The story of an underappreciated offensive lineman has been told before, but you've never heard one like this.
The place: Hoover, Ala.
The event: The exorbitant, three-day fiesta that is Southeastern Conference Media Days.
More than 800 media members converge on a hotel in Hoover in July every year, all eager to interview the coach and two players from each of the conference's 12 teams.
UF coach Urban Meyer had his 30 minutes at the lectern in front of 400 reporters typing like mad on their laptops. Then UF quarterback Tim Tebow came out and had the podium to himself for 40 minutes, answering more ridiculous questions than Meyer dealt with.
Who was the Gators' third representative?
Only four people in the ant-farm-packed hotel found out.
In a separate room, tucked away in a corner of the hotel's second floor, speaking at the same time as the unfathomably popular Tebow, was UF redshirt senior left tackle Phil Trautwein.
"As an offensive lineman, you really don't get the glory a skill guy would," Trautwein said. "But that's part of the job, and it didn't really matter to me."
Trautwein, honestly, was just happy to be there. He got a phone call telling him he would be making the trip to Hoover on a private plane and eating a nice steak dinner in Alabama, and he was thrilled.
The phone call was proof that teammates and coaches, at least, are recognizing the work he has put into this program over the last five years.
"It's well-deserved," Meyer said of bringing Trautwein to SEC Media Days. "You talk about faces of Florida football. I love Phil Trautwein."
So even though just four reporters took time out of their day to locate him, the trip alone was some form of payoff for five hard years of work in Gainesville.
That's how it has been for Trautwein, the man who has toiled in the trenches for the Gators, never once complaining about a lack of gratitude from fans.
From a high school athlete in New Jersey who didn't see the field until his junior year, to a freshman at UF who - self-admittedly - should not have played a snap, to a team captain who will graduate with a master's degree in December, Phil Trautwein has seen almost everything there is to see.
And there might be time for him to see one more great finish.
New Jersey Dreaming
The high school recruiting process did not go smoothly for Trautwein.
On Sept. 1, 2001, at age 15, Trautwein got his first sense of UF football, when his uncle, who lives in Jacksonville, took him to No. 1 UF's game against Marshall.
The Gators dominated the Thundering Herd 49-14, and Trautwein was hooked. He had tunnel vision for UF at that point, and he would have walked on in Gainesville if he was not offered a scholarship.
Trautwein fell so in love with UF that he even wore Gators gear to recruiting visits at other schools. But there was one problem with his dream.
As a high school sophomore, he still hadn't played a snap.
"As a freshman, I didn't even play. As a sophomore, I didn't play," Trautwein said. "You talk to most of the guys on the (UF) team, they usually played as a freshman or sophomore."
But not Trautwein. Playing at Voorhees Eastern High, in arguably New Jersey's toughest class, you had to earn your time on the field through seniority and hard work.
"To play as a sophomore is almost unheard of," said Dan Spittal, his high school coach.
That's not to say Trautwein was an unskilled athlete coming in.
"He had great feet, quick feet, was very coordinated and had long arms," Spittal said. "So we said, 'He's a left tackle for us in a heartbeat.' … You don't get a body like that that can move at will that often."
Trautwein, known by his high school and college coaches and teammates for his incredible work ethic, made the weight room his second home, using his lack of playing time as intense motivation. He was frequently found pumping iron with the thermostat reading 95 degrees.
"Tenth grade he picked up," said his mother, Renee Trautwein. "That's when Coach first called me and said, 'I think we have a scholarship kid here.'"
Trautwein clawed his way into his team's lineup his junior year, and made a play against an undefeated team at the end of the season that is still shown to new Eastern players as the perfect example of what a left tackle should do.
On what Eastern coaches call the "dart" play, Trautwein's job is to block for the quarterback on a running play out of the shotgun. At the snap, Trautwein lifted a linebacker into the air, shoved him to the ground, stepped over him and then made a huge block on a defensive back downfield, all to break a giant run for the quarterback.
"(That is) how you play offensive line," Spittal said. "All the kids are like, 'Wow, that's a great play.' When you're coaching and you watch that, you know you've got a special player."
Finally, in December 2003 - late for most recruits - then-UF coach Ron Zook gave Trautwein a congratulatory phone call.
"You know, we're offering you a scholarship," Zook said.
Trautwein didn't hesitate to accept.
Proving Himself
Now that he had made the team, Trautwein had another person to impress: Meyer.
After Zook was fired during Trautwein's freshman year, Meyer came in looking to turn UF back into a winner.
On his second day in Gainesville, Meyer was walking in the stadium during the 2004 state high school football championships.
Trautwein, also in the stadium, decided to introduce himself to his new coach.
"Some young, pasty-looking guy comes up to me," Meyer said. "He says, 'Hi, Coach.' I say, 'Hi, how are you? Where do you go to school?' I thought he was a recruit or something. A bad-looking recruit."
Meyer continued the pleasantries, though. He shook Trautwein's hand, walked away and then asked UF sports information director Steve McClain a question.
