On a recent evening, DeMarcus Ware, the retired linebacker, reported to the retail space that fronts 3 Volt Fitness, his new training center in Trophy Club, Texas, and opened a box of shirts. They were wrinkled, so he picked up a steamer to press them, but noticed that a few members were looking at him, eyes locked in.
“Like I’m a mannequin,” he says. “I was like, How are you? What’s going on? You want me to show you around?”
Forgive the gawkers. At 6’4”, Ware, 38, still cuts a statuesque figure. Though he left the NFL in 2016 after 12 seasons—undergoing three back surgeries and one neck operation during that last campaign—he has not slowed.