There is this thing called the Linebacker Club. Once you're in, you're in. If you played linebacker in 1962, you're in, and if you're playing linebacker in 2002, you're in. No questions asked.

The best part is when a Butkus meets an Urlacher, or when a Nobis meets a Brooking, or, as you're about to see, when a Huff meets an Arrington. Lives are changed.

	Sam Huff has made Arrington into the terror he is today.

Sometimes, there is no explaining it. No explaining why Sam Huff approaches LaVar Arrington in the spring of 2000, extends his hand, and suddenly has a lifelong friend. All we know is, on draft day 2000, an old linebacker went to a rookie linebacker to say, "Hello, I'm Sam Huff." All we know is that the rookie answered, "I know who you are." All we know is that the old linebacker said, "I know who you are, too." All we know is that ever since that moment, LaVar Arrington -- who was supposed to be the rough equivalent of Lawrence Taylor -- has gone far more retro than that.

LaVar Arrington has become Sam Huff.

Theirs is a bond made in western Pennsylvania. Growing up in Pittsburgh, Arrington used to hear his father, Michael, talk about Jim Thorpe and Pop Warner, and, along the way, the New York Giants' Sam Huff. "I guess it was the way I was raised," Arrington says. "I know the history of the game. I know about Unitas. I cried when Sweetness -- Walter Payton -- died. Cried. Like a baby."

When Huff's name used to come up, the talk would be about Huff's pass drops from the middle linebacker position. The man covered like a safety. Intercepted 30-some passes. But what also came up was a 1959 TV documentary. And its title, The Violent World of Sam Huff.

It was such a violent world back then, concussions weren't even called concussions. They were just called "getting your bell rung." It was a world where sometimes you told your coach to go shove it and where unnecessary roughness was necessary.

"In the '62 championship game, in Green Bay, there was nasty, windy weather," says Huff. "Jimmy Taylor took a pass in the flat, and I was going to take care of it. I said, 'One of us is gonna die.' I hit him so hard, I dented my helmet. It's in the Hall of Fame. It knocked me goofy, and him, too. All I know is he was over on the bench swallowing his tongue. Me, I was too proud to stay down."

And now, lo and behold, Sam Huff has a 24-year-old constituent. As a Redskins radio broadcaster, he now gets to watch, up close and personal, The Violent World of LaVar Arrington. And all the scary symmetries. Arrington lives for the same knockout hit. The "kill shot," he calls it. Before games, he stands in front of a mirror and envisions them.

"When I look in the mirror, I'll be jacked," Arrington says. "When I go in the mirror, I'll look at my arms, and I'm, 'Dang, my body's jacked.' I don't look like that during the week. During the week, you can lift up my shirt, and my arms will look all right. But on game day, you'll see veins running and stuff just popping out everywhere, man. I don't look the same. I'm telling you. I don't look the same on game day. And when I get out there and I feel that way, I'm fixing to knock somebody down. It's all out. No tomorrow. One game championship.

"The woooo hits, I live for them. I LIVE for 'em. That's leaving an impression. On every person. It doesn't have to be on the ball carrier. Whoever you hit, they know, 'You know what, there's something wrong with this dude. Why is he hitting me so hard?' My intentions are bad. They really are. They're bad. And I can honestly say that's the only aspect of my life that I approach that way."

This is a linebacker who says that he is "soft" off the field. A linebacker who played the French horn in his junior high orchestra. Who plays chess (instead of PlayStation2) to sharpen his mind.

But this is also a linebacker who learned to play the way Sam Huff played -- by paying attention at home. He is a linebacker who is unafraid of concussions because his own father was unafraid of dying in Vietnam. Michael Arrington lost his leg in a Southeast Asian jungle, and, on the operating table, he regurgitated into his lungs.

"He died -- he died on that table," says LaVar's mom, Carolyn.

"Well," says Michael Arrington, "the doctor told me later, 'We lost you for a while.'"

