NFL players are tough. But they're also sensitive souls – and they care deeply about toilet paper.
The New York Jets are at Wembley on Sunday, and they have gone to great – some may say outré – lengths to make sure the players are looked after properly.
They have their own clothes washer. Their own private chef. And they’ve imported 350 rolls of their own toilet paper to, as the New York Times puts it, “replace the thinner version used in England”.
Aaron Degerness, the Jets' senior manager of team operations, explained what was required for the team's trek to one of the world's most easygoing cities.
And people say professional sports stars are pampered.
The details are mind-boggling. Five thousand items – from cereal and extension cords to gauze pads – have been loaded on to a ship containing supplies for all six NFL teams playing in London this season. (Jacksonville play Buffalo in week seven, and Kansas City take on Detroit the following week. The ship left New York in August).
The Jets have spent 11 months planning for about 65 hours overseas, an undertaking that Mr Degerness said involved about 10 times the work that preparing to play in, say, Miami would have required.
An industrial launderer will pick up the players’ dirty practice clothing at one location and deliver it clean to another. A chef at the Jets’ London hotel will be flown in to observe how food is cooked and served at team headquarters. (British food, of course, consisting principally of gruel, crisps and warm lager.)
Mr Degerness acknowledged that the Jets’ plans might be perceived as “a little over the top”, but they did get bang for their buck, and it’s not his money, so what the hell.
“Some may say that’s a little over the top or whatnot, but it didn’t really cost that much, so why not? We’re basically trying to replicate everything that we’re doing here over there.”
Who knew that an improperly wiped bottom would have such an effect on the team’s performance?
The Jets' equipment Gus Granneman also revealed how the prospect of doing laundry overseas was a frightening one.
“You’re always scared about going to another country and your laundry comes back in a ball or something like that,” he said. “You don’t even tell him low heat. You say, ‘I want this at 100 degrees Fahrenheit, whatever it is Celsius,’ because ‘low heat’ might be something entirely different to him.”
Quite so.
There was also the startling revelation that the Jets would have to remind their players to “call their mobile phone providers and credit card companies before taking off, and to plug in electrical adapters, lest the higher voltage fry their Xboxes or favorite hair clippers.”
It also “meant shipping over condiment staples that could be difficult to procure, like hot sauce and barbecue sauce.”
Maybe they could just make do with HP. After all, it’s only a few days.
The Guardian