"What the hell was that?" Meyer said. "I left Utah to come to this?"
Needless to say, Meyer was not impressed with the quality of that lineman in Gainesville.
Meyer liked Trautwein so little at first that he wanted Trautwein to transfer.
"Coach Meyer really didn't think I was any good at all," Trautwein said. "You can ask him yourself. He kind of wanted me to transfer. He didn't think I was any good at all."
Trautwein never considered transferring, but Renee admitted the coaching switch had them worried and not knowing what to expect.
What Trautwein got was a job on the punt and field goal teams and even a few plays as a blocking tight end. They never threw him the ball during the season, something he is still jokingly upset about, and he never got a chance to play on the line.
By the time the 2006 season was beginning, however, Meyer realized his initial assessment of Trautwein may have been off.
"I went out in spring, and I was mad and just went out there and proved him wrong," Trautwein said. "He ended up saying how I was one of his best offensive linemen."
That he was. Trautwein started all 14 games of the 2006 season at left tackle, and he commemorated winning the national championship by getting a tattoo with fellow lineman Jim Tartt.
Everything was setting up for a triumphant senior season.
Injury Retort
Four months had passed since UF won the championship. Trautwein and the rest of the Gators were starting their second day of spring practice, itching to kick off their title defense.
During the two-minute drill at the end of practice that day, a teammate rolled over Trautwein's right ankle. The team thought the injury was just a sprain, as X-rays came up with nothing.
Two days before the 2007 season started against Western Kentucky, after Trautwein had been named a team captain, he got bad news. His foot was still bothering him, and this time he had an MRI and a CT scan. The verdict: a stress fracture of the navicular bone in his right foot, a weight-bearing bone in the arch. The treatment: a cast for eight weeks and no football for a year.
Renee was on a plane taking off for Gainesville when she heard the news.
"I sat there the whole flight staring at my feet," Renee said. "I was shocked. I hadn't been expecting that."
As a senior who had enough credits to graduate in December, Trautwein had a decision to make. Should he declare for the NFL Draft, or stay for a true senior season and attend graduate school at UF?
There was never a doubt which choice Trautwein would make.
"My goal was to go to the NFL, and as a personal standpoint, I didn't think I was ready," he said.
His mother agreed.
"There was no question," she said. "He always wanted that senior year."
He got it. Getting into grad school was not an issue, and he'll be graduating in December with a master's degree in educational leadership.
While he couldn't play with the team, there was nothing stopping him from lifting weights. He gained 20 pounds, going from 295 to 315 in the year off, and his speed and balance improved as well.
Everything was set up for a triumphant redshirt senior season.
Leadership Material
Much has changed for Trautwein since his freshman campaign.
"As a freshman, I always worked hard and I was motivated," Trautwein said. "Always had people doubting me."
Now he's a second-year captain, and the doubters are gone.
In fact, he's one of three senior leaders on the offensive line whom players go to for advice.
Sophomore offensive lineman Carl Johnson said Trautwein is one of his mentors. Trautwein teaches Johnson technique, including hand placement, leverage and weight distribution.
"Oh, Phil's my boy," Johnson said. "He was the first one when I came to Florida that opened his heart to me and tried to teach me how to be a college tackle - not an athlete. … I mean, he's like the general of the offensive line. He leads us into battle."
Another interesting character trait of Trautwein is his sensitivity and his tendency to take everything to heart, qualities that often make him the butt of jokes in the locker room.
"Oh gosh. We just tease Phil all the time because he's sensitive," said offensive line coach Steve Addazio. "But that really comes from the fact that he cares."
Teammates - usually fellow linemen Tartt and Jason Watkins - have been known to stick tape all over his helmet, soak his knee braces in water and get the combination to his locker to steal its contents.
He may be sensitive, but he's serious when it comes to his role as a leader.
"I just try to show 'em the right way. I try to show 'em how fast this can go by, how easy a year can be taken away from you," Trautwein said.
He cares about relationships with teammates and coaches. New Hampshire-native and offensive coordinator Dan Mullen can't get his hands on Tastykakes while he's down in Gainesville. Trautwein, who gets his share replenished when his mom visits, helps Mullen out.
"I'm a fat guy in what used to be a skinny body, I guess," Mullen said. "I kind of love those sort of things. He told me the other day he has a big stockpile of 'em in the room and he's going to bring some of 'em over."
Gestures like that endear him to everyone around him and get him the recognition in the locker room he rarely sees from fans.
When he leaves UF in December for either the NFL or a career somewhere, after five years of relatively faceless sacrifice for the good of the team, he won't care about the lack of tangible stats or being overlooked in the trenches. He just wants to be remembered as four things: an overachiever, someone who loves football, a winner and a great player.
"I admire him, and he's going to leave here with a master's degree, pro prospects and a championship ring on his finger, and maybe more than one," Meyer said. "He used Florida. He didn't let Florida use him."
