Mens Journal

a player and a franchise resurrecting each

other. “He just breathes conf idence” says

Kevin Ross the Cardinals’ secondary coach.

“A nd w e fe e d of f h i m .”

Mathieu is the game’s great freelance

disrupter: knifing in from safety to blow

up bubble screens; blitzing to stuff runners

behind the line of scrimmage; and leaving

his man to pick off throws halfway across

the f ield. It’s no wonder he’s nicknamed

the Honey Badger after the diminutive

mammal known to savagely f ight far larger

predators even lions. “He’s the heart of

everything we do” says Patrick Peterson

the team’s all-world cornerback. “We’re so

used to seeing him make hero plays the

kind that lift the whole team during a game.”

They’ve come a long way in their short

time together: Mathieu to the peace and

stability of adulthood the Cardinals to a

divisional title last year and a berth in the

NFC title game. They’ve built a team with-

outholesorexcusesaveterangroupthat’s

grown together and is braced for the f inal

push. One more hump — and a complete

season from Mathieu — and maybe they’ll

gain the ledge win their f irst championship

since 1947 when the team played its games

inChicago.ButasMathieucantellyoufrom

hard experience you better make that last

step your best one. Because if you slip it’s a

long way down and Christ will it ever hurt

when you land.

ON A CLOUDLESS Friday night in midtown

Phoenix — a swath of pop-art galleries one-

off boutiques and boisterous gastropubs —

I’m sitting on the f loor of Sutra Yoga

watching Mathieu attempt a Warrior III

pose. It would be generous to say that he’s

holding his own. His plant leg rattles and

sweat pours off him as he f ights the Earth’s

rotation to a draw. In a room full of bendy

ponytailed blondes Mathieu is like a catf ish

in Vanilla Coke — something’s seriously off

with this picture. But don’t tell that to the

only brother in the house. Mathieu’s work-

ing it like fourth down on his own goal line.

When the hour’s mercifully over the

yoginis roll their mats and make idle chat

with their instructor. Not Mathieu: He’s still

in Corpse pose which is to say sound asleep.

Someone taps him on the leg. He wakes with

a snort then sheepishly towels himself dry.

In the foyer I watch the women circle well

aware of who he is. After the place clears

out I ask him the obvious: “Why would you

do this to yourself ?”

He smiles his camper–at–Six Flags smile

whichmakes himlook about11yearsold.

“Dude I don’t know. I guess for the peace.

Yeah it’s about the peace.”

A couple of days later Mathieu asks me to

join him at his megachurch North Phoenix

Baptist. The building a beige dome of peb-

bled concrete that seats several thousand in

air-cooled comfort is packed with congre-

gants in Sunday casual. Mathieu is the only

person of color here. Scott Savage a young

night overaprojects squabble.Thenames

run together in a blur of urban carnage

their blood tide turned to cruciform squibs

of ink. “How?” I ask him. “How are you still

here when all these people are gone?”

“I’m a warrior” he says after some

ref lection. “I’ve lived through a lot — and it

couldn’t kill me.”

We’re in a strange place to be speaking of

death: an organic bistro in a Phoenix sub-

urb where Mathieu and I are the only diners

not dressed in tennis whites or yoga pants.

The vibe is New Age mindful meets stage II

melanomabutMathieu’smadethisspothis

cafeteria. Gone is all the greasy junk he grew

up eating replaced by Buddha bowls and

blueberry smoothies. His regimen: no sugar

no dairy no soy no fried food. Just yoga

ref lection solitude and prayer. Ninety

days into a start-from-scratch rehab from

the total tear of his right knee last Decem-

ber — the third major injury in his three-

year career; his third consecutive season cut

short in its last month — he pushes himself

daily to the point of collapse to recover in

time for training camp.

He’s already running intervals of seven-

minute miles on a treadmill called the

Unloader which is equipped with a harness

attached to pulleys to mitigate his weight

and soften the landing impact as he sprints.

In six weeks he’ll be off to minicamp where

he’ll drill but not practice with his team

andthen report —barringsetbacks—to

the team’s facility in Glendale.

It’s a preposterously tall order but

Mathieu has done it once before. Three years

ago he wrecked his other knee in a late-

season game against St. Louis. Mauled by

f ive tacklers after returning a kick Mathieu

ripped everything you can rip in a knee —

ACL LCL MCL and meniscus — and

somehow returned to play 10 months later.

It was the one season he didn’t make the All-

Pro team though he did have 13 starts and

was just getting strong again when he broke

athumbmakingatackle.Sonohe’s not

unkillable. He just plays like he is a 5-foot-9

runt crushing 6-foot-8 tight ends as the best

slot defender on the planet.

And here he is once more on his ump-

teenthresetpushingthatbad-luckboulder

up a hill. To spend time with Mathieu is to

marvel at his resolve and good cheer and that

very rare quality called grace. It makes sense

that he wound up playing in Phoenix home

of hope-seekers and second-chancers chas-

ingsalvation inthecrucibleofthedesert.

He’s been brought here by good fortune (and

an astute general manager) to author his

own rewrite — and his team’s. The Cardinals

had fallen hard after losing the Super Bowl

in 2009 f inishing last twice and playing dull

football in front of shrinking crowds. Then

they took a chance on a kid who’d plunged as

well crashing out of college for multiple pot

suspensions and costing himself millions in

the draft. That gamble has netted a payoff

rarely seen anymore in the risk-averse NFL:

Some men wear the wounds of their wars;
TyrannMathieulugsaroundagraveyard.
Look there at the ink below his right knee:
22 crosses carved in dark green a portable
shrine to the people he’s lost and the talis-
manic marks they left on him. “I hear their
voices always: ‘Keep going keep going’ ”
Mathieu says. “It’s like they passed their
strength to me when they died.”
Mathieu the All-Pro safety of the Arizona
Cardinals and the game’s next megastar
defenderturned24inMay.Indoingsohe
outlived his wildest expectations: “My dad
was a murderer” he says. “My uncles were
murdered. I thought I’d be like them too.”
Some part of him knew better sensed that
he was chosen. He starred in every sport
heturnedhishandto.Butinthe5thWard
of New Orleans talent is no certain ticket.
Often it’s just a ruse to break your heart.
Hewalksmethroughtheliturgyofhis
dead. The f irst cross is for his grandpa
Lorenzo who took in Mathieu when his
mom abandoned him at birth. “The heroin
got him though he died of heart failure.”
Beside Grandpa is Uncle Donell dead of
AIDS “from dirty needles.” Beside Donell
is Uncle Keith “murdered in the street while
holding his baby son in his hands.” Next to
him is Aunt Trina who “died on Thanksgiv-
ing when some jackass ran a red light.” Next
to Trina is Uncle Andre murdered late at

Contributing editor Paul
Solotaroff wrote about baseball’s best
fastballers in the May issue ofMen’s Journal.

MEN’S JOURNAL 94 SEPTEMBER 2016

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