By Bruce Wood

The call is a surprise.

   "Hey, this is Zack," says the familiar voice.

   Zack Walz.

  Zack Walz, good buddy of Pat Tillman, the Cardinals' leading tackler before walking away from a $3.6 million contract to join the army.

  Zack Walz, football roommate of the hero who died for his country in Afghanistan on April 22.

  Never a big-timer, Walz has usually been good about answering e-mails and phone calls from someone who wrote about him when he was in college. Occasionally it would take an e-mail to his mother to track him down because his number or address would have changed, but then one day the computer would spit out a message telling how to get hold of him or the phone would ring and he'd be on the other end of the line only too happy to talk.

  After retiring from football, Walz started a company that marries DVD technology and college recruiting. It sounded like an interesting venture and an intriguing story, but this time even the e-mails to his mother were unreturned for more than a year.

  Then, at midmorning one day last week, the phone rings. It is Zack Walz apologizing up and down for not returning messages.

  "My mother kept telling me to call," he says, sounding a little more sheepish than you'd expect of a former NFL linebacker.

  There is small talk about Dartmouth, the weather and about the Tampa Bay Bucs drafting Big Green tight end Casey Cramer. "Give him my e-mail," Walz says. "I met him up there and liked him a lot. I know it would have been a lot easier for me if I had someone to talk with when I was getting started."

  Knowing that Walz had been close to Tillman, you try to say the right things.

  "Everyone has been trying to get hold of me," Walz says quietly. "Nightline, Dan Patrick, EPSN, everyone. I'm not going to talk to anyone until after the funeral next week. That's what Pat would have wanted."

  You feel awkward and steer the conversation to his new venture. He describes the concept in general terms and says that in a few weeks he'll call back to talk about it for a story. Maybe he will.

  Then he starts to talk again of Tillman, perhaps because it is simply too hard not to.

  "You met him in the locker room when you came down to Philadelphia to see me, didn't you?" he asks.

  You tell him yes and he sounds pleased.

  The phone goes in and out a bit as Walz moves about. He is in Arizona, about to visit the Cardinals' offices to be with others who knew Pat Tillman.

  Before he enters the building, the too-skinny Ivy League linebacker from San Jose talks a little more about Tillman, the too-slow, too-small, honors graduate who grew up in the same town and played in the same high school all-star game as Walz.

  You take notes because that's what you do when you talk with professional athletes.

  A week later, you Google "Zack Walz" on the Internet and up come the newspaper stories and photos. Walz had told you he was heading to San Jose to visit the Tillman family and attend services for his buddy. He didn't say he would be one of the speakers, but he was.

  It shouldn't have been a surprise.

***

San Jose, Calif. -- With his hands trembling as much as his voice, Zack Walz reached into his left pants pocket and produced Pat Tillman's military dog tags, lifting them to the crowd of 3,000 that gathered Monday at the Municipal Rose Garden to remember the man who sacrificed his NFL career and ultimately his life to serve his country as an Army Ranger.

  "Though I'm holding these dog tags in my hands today, I assure you this: This is the farthest they will ever be from their place around my neck," said Walz, who roomed with Tillman during their days with the Arizona Cardinals. "For as long as gravity pulls, they will hang down close to my heart -- a place where Pat Tillman has permanently emblazoned his mark."

  – Los Angeles Times

  ***

  Just 24 hours have passed since an emotional Zack Walz broke his silence. Even with his mother's help, tracking him down is impossible. His phone call or return e-mail will come. But it might be in July. Or November. Or a year from now.

  You look at the notes you kept when you spoke with him last week and you know they came from Zack Walz' heart. They weren't prepared.

  And you know that, having stood in front of the crowd and the cameras and the dignitaries and the Tillman family in San Jose, Walz would be OK sharing the thoughts he shared last week about his friend.

  "He was a unique person, I'll tell you," it says in your hurried handwriting. "He was my roommate for all four years that I played. Every training camp, every home game, every away game. He was all that I had in Arizona until I got settled in and started meeting people."

  You watch the evening news and it takes you back to the unexpected conversation with Walz a week ago.

  Told how shocking the sad news was for someone who met Tillman just one time a few years ago, Walz pauses for a second.

  "Sept. 11 (2001) was definitely Pat's foremost motivating factor," Walz finally says. "It just really bothered him. ... He talked about being held on such a high pedestal. For what? Playing football? It's a joke.

  "I don't think he could ever deal with the fact that people looked up to him when there were firemen, police officers, women and soldiers dying. He couldn't deal with that. It's one of the reasons why he felt it was so necessary for him to contribute. To really contribute."

  Walz is approaching the Cardinals building now and you can almost see him stopping in the cool shade of a tree in the Valley of the Sun to finish his thoughts.

  "It's not easy to handle this," he says. "It's even harder out here where there are so many papers and so much is going on. Everywhere you look, every time you look at the paper or the TV, it's about Pat. It doesn't make it any easier."

   And then, before he ends his call and puts away his cell phone, Walz speaks one last time from the heart.

  "I feel so lucky," he says. "There were so many people who have such beautiful things to say about Pat who only wish they could have met him just once. I had the honor and pleasure of knowing him for four years and considering him a very dear friend."

This story first appeared in the Valley News

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