Shelby Slugs A Young Linebacker on Capitol Hill

July 16, 2026

A Young Linebacker on Capitol Hill

Washington first entered my life during spring break in 1977.

I was twelve years old, standing on the steps of the United States Supreme Court with my father and my older brother, David. I was wearing a blue windbreaker from Lyman Ward Military Academy, where I was finishing my last year. My father, Robert Frank Fuhrman, stood beside me. He was a Korean War Marine, cattle farmer, factory worker, and vice president of the Etowah County Board of Education.

David was serving as chief congressional aide to Congressman Walter Flowers of Tuscaloosa. To me, he seemed to understand Washington better than anyone.

Eleven years later, as I prepared to leave Tuscaloosa for a job on Capitol Hill, David gave me a warning.

“Things in Washington aren’t black and white,” he said. “They’re shades of gray. You’d better play your cards very close to the vest.”

I never forgot it.

In the spring of 1988, I walked into Senator Richard Shelby’s office as a twenty-three-year-old former inside linebacker from the University of Alabama. Derrick Thomas had nicknamed me Bull, and in those days the name fit. I wore a fifty-inch suit, had a twenty-four-inch neck, and was still trying to make myself look older with a mustache that fooled absolutely no one.

My official Senate identification badge was issued on June 13, 1988, during the 100th Congress. The badge carried my photograph, my signature, and the stamp of the Sergeant at Arms. I was young, broad-shouldered, fresh from the Alabama practice field, and walking into the Hart Senate Office Building as though I belonged there.

I tried to make myself useful.

I was one of the first people to arrive each morning and one of the last to leave. Senator Shelby often came in around six or six-thirty. He would walk over to my cubicle and say in his thick South Alabama drawl, “Dal, here’s a couple of bucks. Go down to the coffee shop and get us some hot tea. Come back, and we’ll talk before I go over to vote.”

I would get the tea, return to the office, and sit with him before the machinery of the day started moving.

That was the part I loved most.

Before the phones began ringing and the meetings started, I had the opportunity to listen. We talked about Alabama, football, politics, and the personalities who made Washington work. I was a junior member of the staff, but during those early mornings I received an education that could not have been taught in a classroom.

The office itself told a story.

On the far wall of the main work area hung a large poster of Judge Robert Bork with a target painted around his head. No one had to explain it. The battle over Bork’s Supreme Court nomination had been bitter, and the political wounds were still fresh.

Senator Shelby was a Democrat at the time, and most of the people around me assumed I shared their political views. I did not correct them.

My direct superiors, Steve and Simeon, once took me out for yard-long beers because they were trying to determine where I stood politically. They did not realize they were drinking with someone who had transferred to Alabama from Curry College in Boston and arrived with something to prove.

College football had prepared me for long practices, physical pain, loud bars, and competitive drinking. After practice, some of us went to Harry’s Bar in Tuscaloosa, where the specialty was a massive paint bucket filled with a white liquor concoction known as the “crazy bucket.” It was supposed to numb the pain from practice. It usually numbed everything else, too.

One of the teammates who took me under his wing was offensive lineman John Fruhmorgen. We became close friends, and I still have a photograph of us at Harry’s in 1985. John is on the left in a plaid shirt, raising one finger and grinning. An Alabama basketball player from Bryant Hall is in the middle. I am on the right in a blue and white striped shirt.

The photograph captures the whole era: dim lights, crowded tables, tired athletes, and young men convinced they were indestructible.

That background served me well the night Steve and Simeon tried to figure me out. I drank them under the table and learned far more about them than they learned about me.

David had told me to keep my cards close to the vest, and I did.

For the entire time I worked in the office, almost no one knew I was a conservative.

One day, Senator Shelby asked me what we should call the office softball team.

“How about the Shelby Slugs?” I said.

He looked at me. “Why do you want to call us that?”

“Because y’all don’t pay us anything.”

He paused, smiled, and said, “Yeah, we don’t. You’re going to hit a home run, right?”

Then he chuckled.

That was pure Shelby. He understood exactly what I meant, and he appreciated the nerve it took for a young staffer to say it.

The name also described our lives better than I realized. We worked long hours for little money, lived in cramped quarters, and survived however we could.

I stayed in a tiny flat at George Washington University. The entire place was no larger than the kitchen in my home today. It had a small bathroom, a shower, an eating area, and two cots positioned about a yard apart. Glass-paned French doors separated the kitchen from the sleeping area, but they did not provide much privacy.

Most days, I took the Metro to Union Station and walked from there to the Hart Building. Driving was too expensive, and there was rarely any reason to use my car.

Food was another challenge.

