SUNDAY, OCTOBER 24, 2010


KLMNO PROFESSIONAL FOOTBALL Redskins’ McIntosh keeps people guessing redskins from D1 The collected evidence provides a scat-


tered portrait of an important and often- overlooked member of the Redskins’ de- fense. Before the concussion, McIntosh was leading the teamin tackles.He has a knack for gravitating toward the ball and plays much louder on the field than he speaks off it. For four quarters each Sun- day, he’s a prototypical University of Mi- ami linebacker — with all the good and bad that implies. “I love to talk trash. I’m dirty some-


times. We play at a high level, and we always want to win,” he says of Miami products. “I’m a little bit different than some of the other guysmaybe. But on the field, I amthe ‘U.’ ” And who is McIntosh away from the


field? That’s not an easy question to answer.


Joker The McIntosh anecdotes grow like a


snowball careening down a ski slope. He once tied up a Redskins public relations internandshuthiminanoffice.Checking into the hotel in St. Louis last month, McIntosh noticed the concierge was swamped. So he hopped behind the desk and began answering the phones. He decorates the office of Redskins’ employ- ees with Post-it notes, rearranges office decorations and empties the recycle bin atop desks. Arriving in Philadelphia earlier this


month, he quickly procured Shuster’s room key and deposited it at the bottom of the lobby fish aquarium. “All of a sudden, there’s security, and


they think I’m going after their fish,” Shuster said. “I justwantedmy roomkey. “There is a side to Rocky that is like a


5-year-old,”he added. “AndImeanthat in a goodway.” But there’s another side, too. Shuster is


the director of strategic partnerships for Comcast SportsNet and serves as the station’s liaison with many of the city’s topsportspersonalities.Heworks closely with everyone from the Capitals’ Bruce Boudreau to the Nationals’ Ryan Zim- merman, andsaysMcIntoshis among the most intelligent athletes he’smet. “But he doesn’t want people to know


how smart he is,” he said. “He loves to fly under the radar. He likes it when people have no expectations of him.” McIntosh left Miami with degrees in


criminology and English. He was just a few credits short of a third degree in African-American studies. “I had to get asmuch as I could out of


there because they were going to get as much as they could out ofme,”McIntosh said. In college, he interned for two sum-


mers at aprominentMiami lawoffice.On the Wonderlic Personnel Test, an intelli- gence assessment given each year toNFL prospects, he scored a 29, a number usually reserved for quarterbacks and offensive tackles. Even after entering the league, he’s


kept his nose in the books.McIntosh has completed two sessions of classes at the Wharton business school at theUniversi- ty of Pennsylvania andHarvard Business School in anNFL-sponsored program. Yet, hemumbles his way through con-


versations, leaving friends unintelligible voicemailmessagesandcausingcoaches, at times, to pull their hair out. AtMiami, Coach Randy Shannon, who was defen- sive coordinator at the time, would rou- tinely ask questions of McIntosh, who was usually called by his birth name, Roger, at the time. Shannon knew what answer to expect—or not expect. “Coach Shannonwould be like, ‘Roger,


what dowe need to do on this play?’ And hejustwouldn’t sayanything,” saysGood- en, now a linebacker with the Baltimore Ravens. “Coach Shannon would have to scream to get him to say just a word or two.But he knewthatRockywas going to come to play.”


A disciplined child Familymembers all seemto recall the


one timeMcIntoshgot out of line.Only in the first or second grade, he was acting up. A teacher called home, and Roger McIntosh Sr., asked her not to stop his son.Hewanted to see for himself. So Roger Sr. drove straight to the


school and peeked in a window to see a young McIntosh running through the classroomand ignoring the teacher. “He lookedupandsawme,andhis eyes


got big,” says Roger Sr., a career military man. “I fingered himto comemeetme at the door. ‘If I ever walk up here and see you acting that way again . . .’ I let him knowwhatwas acceptable behavior.And that’s all it took. From that point on, he was anAstudent.” McIntosh was born in Roosevelt, N.Y.,


on Long Island. Even as an infant and a toddler, hewas quiet and content. “He’s like his mother,” says Lattimore,


McIntosh’s grandmother. “He could be in the same room with you, and you wouldn’t knowit.” His father oversaw dining operations


in the Army, and the family bounced around: from New York to Fort Lewis,


JOHN MCDONNELL/THE WASHINGTON POST


Despite missing the game against the Colts, linebacker RockyMcIntosh is third on the Redskins with 66 tackles, according to the team’s numbers, 29 of them unassisted. “It was a paintball party,” says Kim, a


localbusiness owner. “AndRocky jumped outofhis truckandhewasdeckedout like he was special forces. So we had a bunch of teens andthenthere’sRocky therewith his muscles bulging and paint and the whole outfit. Everyone else was a foot shorter than hewas.” McIntosh and his wife, Alessia, have


two children of their own. They share the toys, video games and model rockets. “I have to play with everything first before they can have it,” McIntosh says. “They get the hand-me-downs after I use them.” Teammates and coaches praise McIn-


toshfor being able toput aside the laughs when it’s time to put on the pads. He knows as well as anyone in the locker room, though, that football is also a business. McIntosh was slated to become a free


agent after the 2009 season, but because the players and owners couldn’twork out a new collective bargaining agreement, McIntoshfell intoaclassof restrictedfree agents, which essentially made him un- touchable for other teams. When the Redskins offered him a one-year tender rather than a multiyear contract exten- sion, he uncharacteristically went public with his frustrations. “Theyhave a certainway ofdoing their


SARAH L. VOISIN/THE WASHINGTON POST


McIntosh takes part in the "Let's Read. Let'sMove." programwith students from ColumbiaHeights Youth Club and Wheaton Woods Elementary School.McIntosh, who grewup in a military family that stressed discipline, was a top student.


