From Cleats to Tzitzit

Alan Veingrad during his talk at Chabad of Upper Montgomery County

Former football player discusses route to both the game and Jewish observance

Alan Veingrad gets asked to lift the Torah fairly often.

But the man who used to square off against some of the National Football League’s best insists he never opens the scroll too wide during Torah services. He does not like to show off.

Besides, “some places, it’s really heavy,” he said.

Sporting tzitzit, a black yarmulke and a full beard, Veingrad spoke about his football past to roughly two dozen audience members at Chabad of Upper Montgomery County in Gaithersburg last week, just five days before the Super Bowl. Veingrad, whose career spanned seven seasons as an offensive lineman with the Green Bay Packers and the Dallas Cowboys, also talked about his experience of becoming an observant Jew following his retirement from the game.

Though his parents had sent him to Hebrew school for bar mitzvah preparation, Veingrad did not really feel much of a spiritual connection to Judaism growing up in Florida. His family was not particularly religious, sitting “way in the back” at services.

At the age of 14, he was hanging out on the streets and getting into trouble. He saw that his older brother busied himself with sports, so Veingrad decided to follow his example. At 6 feet 3 inches and 170 pounds, he realized that he needed to put on some muscle if he hoped to succeed.

After discovering the weight room, Veingrad enjoyed a stellar high school career. However, he was not receiving any offers to play in college.

“So I did what any Jewish boy would do,” said Veingrad. He turned to his elders. “Mom, I need some help,” he told her.

Veingrad showed his mom the resume he had compiled and explained to her that his time of 5.3 seconds in the 40-yard dash was not quite sufficient. So she reached into her purse, extracted some typing correction fluid, and changed his time to a 4.9. Thanks to his mother’s editing, Veingrad received an invitation to visit East Texas State University. At his mother’s urging, Veingrad got off the plane wearing cowboy boots.

When it came time to run the 40-yard dash, Veingrad pulled a fast one. When the coach turned his back, Veingrad took one not-so-small step forward. His time in the 39-yard dash was good enough to earn a full scholarship.

Veingrad, who has since apologized for his opportunistic timing, credits East Texas State University with turning him into a football player. With the help of the coaches, Veingrad got stronger, faster, and became much bigger. “If you want to put on weight, you eat biscuits and gravy,” said Veingrad, who noted that both are prolific in the state of Texas.

Being the only Jew on campus was lonely for Veingrad, though he said there were few instances when he was made to feel uncomfortable because of his religion. Mostly, his teammates were interested in learning about his tradition and its customs.

Undrafted out of college, Veingrad ended up signing as a free agent with the Green Bay Packers. The Wisconsin city’s Jewish community adopted Veingrad the only Jewish Packer during his five seasons with the team, helping to sustain him. All throughout his football career, whenever other players would join hands and say the Lord’s Prayer, Veingrad said he would say his own silent, Jewish prayer.

There were around five or six Jewish players in the league during Veingrad’s tenure. If he was playing a team with another Jew on it, Veingrad said the two would always seek each other out after the game.

After five seasons with the Packers, his agent convinced Veingrad to sign a contract with the Dallas Cowboys, in part because Dallas’s thriving Jewish community offered Veingrad more chances to meet a Jewish wife. “You’re not that good looking,” he recalled his agent telling him. “[You] gotta increase your odds.”

Veingrad took the field with future Hall of Famer Emmitt Smith and won a Super Bowl ring, which he wears along with an engraved Rolex, a gift from Smith. After Smith ran for a league-leading 1,563 yards in 1991, the running back rewarded his blockers with the watches just before the season opener against the defending Super Bowl champions, the Washington Redskins.

This was some pretty powerful motivation for the big men. “So we go out and we beat your Washington Redskins and we beat them bad,” Veingrad told the decidedly partisan crowd. The Cowboys would go on to win Super Bowl XXVII that year, after which Veingrad felt it was time to hang up his cleats.

“If ever you lose 1 percent of that passion, you better get out,” he said of his decision to retire.

Years of what he terms a violent and brutal sport have taken their toll on him. “My whole body aches, but thank God [I’m in] a much better situation than many players,” said Veingrad, who has to apply ice packs regularly to alleviate neck pain.

While still playing, Veingrad received two medical opinions, the first from the team doctors and the second from his cousin, Jonathan, a radiologist. Following his career, it was this same cousin who would invite Veingrad over for Torah study and Shabbat dinners. Little by little, Veingrad, who has three children, began to become more and more observant. In 2003, he and his family decided to start keeping Shabbat.

Veingrad, an account executive for a commercial real estate lending company in Florida, regularly talks about his experiences around the country. Veingrad says every time he speaks, he hopes he can convince one audience member to put on a yarmulke or keep Shabbat. Playing in the NFL, he said, “gave me a platform.”

Veingrad, who davens with Chabad, said he and his family do not miss their old lifestyle. He believes his football past helps him to be a better Jew. “[I] never realized that you can take so much off the football field and bring it into your life,” he said, citing both “dedication and preparation, all the things you need.”