Art Stapleton

Staff Writer, @art_stapleton

The postgame party was winding down five years ago when Victor Cruz stepped outside the winning locker room at Candlestick Park.

Eli and Peyton Manning were just outside the doors to his left.

Tom Coughlin and his family were down the hallway to his right.

Cruz had a bus to catch and a team to continue celebrating with, but he stopped to fulfill a request from his hometown newspaper and the reporter whom he first met at the age of 15.

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Super Bowl XLVI hat on backward and fresh-out-of-the-box "NFC Champions" T-shirt on his back, Cruz proudly held the “Super” poster from The Record that I just handed to him.

He smiled, posed for a photo and joked, “I’m going to the Super Bowl, Art. We did it. Can you believe it? Man, what a run.”

This memory popped into my head Monday when I learned the Giants were releasing Cruz after seven seasons, a move that made financial sense and a good deal of football sense, too, and for both sides.

I scoured through my old Facebook photos Monday night and found the one of Cruz with that copy of The Record.

Man, what a run indeed.

And there are so many stories, enough for a scrapbook that I’m told still resides somewhere in the home of his mother, Blanca. I have covered Cruz as an athlete for half of his 30 years of life.

I knew him when he was a teenager harboring a dream to play basketball at Duke University, not the NFL for his beloved Dallas Cowboys, let alone the Giants for whom he would star, becoming a worldwide celebrity of football and fashion.

I knew him when opposing coaches in the now-defunct Bergen-Passaic Scholastic League used to complain about how that kid wearing No. 9 for Paterson Catholic (now closed) was too physical, and all he did was push off in the end zone. That was the reason he was catching all those touchdown passes, they said.

I knew Cruz when he had to come home and work in retail at Garden State Plaza in Paramus after his grades at UMass led to his dismissal not only from the team, but the school, and not once, but twice.

Years earlier, when Cruz called to tell me he had committed to UMass, my alma mater, I remember laughing with him about his college choice.

“What’s next: You gonna be a sports writer?” I joked with him. “You’ve got to stop following me.”

Well, funny how things turn out, isn’t it?

When I was promoted from Local Sports Columnist to be a part of our NFL coverage team, Cruz was an undrafted rookie trying to make the Giants. We all know how he made out.

Our relationship always remained professional, but it was never not personal.

I remember texting Cruz on his first Father’s Day after his daughter, Kennedy, was born. I knew how special of a moment that would be for him, having lost his father, Mike Walker, who died suddenly when Cruz was in college.

At training camp two summers ago, Cruz and Odell Beckham Jr. stopped to say hello to my brother-in-law Hugo – a longtime Giants season-ticket holder - and my nephews, his sons Max and Alex, who were at practice that night. Cruz signed the back of Hugo’s jersey and they shared a laugh.

As fate would have it, I was there to capture the moment on video for our family.

When Hugo unexpectedly passed away last March, several Giants reached out to offer condolences, and of course Cruz was one of them. Months later, as his return after nearly two years away from the game progressed toward its Week 1 culmination in Dallas, Cruz asked for Max and Alex. He knew what it was like to lose a father and offered to share his perspective if they wanted it.

“If they ever want to talk,” Cruz told me, “let’s make it happen.”

Alex, 12, wore his Cruz No. 80 jersey all day Monday. Max, 13, made several tribute videos of Cruz on Instagram with a lyrical message: “I’m gonna love you forever.”

We love our local stories at The Record. Never pass up the opportunity to bring North Jersey to you regardless of where we are reporting from. In last year’s Super Bowl, it was Wayne’s Greg Olsen.

In the most recent Super Bowl, we told you everything you needed to know about Wyckoff’s Chris Hogan as he and the Patriots captured the Vince Lombardi Trophy.

Victor Cruz pulled all of us in as his story added chapter after unbelievable chapter with enough ups and downs, and ups again, to last a lifetime.

I’d be lying if I didn’t feel as though, in many ways, no one could tell the whole story better than me.

Because I knew Victor Cruz when few believed he could do all the things he ultimately did.

At 30, Cruz promises he has more to give in the NFL. He wants to play this season, and there will be a market for his services. He’s earned another opportunity if that is his desire.

I’m eager to see what comes next and hope to be lucky enough to write about the chapters to come in the life and career of Victor Cruz.

Echoing his words to me from five years ago: Man, what a run.