Lobbying organizations constantly invited senators to receptions and dinners. Senator Shelby could not attend all of them, so we would ask for the invitations he did not plan to use. We would arrive near the end of the event and take home whatever food remained. Sometimes the leftovers kept us fed for most of the following week.

It was not glamorous, but it was Washington.

My work included NASA’s Project Pathfinder, a technology initiative intended to prepare for future robotic and human exploration missions, including possible missions to the Moon and Mars. I also worked on issues involving Black Hawk helicopters for the Alabama National Guard.

The work was substantive. Memos concerning NASA funding, the space station, Mars exploration, defense authorization, and treaty debates landed on my cubicle desk. I was twenty-three years old, but I was reading and contributing to discussions about policies that could shape the country for decades.

I was also there during the Senate debate over the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty. The agreement required the United States and the Soviet Union to eliminate an entire category of ground-launched missiles.

The office wanted the treaty approved, so I kept my personal opinions to myself and watched the debate unfold.

Senator Jesse Helms offered a proposal that would have linked the removal of American missiles from Europe with the withdrawal of American troops. The proposal failed by voice vote shortly before the Senate approved the treaty by an overwhelming margin.

Whether a person agreed with Helms or not, I found the maneuver fascinating. He had forced senators to confront a larger strategic question. If the missiles were leaving, what did that mean for the American troops who remained?

That experience taught me that legislation is rarely only about the words printed on the page. It is also about amendments, leverage, timing, alliances, and the questions lawmakers force one another to answer.

Another project involved S.J. Res. 303, which designated October 1988 as National Lupus Awareness Month. Senator Shelby introduced the resolution, and actor Richard Dreyfuss visited the office to support lupus awareness.

I worked with the resolution, the supporting material, and the “Dear Colleague” letter that Shelby sent to other senators seeking co-sponsors. I still have copies of those documents.

They remind me that my time in Washington was not limited to carrying tea, attending receptions, or watching powerful people walk through the halls. I participated in real legislative work.

Celebrities occasionally visited the office to lobby for their causes. Richard Gere and Michael Gross came to discuss Tibetan art. The women in the office were excited to see them, but Shelby was not easily impressed by celebrity. His attention remained focused on the problems he believed were closer to home.

Dreyfuss’s visit was different because lupus had affected Shelby’s own family. That gave the issue a personal dimension.

Those encounters taught me another lesson. In Washington, access often depends on who is delivering the message. A cause represented by a famous actor may receive attention that the same cause, presented by an unknown citizen, would struggle to obtain.

The most revealing discovery, however, involved a movie poster.

I enjoyed walking to Georgetown for lunch and trying different restaurants. One afternoon, I found a small shop selling old movie posters. I bought posters from The Sands of Iwo Jima and Casablanca and carried them back to the office.

Rick, the chief of staff, saw them near my cubicle. He asked where I had found them, handed me some money, and told me which poster he wanted.

The next day, I walked past his office and saw it already hanging on the wall in a professional frame.

“How did you get that done so fast?” I asked.

He looked at me as though I had asked the dumbest question in Washington.

“You don’t know? We’ve got a frame shop in the Senate basement.”

That was the moment I began to understand that Capitol Hill was a city within a city.

The people who worked there had access to their own services, corridors, dining rooms, transportation, and systems. They could ride the underground subway between the Senate office buildings and the Capitol without stepping outside.

It would be unfair to say that everyone who worked there was disconnected from ordinary Americans. Many were sincere public servants who worked hard and cared deeply about their states and constituents. Still, I saw how easy it could be for people inside the system to become insulated from life beyond it.

When your food, transportation, meetings, services, and social world all exist within the same protected environment, the outside world can begin to feel very far away.

On June 3, 1988, I attended the arrival ceremony for President Ronald Reagan and Mrs. Reagan following the Moscow Summit.

I still have the official “Admit One” ticket.

The ceremony took place inside a hangar at Andrews Air Force Base. There was a massive crowd, an honor guard in dress whites, American flags, and all the ceremony that accompanies a returning president.

Before Air Force One arrived, military transport aircraft landed and vehicles and personnel began moving into place. Then I noticed heavily built security operators passing through the crowd. They wore equipment and headsets I had never seen before. They moved quickly, checked the area, and seemed to disappear almost as soon as I noticed them.

I did not know who they were or which organization they represented. To me, they looked like a modern Praetorian Guard, a protective force that could materialize wherever the president traveled.

The experience showed me the scale of the presidency in a way television never could. The aircraft, security, ceremony, communications, and military coordination all moved around one office and one individual.

I was standing close enough to see it happen.

I also met Senator Sam Nunn, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee. In our photograph, Nunn had to turn partly sideways so both of us could fit in the frame. He did not look thrilled about it.