Wash., to Fort Campbell, Ky. Surrounded by family, no matter the stop, McIntosh and his two brothers had a no-nonsense upbringing. “He was never a problem,” says his


mother,Darcia. “Hewasadisciplinedboy. You just have to tell him one time. Even withgrades. If theydipped, yousay some- thing and he brought themright up.” McIntosh didn’t play football, but he


watched his father’s games on the base. He usually stayed late to watch the other teams play, too. Finally in high school, he tried out for the team, playing running back and linebacker. “Hedidexactlywhat the coaches asked


him, regardlessofwhat thatwas,” saidJoe Montgomery, McIntosh’s coach at Gaff- ney (S.C.) High. “Everything was ‘Yes, sir or no, sir.’ It’s because of his military family background. You can always tell the kids whose parents were in the mili- tary and raised their kids in an environ- ment with strict discipline. He was a bit moreworldly, too.Youcouldtellhe’dbeen exposed to different things and different people.” Roger Sr. did a hardship tour in South


Korea during McIntosh’s junior year. He hadVHS tapes of his son’s games shipped to him, and the talented McIntosh seemed to jump off the television screen. Upon Roger Sr.’s return, he was assigned to Fort Hood in Texas, but McIntosh stayed in Gaffney and lived with his


grandmother forhis senioryear inschool. By that time, college coacheshadtaken


notice. ThoughMcIntosh orally commit- tedtoClemson, a triptoMiami andSouth Beach hooked him.


‘I’man intern’ The concussion kept McIntosh out of


theRedskins’ lineup inWeek 6, snapping a string of 34 straight starts. Naturally, reporters in the locker room wanted to interviewhim. “Howare youdoing?” a reporter asked. Brandishing amicrophone of his own,


McIntosh responded, “How are you do- ing?” Reporters kept prodding. “I don’t talk,”McIntosh said, laughing and walk- ing out of the locker room. “I’man intern. I’man intern.” Asmuch as he tries to avoid themedia


— he once switched jerseys with a team- mate,hopingreporterswouldn’tnotice— McIntosh keeps gravitating toward the communications staff ’s corner of Red- skins Park. “I have a part-time job here in the


media department,” he notes. He even took over an empty desk one day in the spring of 2009. During training camp a year later, Matt Taylor, the team’s media relations assistant, wasn’t in his office one day, so McIntosh began answering Taylor’sphone.The linebacker recallsone call about rhabdomyolysis, the condition that briefly ailed defensive lineman Al-


bertHaynesworth during training camp. “Theladywas saying, ‘That’s real, that’s


real. I had it, my grandma had it,’ ” McIntoshrecalled. “Shewas just going on and on.” When the Redskins made McIntosh a


second-round pick in 2006, there were big expectations. The Redskins had just lost LaVar Arrington in free agency and were in need of a starting outside line- backer. But that rookie season,McIntosh contributedmostlyonspecial teamsuntil the final two games of the season.Adjust- ing to the NFL, he was quiet off the field, aswell. “I was like everybody else. I thought,


‘This guy never says a word,’ ” says Kirk Olivadotti, the Redskins’ assistant coach. “I don’t think I actually had a conversa- tionwith himfor a full year.” “But if anyone says Rocky has no per-


sonality, they’re wrong. Rocky has per- sonality.Hemightnot talkmuchbutonce he gets comfortable, he actually won’t shut up.”


Navigating twoworlds McIntosh navigates seamlessly be-


tween different worlds. His friend, Peter Kim, remembers a time he and his wife were picked up in a limo, withMcIntosh reading the newspaper in the back. The evening was filled with adult conversa- tion and good food. Kimalso recallshis son’s 14thbirthday.


thing. Mike [Shanahan] and Bruce [Al- len, generalmanager], that’s theway they wanted to do things,” he saysnow. “I can’t force anything on them. I can definitely tell themhowI feel.Andwedid.Wehada couple ofmeetings, and I told themhowI felt behind closed doors. “But all of that is over with. There


comes a point in time where you have to focus and get ready for football.” McIntosh finished last season fourth


on the team with 64 unassisted tackles and second with a pair of interceptions. This season, despite missing the Colts’ game,McIntosh is third on the teamwith 66 tackles, according to the team’s num- bers, 29 of themunassisted. He says he’s not focused on free agency


and feels he’s already shown the team’s new coaching staff what he adds to the defense. “The camera doesn’t lie. Film doesn’t lie,” he says. “Everyone’s seen what I can do.” He’s quietlyhaving another strong sea-


son, again doing things on and off the field that garner little attention. Last week, in fact, he sat in front of a video camera,wearing ablackT-shirt andjeans for a spot promoting, of all things, a financial planning seminar. “Hi, I’m Rocky McIntosh from the


WashingtonRedskins,”he said. “Whether it’s buying a home or saving for retire- ment, we can all use professional — ARGHHH!” Take two. “Alittlemore smile, too,” said


the cameraman.ButMcIntoshmessedup the line again.And again. “Whether it’s buying a home or saving


for retirement, we can all use perma-, I mean, profession-” He burst into a quick fit of laughter.


“It’s not that hard,” he said. maeser@washpost.com


EZ SU


D5


“He was never a problem.Hewas a disciplined boy. You just have to tell him one time. Even with grades. If they dipped, you say something and he brought them right up.” —Darcia McIntosh, on son Rocky


“If anyone says Rocky has no personality,


they’re wrong. Rocky has personality.Hemight not talk much but once he gets comfortable, he actually won’t shut up.” —Kirk Olivadotti, Redskins’ assistant coach


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