It can be anyone.
You can be an undrafted free agent wide receiver out of the University of Massachusetts, and one night can change your life.
One night, you can show up at the debut of New Meadowlands Stadium for a “Monday Night Football” preseason game as an afterthought, wearing No. 3, and ignite a career memorable today for salsa dances in the end zone in your No. 80 Giants jersey and for a Super Bowl championship.
That is what preseason games, like the one the Giants played Friday night against the Panthers, or the one they played Aug. 16, 2010 against the Jets, can do for you.
They can open eyes. They can reveal you as a gamer. They can be a last chance to chase down a dream.
One night can change your life.
Nobody passed a law that says you can’t be Victor Cruz.
“I remember just having butterflies, being excited, understanding my family was gonna be there, understanding that everyone was watching, just knowing how big of a moment this was for me and my little sphere and world that I lived in,” Cruz told The Post of his first NFL preseason game. “And remembering just being nervous about it, wanting to not mess up, wanting to make sure I was like representing myself and my team and my city the right way, and just having all those thoughts going into the stadium.
“I think the biggest thing was trying to relax. Luckily I was playing some special teams early in the game, to then when I got my offensive start, I had already been in kind of a flow a little bit, thankfully.”
Cruz didn’t get to catch passes from Eli Manning when the second half began; his quarterback was Jim Sorgi.
“First catch in the NFL ever was a one-hander off the sideline,” Cruz said.
“I just remember the ball going up in the air, and if you watch the replay, Sorgi didn’t look nowhere else, he just dropped back and just looked at me the whole time and was like, ‘I’m throwing this to you dog, so make the adjustment and go get it,’ ” he added, then laughed.
A 64-yard touchdown catch, with his mother in the stands. A watch party he learned about after the fact was going wild back in Paterson, N.J.
“It literally was just a guy [Dwight Lowery] draped on me and I was like, ‘I gotta come down with this ball.’ The trajectory of the ball was kinda perfect where I could just only stick one hand out ’cause he was kinda literally in my chest. And once I saw that ball stick to my palm, and I kinda tucked it … I was kinda stumbling, and I was like, ‘Don’t fall, man,’ and ‘Stay up.’ ”
He stayed up. The salsa was not yet born.
“Everything went deaf when I was in the end zone,” Cruz said. “I couldn’t hear anything, just myself screaming and just having a good time and enjoying the moment, and just like in complete shock and awe.”
Cruz was just getting warmed up.
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“Either way, whether it was man or Cover 2, if I got a person in my face, it was oddly the same route as the first touchdown, just with different adjustments,” Cruz said. “So if I got a guy in my face and I was running a hitch, I would just turn it into a fade. It just turned out that safety didn’t come over far enough, and once again, Sorgi was looking at me like, ‘I’m throwing this to you no matter what.’ And he threw it to me, and I was able to just run up under it and the safety kinda botched it and I was able to use my speed and get by him and get in the end zone.”
Cruz had flashed in practice. It must have seemed to him that Sorgi was trying to help him make the team.
“I think Sorgi wanted to make sure I was able to get my opportunity on the main stage,” Cruz said.
A 34-yard touchdown.
“In that moment, I’m like, ‘Let me settle in here, I made this team,’ ” Cruz recalled. “I’m just like, ‘Wow, I’ve arrived, I can play in this league if I apply myself and I continue to just keeping making strides and not be comfortable, I can really pay dividends and do something major in this league.’ That’s when it started to resonate with me for sure, that I could be not only a guy that can play in the NFL, but a guy that can actually contribute, too.”
Rhett Bomar replaced Sorgi in the fourth quarter.
“Just a fade ball,” Cruz said. “Read the defense and throw a back shoulder fade, and it was kind of a run check. So if he saw press man or he saw nine, 10 guys in the box, he was gonna give me an opportunity and that’s exactly what happened. And I just jumped up, he hit me right in the left pec, and I kinda just trapped it in there, and went down to the ground for the third touchdown.”
A 5-yard touchdown.
“At that point, I’m elated,” Cruz said. “At that point, I’m just like, ‘Where is my locker at?’ All my teammates are coming up to me, they’re telling me, ‘You know you made the team, right? You know you made the team.’ I remember Brandon Jacobs came up to me as I was coming off the field and he like chest bumps me and he was like, ‘You know you made the team, right? Welcome.’ ”
Cruz and the rookies had to bus back after the game to the Giants’ Albany training camp headquarters. LeBron James tweeted: “Victor Cruz going nuts on the Jets tonight on #MNE. Undrafted rookie from UMass. He’s gonna have a job this year for sure.”
Cruz said, “Barely slept. And then not to mention, we knew the Jets were on ‘Hard Knocks,’ but we didn’t know if they would cover that, I’m just a rookie. You never know if that’s gonna be part of their storyline at all.”
Indeed it was.
“That night changed everything,” Cruz said, “changed the trajectory of my life, changed how I would view the world, and the opportunities and the places that football has taken me are above and beyond.”
Cruz had this advice for any of the undrafted free agents trying desperately to become a New York Football Giant against all odds:
“Take advantage of every day, take advantage of every opportunity. Every day is a day to get better, to just stay one step ahead, to just get one inch better at whatever craft or whatever you’re working on that day. And to just believe in that. And you have to believe. I really believed I could make the team, I really believed that I had a place and I was gonna find a place on that football team. And I truly believed that every day I went out there, and showed it. The last thing is just you gotta believe in yourself.”
Believe that The Impossible Dream is possible.
