcing them into bad decisions, a big reason why the Pack's 45 picks from 2002 to 2003 were the secondmost in the NFC (behind Tampa's 51).
What's scary is that his numbers may improve in 2005. He'll still get double- (or triple-) teamed, but in new D-coordinator Jim Bates' scheme, KGB will line up wider and angled toward the quarterback, essentially giving him a head start. Says Gbaja-Biamila: "That will make it easier to do my job." You know, catching bad guys. Or sacking QBs.
Same difference to a superhero.