It was a little before noon Thursday, and Jeff “Rubber” Wright was walking down the hallway of The Whitley hotel in Atlanta headed toward the elevator. Along with the entire St. Louis Cardinals playoff roster, he had a bus to catch, one headed toward the Braves’ SunTrust Park. The day marked game No. 1 of the National League Division Series; Rubber was not going to be late.
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He’s unassuming. Broad shoulders. Big smile. Bald head (the look of which he is proud). Rubber is not a player or a coach nor a member of the Cardinals’ front office. He is the team’s soft-tissue specialist — one of the few folks experiencing a second St. Louis playoff run of 2019.
“There was joking after we won the cup,” Rubber said. “’Hey, keep your magic going for St. Louis!’”
Memories of the Blues’ Stanley Cup still resonate for Rubber on bus rides such as Thursday’s. The locker room speeches. The game-winning goals. The Stanley Cup. He smiled thinking about those moments, what they meant for the city and what they meant for him.
Yet Thursday marked a new beginning. A new team. A new ride.
As the bus pulled up to the ballpark, Rubber reeled in the emotions. The team’s anxiety was amplified. Stress swarmed the air as the team walked through the SunTrust Park tunnels toward the clubhouse. Rubber could tell, and truthfully, that’s why he was there. To eliminate cricks in necks for players such as Colton Parayko. To enhance movement within muscles for players such as Adam Wainwright. To combat complications brought about by competition.
“The stuff I do,” Rubber said, “I’m not even sure I’d qualify it as massaging. It’s grip and rip. I get called a lot of names and cursed at. But when they get up, they’re like, ‘Oh my God. That feels awesome.’”
For Rubber, the simple fact he spends time around his childhood St. Louis teams is awesome. The success the teams have had is nothing but icing on the cake. Especially with what has happened in the past — with what he has had to overcome.
One early morning nearly eight years ago — like, 1:30 a.m. early — Rubber and a woman were leaving a restaurant after a first date. They walked out to the car parked along the side of the road, and Rubber was preparing to give the woman a hug goodnight.
Was.
Life, of course, is precious in the way that some moments clearly show. This was one of them. As Rubber and the woman arrived at their car, another vehicle, obviously out of control, careened into them.
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“We went flying off his windshield,” Rubber said
Twenty to 25 feet off it, to be exact.
He himself drifted in and out of consciousness. He could not feel anything below his chest for the first 10 minutes. An ambulance arrived and assessed the situation, only to find both Rubber and the woman broke legs, and they were both concussed. The car had driven off.
Later in the night, police tracked down and arrested the driver, who was driving under the influence. While they surveyed the vehicle, they found strands of the woman’s blonde hair in the windshield, as well as pieces of Wright’s scalp.
“That was a Wednesday morning,” Rubber said. “I was back at work Saturday night.”
Playing through pain is also part of life. Rubber has learned this first-hand at work — at what is now called the Enterprise Center. And it is there, working with the St. Louis Blues, he earned his renowned nickname.
“The Blues would come in, and they wouldn’t ask for a massage,” he said, laughing. ”They asked for a rub.”
Over the years, his work spread across the city. At one point, former St. Louis Rams defensive lineman Chris Long caught wind of Rubber’s talent. He became a private client. In the years since, the Long family has flown Rubber to its summer home in Montana, to Chicago to work with Chris’ younger brother, Kyle, and elsewhere. Even Hall of Famer Howie Long has enjoyed Rubber’s services.
Rubber grew up just outside St. Louis and was a Blues fan all of his life. He played sports. Loved them. Wanted to work in them. But after a quick stint playing lower-level college football, he realized that was not in the cards.
So he studied political science and graduated in 1991, which led to a teaching degree in 1993, which led to … well, uncertainty and questions: What did he enjoy? What did he want to do? What were his talents?
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One of them, interestingly enough, was noticing tightness in his father’s back even at age 3. As a youth, Rubber’s dad paid him a quarter to walk on his back with his feet. Rubber held onto his dad’s headboard and dug into the tight spots with his heels.
“After I got too big to walk on his back, he’d give me a dollar to work on him with my hands,” Rubber said. “Then my family members jumped in. My brothers and sisters.
“It became something I was used to. I was able to feel what was right and what didn’t feel right.”
Ultimately, after he graduated from massage therapy school in 1998, Rubber enrolled in a master’s program in exercise physiology at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville. And while he was taking classes in 1999, studying for tests at nights, he found a job during the day.
With his hometown team.
