WHAT A SHAVE! Andrew Luck (12) and Anthony Castonzo shaved their heads to show support for coach Chuck Pagano, who is fighting leukemia. (
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For now, and for the rest of this season, no matter how this all turns out, you can go ahead and call the Colts America’s Team. And it is much more than how a Hoosiers basketball town has embraced the precocious kid quarterback, Andrew Luck, who has helped a lucky football nation get over Peyton Manning.
So much more.
It is the way a group of devoted, compassionate men, have rallied around and uplifted a coach, who they will not let fight leukemia alone. And it is the way this defiant coach has uplifted them, inspired them, touched all of Indianapolis, and really everyone.
The 2012 Colts are a Hollywood movie in progress, the story of an overachieving football team led by a precocious rookie quarterback that tries to upset Tom Brady and the Patriots today, wrapped inside the story of a man determined to will his way back to the sidelines on Dec. 30 against the Texans to once again coach the men and the team he has grown to love.
Chuck Pagano, America’s Coach.
“I had a lady the other night hit me on Twitter,” Colts defensive end Cory Redding said by phone. “She shaved her hair off. She bought in. She had a family member who died from leukemia.”
Same way Luck and many of the Colts bought in. Their coach lost his hair? Heck, who needs hair to play football? And who needs Chuck Pagano among them every day to know he still is their coach?
“He’s still coaching, man,” Redding said. “Every single day.”
The power of technology.
“We have iPads,” Redding said. “We show the video to him. He watches every practice, every walk through, every game.”
Interim coach Bruce Arians has been a tower of strength in his own right, hitting all the right chords. Many of the Colts text Pagano.
“Five to seven that I know of every day,” Redding said.
They call it “Chuckstrong.” They wear T-shirts that read “One-two-three Chuck!” His team prays for him.
“It has touched these guys in so many different ways outside of football,” Redding said.
Pagano was the Ravens’ secondary coach when Redding met him in 2010. Pagano had a gift of keeping the atmosphere loose. He would bend his knees and get pigeon toes and say, “This is how Ed Reed backs up.”
The following year, as defensive coordinator, Pagano stood in front of the room following a viewing of a heavyweight fight on a Saturday night and began bobbing and weaving and throwing jabs and hooks. The message?
“You keep working your jab no matter what happens,” Redding said. “when they cut ’em, they keep on the cut. We gotta keep tackling ’em, keep hitting ’em. Don’t let up.”
A 52-year-old kid at heart. They can’t wait for the day he walks back into their lives for good.
“He’s very animated,” Redding said. “He’s one of us. He’s so full of life. … If a coach got swag about themselves, then it rolls over to the players. He has that presence about himself, and it’s infectious. You can’t help but feel that swag.”
Pagano buoyed the Colts with a surprise visit two days ago. A year ago, the Patriots dedicated the season to the late wife of owner Robert Kraft.
“It’s one of those intangible things,” Bill Belichick said Friday. “I don’t know how you put a value on it.”
The Colts don’t try. All they know is they are all in for a common purpose. Redding remembers his emotions when they learned about Pagano’s battle two months ago.
“I was saddened,” Redding said. “He’s not my coach first. He’s my friend first.”
But once the shock began to wear off, Redding looked at this thunderbolt in a different light.
“God is gonna use him because of the platform he has to heal him,” Redding said. “He’s gonna show that God can still work miracles.”
Redding revealed that a spiritual leader lady friend of his had this question recently for Pagano: “If God was to come to you a year ago and say, ‘I’m going to put you through something that’s going to hurt a lot. You’re going to be by yourself, but I’m going to deliver you from this. I’m going to bring you through it. Would you sign up for it?’ ”
And Redding said: “Coach got emotional and said, ‘Yes. I’d do it.’ ”
Pagano has been diagnosed to be in complete remission. We saw the tear-jerking video of him addressing his team in the locker room after the Colts beat the Dolphins, when Pagano announced his intentions to dance at his next two daughters’ weddings and hoist the Lombardi Trophy several times. The latest round of chemo is certain to buckle him. He won’t fall. One-two-three Chuck! They won’t let him fall.
“He’s not by himself,” Redding said. “The whole city bought in.
“We’re gonna see it to the end.”
steve.serby@nypost.com