Kellen Winslow Blasts Hospital Staff For Lack Of Intensity

CLEVELAND--Kellen Winslow may be laid up in a hospital bed recuperating from injuries, but he hasn’t lost the fiery demeanor that helped make him the Browns’ top pick in the 2004 draft. Winslow has a reputation for being a driven and intense competitor and demanding the same from his teammates. Now he has taken his act to Cleveland General, where he is blasting the hospital staff for their lack of intensity.

“Come on, I wanna see some focus! I wanna see some fire!” Winslow shouted to a hospital intern who had arrived to empty his bedpan. “You've been dragging your ass since the day I got in here, and things are going to change! Turn it up a notch!”

Winslow then threw a water bottle at the young women’s head.

“There! You like that? No? Well let’s see you respond to it,” he shouted. “Come on! Stand up for yourself! If someone does that to you on the football field, you’d get up and hit him in the mouth. I’m tired of watching all you guys walking around with your heads down giving a half-assed effort. This place is pathetic. Now someone get in here and change my catheter!”

The staff at Cleveland General has grown tired of Winslow’s in-your-face attitude. Many of them are low paid interns or inexperienced nurses who aren’t equipped to deal with an actual maniac. The incident described above made intern Cindy Welch, 18, leave the room in tears.

“Oh my God, what did I ever do to that guy?” cried Welch, a student at Ohio State. “I come in once a day and empty the shit out of his bedpan, which is a pretty nasty job, and all he does is abuse me. He doesn’t think I have enough intensity. He’s always telling me to ‘take it to the next level.’ What next level? I don’t even know what level I’m on right now. This is very confusing.”

Welch also called Winslow “a really weird guy” and described his behavior as “scary.”

“I don’t know what this guy’s problem is. He’s just a little weird,” she said. “The other day I walked in to give him a sponge bath and he had some of that black paint under his eyes that you see athletes wearing all the time. I don’t even know why he would need that indoors, in a hospital, while lying in bed. But he had this really intense look in his eyes and his face was all twisted into a scowl. I stopped in my tracks, dropped all my stuff, and backed slowly out of the room. I guess he’s right. My intensity level is not where it needs to be right now.”

The abuse that Welch endured was nothing compared to the abuse Winslow dished out to nurse Katie Bairos. Bairos made the mistake of spilling some of Winslow’s soup as she carried it over to his bed, prompting him to blast her lack of focus.

“Let’s go! Let’s pull together!” screamed Winslow as the terrified Bairos attempted to wipe the mess off the floor. “Look at you! You come waltzing in here all nonchalant like you don’t have a care in the world, and then you spill my damn soup all over the place. And it’s beef vegetable, too. You know I love beef vegetable! Damn, don’t you realize it’s war in here? You got to be a warrior, a soldier! Now get out of my sight. No, wait. Give me that biscuit first.”

When told of his behavior at the hospital, Winslow’s teammates were not surprised. In fact, many of them were relieved that he would not be participating in training camp.

“Thank God we’re not going to have to listen to that guy in training camp this year,” said one teammate, who asked not to be identified. “Kellen has a reputation for being super intense, and if you’re not super intense he’s going to give you shit about it. I don’t know how good a player he’ll be, but he definitely has a talent for yelling out inspirational sports slogans. Perhaps if he never plays again he can make a living as one of those motivational speakers. Then again motivational speakers are supposed to motivate, not annoy the living shit out of you.”

New Browns coach Romeo Crennel has been in contact with Winslow, and said he still hopes the tight end can play this year.

“It’s iffy right now, but you can always hope,” said Crennel. “We all know that Kellen is a great player with loads of potential. It’s just a shame he hasn’t been able to get himself on the field. I understand that riding a motorcycle with no helmet and very little experience is important for a young man, but football should be more important. Everybody knows that Kellen has the heart of a lion. Unfortunately, he has the brain of a lion, too.”