OT: Erron Kinney - Firefighter

[BlackLabelJetsFan]

Gotta respect this guy...

Williamson County Fire Lt. Josh Thomas doesn't follow the NFL, but he vividly remembers the first time he saw Tennessee Titans tight end Erron Kinney.

"We had a house fire in the middle of the night, right before Christmas. It's ice cold, the wind is blowing and I see this gigantic guy coming through the smoke," Thomas says. "He had his gear on and without delay he's working with us. You would have thought he was a seasoned firefighter."

That's because Kinney, 27, is a seasoned firefighter, certified since his sophomore year at Florida. As a volunteer during college, Kinney rescued a fellow firefighter during a hellacious boat factory blaze that sent chemical-filled barrels exploding into the sky.

Firefighting consumes Kinney in the way a five-alarm blaze devours buildings. Since childhood, Kinney has slept with a scanner by his bed, and at any hour he's ready to jump in the $100,000 truck where he keeps his gear and answer an alarm. (Related item: Customized truck fit for a firefighter)

"If it's burning, I'm there," says the 6-5, 275-pound fifth-year NFL pro, who's on call in the offseason as a volunteer firefighter in the Nashville suburb of Franklin with the Williamson County Rescue Squad.

His second career sometimes puts him at odds with a Titans contract that says he is to stay out of burning buildings.

"My health and safety are of chief concern," says Kinney, who has to special-order safety gear for his 41-inch-long arms.

"I've been to a few fires during the season, but I mostly stand around. I might drive a truck."

To learn the administrative side in preparation for becoming a small-town chief when his playing days are over, Kinney also serves as a deputy chief with the Shady Grove unit in Hickman County, southwest of Nashville.

Kinney was the spokesman for Tennessee's fire safety campaign last year, and he is a member of the state's Firefighting Personnel Standards and Education Commission. This summer he will battle brush fires in Williamson County with a 45-pound water pack on his back and use his skills as an extrication specialist at auto accidents.

Kinney has had about 200 hours of training this year, including two weeks at an emergency medical technician "boot camp" in California.

Besides his volunteer work in Tennessee, Kinney visits New York twice a year to make runs with Brooklyn's Ladder 114 unit.

"His passion is insane. You can't even describe it," says Brooklyn firefighter Andrew Gilmore, who worked the 9/11 World Trade Center disaster. "This guy would rather be a firefighter than play in the NFL. It blows all our minds."

Gilmore has trained with Kinney at Randall's Island in New York and has taken the tight end to the fire department's equipment depots.

"You should see him at training, rappelling off buildings," Gilmore says. "The things he knows about the New York Fire Department, the rigs we have, the specifications, are amazing. They're things you really don't need to know. But he knows them."

And when the alarm sounds, Kinney finds a spot on the truck Gilmore drives.

"He's been in burning buildings with us," Gilmore says. "We had a fire at a Chinese restaurant, a three-story building, and Erron was in the basement with me. He had the mask on.

"He's an excellent firefighter, and he will be an asset to any fire department he goes to when his NFL career is over."

Childhood passion lives on

This obsession with firefighting was apparent when Kinney was only 3.

"My mother could not get me to draw anything but a firetruck," Kinney says. "I think a lot of kids are drawn to firetrucks. They're big, they're shiny, they make a lot of noise and they're exciting. For me, it never wore off."

Kinney's fire-chasing cohort as a child was his father, the Rev. John Kinney, dean of Virginia Union University's school of theology. The Rev. Kinney earned fire safety merit badges as a Boy Scout. He helped pull hoses at a box factory fire as a teenager, and he has performed that chore for his son at a brush fire.

The Rev. Kinney also relishes buying toy firetrucks for all six of his grandchildren, including Kinney's 3-year-old daughter, Ceanna, and 20-month-old son, Elijah.

"We had a scanner, and whenever there was a major fire we would roll," the Rev. Kinney says. "For him, it's a passion, but it's also an expression of the way he cares for people and communities. ... It's a healthy and balanced obsession. He doesn't let it interfere with his family and his commitment to church."

But that obsession did nearly delay Kinney's 2001 wedding to his wife, Julie.

They were on their way to get a marriage license at a Virginia courthouse the day before the ceremony when Kinney spotted a fire station.

Kinney, who tries to visit at least one fire station on every Titans road trip, couldn't resist pulling in to talk to the crew and inventory their equipment.

"I probably get on people's nerves, but I can't help it," Kinney says. "I have to do it."

The Kinneys ended up arriving at the courthouse after business hours and had to beg for their license.

"It's just part of the deal," Julie says.

That deal includes having every room of their house decorated with a firefighting element, whether it's the toy firetrucks from Kinney's childhood, the antique safety gear he has collected or the Backdraft movie poster that hangs in one bathroom.

