My Pregame Ritual
SOME PLAYERS eat a certain food before games, others take a particular route to the stadium. Faine showers. After warming up on the field, he heads to the locker room an hour or so before kickoff and soaps up. "I started doing it as a way to relax," says Faine, 23, who played at Notre Dame and who began the ritual as a rookie last season. "It gives me a chance to go over some things in my head. Sometimes I cut it kind of close. I'm usually the last one on the field." A self-proclaimed neat freak, Faine takes up to four showers a day and doesn't miss a pregame washing home or away, though he prefers the showers at Cleveland Browns Stadium. ("The nicest facilities in the league," he says.) He isn't the only one who benefits. Says Faine, "I'm sure defenders appreciate my cleanliness."
COLOR PHOTO
Photograph by Joe McNally
COLOR PHOTO
BOB LEVERONE/TSN/ICON SMI (ACTION)