He’d arrive at the arena in the morning and treat the players, then leave to finish schoolwork. Back in the afternoon to treat more players. Then, when the game started, he’d hop in the car and drove to SIUE. Class began at 6:30 p.m., and he often arrived 10-15 minutes late.
This, of course, the professors understood; they knew Rubber was pursuing his passion. After class ended, Rubber would hop in the car and drive back to the arena to work on the players postgame.
Rubber did this for four years, while tending to a wife and two kids at home, until he earned his Master’s Degree in 2003.
“Part of all of this, I feel extremely lucky,” Rubber said, “But I also busted my ass.”
As Rubber’s kids aged and the 2000s became the 2010s, the travel began taking a toll. Rubber was working with a business partner on a medical device to enhance skin quality. Not to mention, after a divorce, he earned full custody of his two kids. So he stepped away from the Blues, the team he grew up loving and one that had shaped his path.
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The news, of course, spread around town. A year later, the St. Louis Rams, knowing their travel schedule was not as burdensome as hockey, offered Rubber a job in 2015. He could not say no. He loved it too much.
A year later, when the Rams moved to Los Angeles, he was not on the market for long.
“That’s when the Cardinals contacted me,” Rubber said.
They offered him part-time work in 2017, which worked with Rubber’s schedule. Five days into his rubs, they offered him a full-time gig.
“I guess they wanted me on the road the whole time,” Rubber said. “I said, ‘I can’t quite go on the road full-time, but I can give a little more.”
That is what he did. At the end of the season, the team once again approached him with a full-time offer. And this time, it came with an opportunity: He could hire an assistant. This, Rubber thought, gave him a chance to give someone younger the chance he once earned. He accepted, continuing to travel around the country; continuing to show his medical device during trade shows; continuing to drive his kids to school and cook them dinner.
Continuing to give his usual rubs to Cardinals players before games.
The team did not make the playoffs in his first two years. The Rams had not made them in his time with them. Playoffs are when anxiety amplifies and stress swarms. Rubber, a competitor who though the years — thanks to the Blues’ support — has taken class after class to improve his ability, wanting to be the best. So he missed the high-pressured environment.
Rubber sensed the Cardinals could make the 2019 playoffs, which gave him life. Yet so did another opportunity that came via a call from the St. Louis Blues. They needed those familiar with the organization. They needed a man who knew some of the players.
They needed Rubber.
He rattles off the 2019 Stanley Cup playoffs moments he’ll never forget:
• Sitting around a dinner table during the first-round series against the Winnipeg Jets with the front-office executives, Rubber spoke up: “I’m just saying this as an outsider, guys. I’ve been around teams for 20 years. I’ve never seen one that doesn’t let anything get to them.”
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• Sitting in the locker room during the second round of the Stanley Cup playoffs, Rubber watched winger Pat Maroon say, “Be a hero tonight, boys. Who’s going to be a hero?” Maroon went out and five minutes later scored the game-winning, double-overtime goal.
• Sitting around the locker room after the team beat the Boston Bruins in the Stanley Cup, Rubber waited for the trophy, and later drank out of it.
A night such as that one is what Rubber had always dreamed of as a Blues fan, as a Blues staffer, as a St. Louisan. Little did he know he’d have more playoff nights in a different playoff setting later in the year.
“Two different teams in the same city that you grew up in,” Rubber said, shaking his head. “It’s one thing to work for a professional sports team from your home town. That’s a dream come true. But to be able to work for hockey, football and baseball, it’s everything.”
When Rubber returned to the clubhouse at Busch Stadium post-Stanley Cup, Cardinals players joked, “Keep your magic going the rest of the year.”
The Cardinals won the National League Central title and host Atlanta in Game 3 of the Division Series on Sunday.
Rubber’s magic manifested in the form of his rubs. Even Wainwright, who early on was never one to allow the gripping and ripping, has embraced what Rubber has provided and even told Rubber it’s a large piece to why he’s back, scheduled to pitch in his first playoff game in years during Sunday’s Game 3 in the NLDS.
A week ago, the Cardinals clinched the NL Central. Wright stood in the clubhouse postgame and experienced the champagne that had been oh-so-familiar. Cardinals such as Miles Mikolas, John Brebbia and Daniel Ponce de Leon watched as Rubber soaked it all in.
One of them yelled,“Hey, he’s our good luck charm!”
Rubber laughed but also marveled. Here he was, a sports fan from St. Louis who had been seriously injured in a car accident, who had pursued his earliest passions, who was living out his dream.
The dream was lofty, but so was that of the Blues. We know how that story ended. With their good luck charm in the fold, here’s to watching how this one wraps up.
(All photos courtesy of Jeff “Rubber” Wright)
