Quiet Strength (6 page)

I shared a fairly small apartment in Minneapolis with my teammate, wide receiver Mike Jones. Mike was from Detroit Central High School and was terrifically talented. Terrell Owens reminds me of Mike—a tall, sleek, fast guy who can run, catch, and jump. Mike had hurt his Achilles tendon our junior year and was never quite the same after the injury, but he was hoping to be drafted as well.

Back then, the
NFL
draft wasn’t televised over the weekend. That year, 1977, the draft was held on a Tuesday and Wednesday, and it lasted twelve rounds. Three of the guys Wayne Fontes had recruited to
USC
four years earlier turned out to be as good as advertised. Ricky Bell went to the Buccaneers as the first pick overall, Marvin Powell went fourth to the New York Jets, and Gary Jeter went fifth to the New York Giants.

My only goal was to go somewhere in the remaining 330 picks.

Mike and I waited by the phone all day Tuesday, then started our vigil again Wednesday morning. The phone finally rang Wednesday afternoon. The Giants were on the line in the tenth round—and wanted to speak with Mike. So Mike was the 255th pick, following our defensive back, George Adzick, who had gone to Seattle in the ninth round. I hoped Coach Stoll hadn’t been right when he said only two guys would go to the
NFL
. We celebrated Mike’s selection for a while and then turned our attention back to the phone to wait for my call.

The phone didn’t ring again. And while I didn’t know it at the time, it wouldn’t be the last time I waited by the phone for a call that never came. That evening, around eight o’clock, we called a buddy who was with the Associated Press.

“Is the draft over?” I asked.

“Yeah, it’s over,” he confirmed. We hung up.

“Hmmm. Nobody called me. That doesn’t seem like a good sign… .”

It wasn’t. The phone did ring a short while later, though, as
NFL
clubs tried to fill out their rosters, much as they do today. Starting toward the end of the draft, clubs begin to get an idea of the positions they still need to fill for training camp. If they’re not able to draft enough players at a position to fill out their roster, the scouts begin working the phones, trying to find the highest-rated nondrafted players who might agree to come to camp as free agents.

I had a number of opportunities during the course of those telephone calls to play defensive back or wide receiver, but I didn’t receive a single offer to play quarterback in the
NFL
.

I was crushed.

Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.

—Matthew 6:33 (
KJV
)

I
WAS
IN
SHOCK
after not being drafted into the
NFL
. Something about this didn’t seem fair. It didn’t seem right. I was numb. Devastated. I prayed,
God, I can’t believe it. Help me figure out what I’m supposed to do now.

I did have one opportunity to play quarterback, but it was in Canada. The Montreal Alouettes held my rights in the Canadian Football League, and their coach, Marv Levy, had spoken with me a number of times before the draft.

“See what happens in the draft, but keep your mind open to coming here,” he said. “You’d be perfect for this game with your style. You’ll be in this league for a long time.”

Looking back, I think the National Football League couldn’t figure out what to do with a black quarterback who wasn’t a prototypical drop-back, passing quarterback. The following year, 1978, Doug Williams came out of Grambling State and was drafted in the first round by the Buccaneers. Doug, however, had tools I didn’t have: he was about three inches taller than my six-foot-one frame, had about thirty pounds more than my 180, and was a pocket passer with a cannon for an arm. I was more like Warren Moon, who came out of the University of Washington the same year. Warren wasn’t drafted either, and he started his career in the Canadian Football League.

A number of the
NFL
free-agent calls were offering me between $1,000 and $1,500 as a signing bonus. By contrast, Montreal was offering me a bonus of $50,000. However, I had always had my sights set on the NFL; I wanted to compete against the players I felt were the very best. I was hoping for a divine signal that would make my decision clear, even if it meant signing to play a totally new position.

Lord, I’d really like to play in the
NFL
, but it doesn’t appear to make a whole lot of sense right now. I’ve pretty much got a guarantee to make the team as the quarterback in Montreal for more money, but I really want to try the
NFL
, even though it’ll be at a position I’ve never played. Please help me figure out what to do.
I prayed that prayer—and others like it—repeatedly over the next few days.