At my size, there was no other way to make the picture work.

I have signed photographs with Senator Shelby, including one inscribed, “Darryl, we enjoyed sharing Washington with you.” I also have a signed photograph with Senator Howell Heflin and a photograph with Congressman Jack Kemp.

A conversation with Kemp that began with football ended with him giving me a signed copy of his book, The American Idea: Ending Limits to Growth, which included a foreword by President Reagan.

The photographs, letters, tickets, memoranda, identification badge, and legislative documents are more than souvenirs. They are anchors for my memory.

They remind me that I was there.

I was there for the early-morning tea with Senator Shelby. I was there when policy memoranda arrived concerning space exploration, defense spending, and nuclear arms. I was there when actors walked into Senate offices to promote their causes. I was there when President Reagan returned from Moscow. I was there when young staff members survived on reception leftovers and lived in rooms barely large enough for two cots.

I entered Washington thinking politics was mostly a contest between right and wrong, conservative and liberal, Republican and Democrat.

I left with a better understanding of David’s warning.

Washington was filled with shades of gray. Personal relationships crossed party lines. Public positions did not always reveal private beliefs. A senator might support one policy for strategic reasons and oppose another because of a personal experience. Staff members competed, cooperated, concealed their views, and tried to understand where the next vote was coming from.

In 1988, Richard Shelby was still a Democrat. I was a conservative working in his office, carrying hot tea in the morning, studying policy during the day, and keeping my political cards close to my vest.

Labels told only part of the story.

That is what “Shelby Slugs” means to me now.

It began as a joke about a softball team made up of staff members who were not being paid much, if anything. Over time, it became shorthand for that entire chapter of my life.

We worked long hours. We lived on leftovers. We swung at opportunities far above our pay grade.

I did not hit every pitch, but I was in the game.

For one remarkable season, a young Bull from Alabama stood in the middle of Washington and watched power move.

1985 at Harry’s Bar in Tuscaloosa — right after a brutal Alabama football practice. That’s my teammate and good friend John Fruhmorgen (offensive lineman for the Crimson Tide) on the left in the plaid shirt, raising a finger with that big grin. In the middle is an Alabama basketball player who was a Bryant Hall brother — he lived down the hall from us on the third floor of Bryant Hall. On the right is me (Darryl Fuhrman, inside linebacker, Crimson Tide 1985–87) in the blue and white striped shirt. We’re deep in the ‘crazy bucket’ era — massive paint-bucket drinks that would numb the pain from two-a-days. John went on to play for the London Monarchs in the World League and signed with the Miami Dolphins. Today he runs Staff Your Dealer Management LLC in Tampa, a successful staffing company for automotive dealerships. Pure late-80s Alabama football gold.

June 13, 1988 — my official U.S. Senate ID badge from the 100th Congress. That’s me trying (and failing) to look a little older with the classic 1970s porn-stache and what my friends kindly called my ‘no neck’ (or 24-inch neck, depending on who was giving me grief). Sergeant at Arms badge and all. I was 23, fresh off the Alabama practice field, walking into the Hart Building like I belonged there. Spoiler: the mustache didn’t fool anyone.

Artifacts from my desk in Senator Shelby’s office, spring 1988. The May 24 NASA FY 89 Authorization memo tracking Project Pathfinder and the space station budget. The May 25 National Mars Commission ‘Dear Colleague’ letter from Senators Tom Harkin and Daniel Inouye calling for joint U.S.-Soviet missions to Mars (S. 2142). And my official U.S. Senate ID badge from the 100th Congress, issued June 13, 1988. These pieces sat on my cubicle desk in the Hart Building as I worked on NASA issues and watched the big policy debates unfold. Physical proof I was right in the middle of it.

May 17, 1988 — internal memo from Chief of Staff Rick to the entire Shelby office staff outlining the legislative schedule for the week. Top items: the DOD Authorization bill and the INF Treaty (with details on executive session, Helms amendments, and the upcoming ratification vote). This was the kind of daily briefing that landed on my desk as I worked on Armed Services issues. Real-time proof I was right in the middle of the big debates of 1988.

Spring 1988 in Senator Shelby’s office — the official text of S.J. Res. 303 designating October 1988 as National Lupus Awareness Month, the ‘Dear Colleague’ letter Shelby sent to other senators asking for co-sponsors, and my Senate ID badge. I worked on this resolution because both Shelby’s wife and Richard Dreyfuss’s wife had lupus. Dreyfuss came to the office to lobby for it personally. These documents are tangible proof of the real legislative work I helped move forward during my time on the Hill.