They told LaVar's father he'd be in a wheelchair for life, so his father got on crutches. They told his father he'd be on crutches for life, so his father got a cane. They told his father he'd be on a cane for life, so his father got prosthesis. They told his father he'd limp his whole life, so his father tries to race-walk.

Michael Arrington, older now, still gets on the roof to do repairs and still rides a stationary bike. LaVar used to forget that his father had one leg. And that's just the half of it -- you should've seen LaVar's mom. She used to teach special ed. She taught kids who she says "would spaz out." Kids who threw chairs and tables in the classroom, who stabbed classmates with pencils, who threatened to jump out of windows because they didn't want to go home to their crackhead parents. She had no help, no one to help her wrestle them to the ground. That's why she needed wrist surgery. And now you know how LaVar Arrington got to be like Sam Huff.

"Before a game, I sit and reflect," he says. "Basically, I'm reflecting on the people who've played the game before me -- like Sam -- and all the people I grew up with. My family. I'm reflecting on my father, my mother, and what they've done to get me to the point where I am. I'm to the point that I'm almost in tears. And sometimes I do cry."

He's wanted to cry even more so this year. He's wanted to cry because he's had to learn how to play for Marvin Lewis, and as you'll see in the current issue of ESPN The Magazine, that is not easy. Marvin's asked him to be disciplined, which is fine, except that's not the way LaVar Arrington has ever played. He wants the freedom of a Brian Urlacher, who came out of college the same year he did. LaVar says of Urlacher, "He can play -- he deserves all the hype he gets. But he's not the best linebacker from that draft. The best player in that draft was No. 11 from Penn State."

But LaVar's had a rough time showing it this year. He's been used to chasing the football, chasing the raw meat, and now they want him to stay in his gap. And way up in the radio booth, Sam Huff has noticed Arrington's stress. And Sam Huff wants to say something to him. It's a Linebacker Club thing.

"I feel sorry for LaVar," Huff says. "He doesn't know whether to put his right foot forward, his left foot forward or stand sideways."

Huff likes the kid too much. He even named a racehorse he owns after LaVar. So, he wants to get in the kid's ear. To tell him he's been there.

"I want to tell LaVar, 'It's not only happened to you. It happened to me!'" Huff says. "I had five Pro Bowls, had the cover of Time Magazine, and my coach, Allie Sherman, wanted to change my style of play. Wanted to get rid of me. Partly because he was an offensive coach and every time in the scrimmages, I'd knock the hell out of his guys. We'd scrimmage an hour, and it would take them an hour to get a first down. Frank Gifford wanted no part of it; he'd hold the yard markers. Anyway, Allie Sherman had me playing gap defense. I said I can't do that all the time. I've got to pursue people. That no-good Allie Sherman, he changed my style of play. Changed the whole defense. We were playing against John David Crow, and we're in this stupid defense, and Crow ran us out of the ballpark in the first half. We had two player-coaches on defense -- Andy Robustelli and Jimmy Patton -- and in the second half, I look at Andy and I say, 'You're gonna let that SOB ruin us, aren't you.' He said, 'What do you want to do, Sam?' I said, 'I want to play our old defense. Let's play it.' They never made a first down after that. And that's what I want to tell to LaVar. He needs to know I went through it, too."

But Sam Huff hasn't said anything to LaVar yet. Hasn't had time. Has had some personal stuff.

It's called prostate cancer.

LaVar Arrington heard about this and was sick about it. He was sick about it because Sam Huff is always in his head. When he sustained a concussion last year against Carolina, the trainers told LaVar to stay out of the game, but LaVar kept hearing Sam's imaginary voice in his head: You're a linebacker. Get up. You're a linebacker.

"Well," says Huff, "I really do feel like I'm riding on his shoulder pads during games."

But now Sam Huff needs LaVar Arrington to ride on HIS shoulder pads. When you're sick, you're sick. And so guess what Sam Huff hears when he gets his cancer treatment.

He hears LaVar Arrington's voice.

You're a linebacker. Get up. You're a linebacker.

Tom Friend is a senior writer for ESPN The Magazine. E-mail him at tom.friend@espnmag.com.--->