Rich Ohrnberger says he looked at the battered van ahead of him and decided to hit it. He was running late for a New England Patriots meeting. A collision would give him something to tell the coaches when he arrived.[1]

At Penn State, Ohrnberger had already tried talking his way through an attendance problem. A December 2008 Los Angeles Times report described him and teammate A.Q. Shipley arriving late to a team breakfast and briefly getting demoted to the second team. Ohrnberger offered an explanation: "I'm addicted to infomercials."[2]

During that same bowl trip, his teammates chose him to present a signed football to Budd Friedman, founder of the Hollywood Improv. Ohrnberger turned the presentation into a comedy routine, making fun of the man his teammates had sent him up to honor. Friedman said he would book him. A few months later, the Patriots selected him in the fourth round of the 2009 NFL draft.[2][3]

When he recounted the collision on The Hartman and Rich O Show in August 2022, Ohrnberger recalled a morning during his Patriots years when he woke up late and rushed out of the house. He described the entrance he dreaded: walking into a meeting with Bill Belichick and the rest of the team looking at him. "I have this sinking feeling in my stomach like I'm gonna get cut," he recalled.[1]

On the drive to the stadium, he saw black smoke coming from the battered van's exhaust. In his telling, paying the insurance, or giving the driver a couple hundred dollars, seemed preferable to the embarrassment of that entrance. He said he rear-ended the van.[1]

When the elderly driver climbed out of the van, he tried to apologize, Ohrnberger recalled. Ohrnberger said he immediately felt bad. He had involved a stranger in his attempt to avoid an awkward morning at work.[1]

At the Patriots' facility, Belichick's assistant sent him to the offensive-line room, where Dante Scarnecchia greeted him with "How's it going, speed racer?" Ohrnberger asked what he meant. The coach asked about his late arrival. Ohrnberger finally delivered the explanation he had arranged on the road: "Dante, I got into an accident."[1]

Scarnecchia, in Ohrnberger's telling, suggested that excuse might work in an office at IBM. It would not work in his room. After the oversleeping, the collision, and the conversation with the driver, Ohrnberger was standing in front of his coach, hearing the instruction: "You be on time from now on."[1]

Sources

  1. CBS Sports: Ohrnberger recounts the collision
  2. Los Angeles Times: He's good for a laugh
  3. Wikipedia: Rich Ohrnberger career context

Hero: Rich Ohrnberger signing a football at Penn State in April 2008. Photo by xanderer, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 3.0. Cropped, resized, and composed with a blurred background.