Matt Nagy understands that a balance must be found between work and play. Sure it’s important to work hard and focus on the details. However, doing nothing but that can have an exhausting effect on the mind and body. Thus the players won’t be sharp when the real games for the Chicago Bears begin. Thus he has to find ways to keep things loose and fun. Everybody knows about “Club Dub” after wins or dance-offs on Saturdays before games.
Sometimes at training camp, he’d take over a quarterback drill, throwing one-on-ones against the defense. However, his most unique solution to this problem of keeping things fresh was when he hired a magician to come down to Bourbonnais to perform in front of the players. According to Jeff Dickerson of ESPN, his name is Matthew Furman. While not the most famous in his profession, the man has a notorious reputation among corporate bigwigs and celebrities.
Nagy encountered him at the American Century Championship Celebrity Golf Tournament at South Lake Tahoe, Nevada this past summer. Needless to say, he was impressed and entertained. That’s when he had an idea.
“So one night I start thinking to myself, ‘How cool would it be to break up the monotony of training camp and get him in here to perform in front of the guys?’ He never messed up his tricks. At least, we didn’t see it. So I thought it would be a little outside of the box and bring him in so we could get away from football a little bit.”
Matt Nagy helped pull off an insane trick by Furman
As anybody knows, any self-respecting magician has to know how to do card tricks. It’s a staple of the profession. The true challenge though is trying to find tricks that are unique. It isn’t easy by any stretch. That didn’t seem to stop Furman though. He ended up using Nagy to help utterly transfix and stun the Bears players with a trick that defied the laws of physics.
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Furman’s best trick, according to several players, was having Nagy pick a random card from a full deck, sign it and slide it back into the middle of the deck. Furman then put a rubber band around the deck and tossed it up 25 feet to the ceiling in the team’s training camp auditorium. Amazingly, the card signed by Nagy stuck on the ceiling, and the rest of the deck fell back down into Furman’s hand.
Man, if only they’d gotten that on video. Either way, it’s a testament to Furman’s skill that merely reading about it gives the sense of how good the man is. To this day Bears players remember that experience vividly. In fact, the card with Nagy’s name on it can still be seen on the ceiling in that auditorium. If nothing else, this makes one appreciate how far the head coach will go to keep his team loose and relaxed during a long and demanding season.