"It's just part of our life," his wife says. "I like shoes and purses, and he likes firetrucks."

On New Year's Eve 2000, Kinney's plan to propose was postponed because of a fire call.

On one of their first nights in Tennessee, Julie was left lost in Franklin when a Williamson County fire engine appeared with its siren screaming and Kinney grabbed his gear and jumped aboard.

And the day of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, "He was fully in his truck with his gear and adios, baby," his wife says of Kinney's short-lived plan to go to New York.

"My whole thought process and judgment went out the window," says Kinney, who after a few miles realized he couldn't just walk out on his obligations to the Titans.

When they dated as students at Florida, Julie began to understand this obsession the night she saw Kinney squeezing into the bunker gear of a firefighter who stood a foot shorter than him.

She encouraged him to join the volunteer fire department in Archer, Fla., and remembers his look when Kinney came home with the whirly-bird red light he was authorized to put on his truck when answering calls.

"He was the happiest I have ever seen him," she says.

Real-life rescue in line of duty

But she didn't have a complete understanding of her future husband's dedication until the night during their senior year that Kinney's pager delivered news of a fire at the Monterey boat factory.

Kinney, knowing the factory posed Archer's worst potential fire site, bolted. Julie packed up their spaghetti dinner and also soon headed to Archer.

"It was literally like a scene out of Backdraft," she says. "Things were exploding in the sky. I pulled up on the scene, and I could hear the chief saying, 'Evacuate,' blowing the horns, and I just wanted to know where Erron was."

Told that Kinney was still inside the factory, she asked who would go get him if he didn't come out. The chief's response, she says, was, "That's not how it works."

Desperate minutes passed. Then, she says, "I remember seeing this huge shadow, and there was something in his arms."

That something in Kinney's arms was firefighter Paul James, who had collapsed inside the factory from fatigue and dehydration.

"I know Erron probably carried him the length of a couple of football fields, if not further," Archer Fire Lt. Mike Spivey says.

"That sucker is still burning in my head," Spivey says. "There were resin tanks, and we had 55-gallon drums that were shooting at least 100 feet in the air."

An assistant chief also had collapsed inside the factory. Spivey says: "When Erron got Paul out, he came back and helped me with the assistant chief. ... All of us were exhausted. When you're on your last leg, it's a good thing when you look through the smoke and see this big, towering individual and a big mass of hands reaches out to pull you out. If he hadn't been there, we'd have had some people hurt."

Kinney says of the Archer rescue: "For everybody else looking in, they say it was life-threatening. But I'm just doing what I'm supposed to do. That is what you do. If you have a fireman go down, you have to get him out. It's not like you have choices."

Then he shrugs and adds, "The funny thing is, the most I've ever done since then is rescue a cat."

Colliding interests understood

Kinney is proudly demonstrating the three sirens on his Ford F-650 Super Crewzer when a horn blasts three times at his Williamson County fire station, about an eight-minute drive from his home.

Suddenly, the player who some NFL scouts criticized as being too nice a guy to play in the pros turns deadly serious.

"I got to go," Kinney says.

Following the station's fire engine on winding back roads through farmlands, Kinney drives the Super Crewzer to a car crash.

A woman has veered into a field and knocked down three 8-foot-long fence posts. One of the fence posts somehow has cartwheeled up and speared through her windshield. It has flown a diagonal path through the car and rammed into a baby seat that, luckily, is empty.

Kinney and his crew get her onto a stretcher and into an ambulance, and the firefighter's game face relaxes as he starts the drive back. He talks about assorted fire calls in recent months and mentions going into burning buildings three times.

Doesn't his Titans contract forbid that?

Kinney winces.

"A couple of them weren't really burning," Kinney says. Then, sheepishly, he adds, "I usually don't divulge that information."

But Kinney hasn't disclosed anything that Titans head coach Jeff Fisher doesn't already know.

Fisher's brother Mike was a firefighter in Santa Cruz, Calif., and the coach is familiar with the profession's mentality and responsibility.

"You cannot be half of a firefighter," Fisher says. "You either are, or you're not. ... Erron's going to do everything he can to the best of his ability. If it requires him to make tough decisions in an effort to save somebody's life, I'm sure he'll make the right decision."

On the field, Kinney blossomed with a 41-catch season in 2003, but injuries limited him to nine games and 25 receptions last season.

The Titans have high expectations for him this season, and Fisher says Kinney is one player he never worries about.

Because of Kinney's firefighting experience, Fisher says, "Erron's never shaken on the practice field or in games. He's never rattled. He never comes unglued."

So there are no concerns about Kinney's other career?

Well, Fisher says, smiling knowingly, "Sometimes what's difficult is when Erron will come in in the morning for a workout, smelling of smoke, and you know he's been up all night."