June 3, 1988 — President Ronald Reagan’s return home from the Moscow Summit at Andrews Air Force Base. These are my own photos from the hangar ceremony. You can see the massive crowd, the honor guard in dress whites, the flags, and the full pomp and circumstance. Before Air Force One (still the VC-137 Boeing 707 at the time) arrived, C-130s landed fast and operators with arms the size of tree trunks moved through the crowd. That was the moment I realized the President had his own Praetorian Guard — a rapid-deployment military unit that could appear anywhere in minutes. I still have the official ‘Admit One’ ticket sealed under my desk. These shots are proof I was right there in the middle of it.

1988 or early 1989 — me shaking hands with Senator Howell Heflin, looking like the ultimate hill-country guy who just wandered into the Senate. Seersucker suit (peak D.C. summer politician chic), pink tie, white shirt, and that glorious cheesy porn-stache I thought made me look older. I even have my A Club ring on. I was not a fan of Heflin after the Fawn Hall/Iran-Contra hearings, so I’m not exactly beaming with excitement here. This signed photo stayed sealed in the envelope it arrived in until just now — first time it’s seen the light of day since it was mailed to my parents’ house in Southside, Alabama, back in ’89.

Best wishes to Darryl Fuhrman! — signed photo with Senator Sam Nunn, then Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee. Nunn looks visibly irritated that he had to turn sideways just to fit in the frame with me. At a fifty-inch suit and twenty-four-inch neck in those days, there was no other way to make it work. This small, funny detail says everything about the contrast between the polished Beltway world and the young Bull from Alabama who somehow ended up standing right in the middle of it all.

Darryl, We enjoyed sharing Washington with you. — Richard Shelby, June 1988. One of the signed photos from my time in his office. I still smile every time I see it. This one sat on my parents’ wall for years and now it’s a reminder of those long days in the Hart Building — the early-morning hot teas, the Shelby Slugs softball team, and a young Alabama linebacker trying to keep his cards close to the vest in the middle of it all.

With Congressman Jack Kemp. I went down to his office to talk about his son coming to play football at Alabama and walked out with a signed copy of his book The American Idea: Ending Limits to Growth — complete with a foreword by President Ronald Reagan. Kemp was the former Buffalo Bills quarterback, longtime New York Congressman, and 1996 Republican vice presidential nominee. This photo always reminds me of the crossover between sports, politics, and big ideas that I got to see up close during my time on the Hill.

June 3, 1988 — my official ‘Admit One’ ticket to the arrival ceremony for President and Mrs. Reagan upon their return from the Moscow Summit at Andrews Air Force Base. In Washington, nothing happens without the right pass or invite — you simply couldn’t just walk into something like this. Air Force One (the VC-137 Boeing 707) pulled into the hangar, and before it even arrived, C-130s landed fast and these operators with hairy, thick arms the size of tree trunks, wearing headsets and helmets I’d never seen before, moved through the crowds checking for trouble. They were like ghosts — appeared in seconds and were gone before anybody could turn around and look for them. That was the moment I realized the President had his own Praetorian Guard — not just Secret Service, but a rapid-deployment military unit that could materialize anywhere in minutes. I still have this ticket sealed under my desk.

Congressman Jack Kemp’s book The American Idea: Ending Limits to Growth — with a foreword by President Ronald Reagan and preface by Irving Kristol. I went down to his office to talk about his son coming to play football at Alabama and walked out with this signed copy plus the portrait. Kemp was the former Buffalo Bills quarterback, longtime Congressman, and 1996 Republican vice presidential nominee. This one always reminds me of the crossover between sports, big ideas, and politics I got to see up close on the Hill.

March 13, 1987 — letter from the Campaign for Space Political Action Committee to Senator Shelby urging stronger U.S. space policy. It highlights the Challenger disaster (just over a year earlier) as part of a broader pattern of neglect, criticizes the lack of clear goals, and calls for a dramatic commitment to keep America the world’s leader in space. This kind of advocacy mail was landing on desks around the office while I was working on Project Pathfinder and NASA issues. It shows the pressure and the bigger policy debates happening in the years leading up to 1988.

Spring break 1977 on the steps of the United States Supreme Court. My brother David Fuhrman (left) was serving as chief congressional aide to Congressman Walter Flowers of Tuscaloosa. I’m in the middle at twelve years old, wearing my Lyman Ward Military Academy blue windbreaker with the school coat of arms — my last year there. On the right is our dad, Robert Frank Fuhrman, a Korean War Marine, cattle farmer, factory worker, and Vice President of the Etowah County Board of Education. This is the exact trip where I first saw Washington, D.C., long before David gave me the warning in 1988 right before I left Tuscaloosa for the Hill: ‘Things in Washington aren’t black and white — they’re shades of gray. Play your cards close to the vest.’