It would have been helpful to have a clear sign as to the direction the Lord wanted me to go—maybe something plastered on a billboard on the side of the road or flashed on a scoreboard at a stadium or written clearly in the clouds with a divine finger. I have to admit that I looked in all those places, just in case.

At that moment, even a powerful wind, earthquake, or fire similar to what Elijah had experienced would have been helpful—although, as it turned out, the Lord didn’t appear to Elijah in any of those. Instead, it was a gentle whisper—a still, small voice—in which Elijah heard the Lord speaking. How did Elijah do that? I have always felt I needed a loud voice or a clear sign to help me make decisions in times like that.

I didn’t hear the audible voice, but in my heart I still felt led to the
NFL
. I talked with Tom Sherman of the Buffalo Bills, who wanted to play me at free safety. I was ready to head up there to play when Tom Moore, my college coach, entered the picture again.

Tom had left the University of Minnesota after my senior season and joined Woody Widenhofer as a wide receivers coach with the Pittsburgh Steelers. Tom and Woody had spoken with the Steelers head coach, Chuck Noll, and told him that I was a bright guy who could fit somewhere within their organization. They didn’t need another quarterback—they’d taken Cliff Stoudt in the fifth round—but Tom told me he was sure I could help the Steelers in some way. I updated him on the Bills situation, letting him know that Tom Sherman was mailing a contract to me the next morning. Tom Moore hopped on a flight and brought the Steelers contract with him, ensuring he arrived before the mail.

I called Tom Sherman and explained that I knew several coaches with the Steelers and felt that was the better opportunity. Then I signed with the Pittsburgh Steelers for a bonus of $2,200, plus another $20,000 in salary if I made the team. I was so excited and sure that was where God wanted me to go—until I started telling my friends.

“Are you nuts? What position do you think you’re going to play?” The Steelers had just missed going to their third straight Super Bowl in 1976. “You think you’re going to play receiver? Ever heard of John Stallworth? Well, even he doesn’t start at receiver for them. And eight of the defensive guys—
eight
of them—just went to the Pro Bowl, plus three guys from the offense. Eleven guys in the Pro Bowl! Donnie Shell and Jimmy Allen are the backup DBs. Where do you think you’re gonna play? How are you even gonna make the team?”

“Well, uh, I don’t know. I want to play with the best, and these guys are the best.” Signing with the Steelers had seemed like the right thing to do immediately after the draft, but I found myself second-guessing my decision for about a week afterward.

I was just walking in faith—faith in God and faith in what Tom had told me: “You’re a smart guy, so you’re going to have chances to make it with us in Pittsburgh somewhere. And since we’re already good, it’s not like we need to give the veterans much work in the preseason. We won’t need to worry about playing our first-string offense to see how they’re going to function as a unit. We know how they’re going to function. Coach Noll wants to give the young guys lots of chances to play in the preseason games, so you’ll get a chance to show what you can do on the field, to come in and make an impression—whenever we figure out where to put you.”

The more I thought about it, it didn’t really seem like a logical decision at all, but I
had
prayed about it, and joining the Steelers just seemed to be the right thing to do. Over and over in life, I’ve looked for that moment captured by Cecil B. DeMille in
The Ten Commandments,
when I could hear that same voice of God so clearly heard by Moses at the edge of the Red Sea: “Go this way, and I’ll part the waters for you.” But there has been no such moment. I have yet to hear God’s audible voice, although I have often felt led by God in more subtle ways. My dad always believed that God uses the logic and the passion He’s given us to help direct us, and I believe that too. This must be the “gentle whisper” thing. The “still, small voice.”

So I headed off to Pittsburgh with no idea what God had in store for me—either personally or professionally—in that city.

It turned out that I was a wide receiver in the
NFL
… for about two months. I went through the minicamps and about two weeks of training camp; then, because of some injuries to other players, the Steelers moved me across the line of scrimmage to the defense, at safety.

I loved the challenge of learning a new position, and it was great to be in with Mel Blount, Donnie Shell, Jimmy Allen, and the rest of those guys. Fortunately for me, they were all willing to help, and our defensive coordinator, Bud Carson, was a genius. I absorbed everything I could from him. In fact, I was so busy studying and watching game films that the coaches let me borrow a 16mm projector so I could watch them in my room. Unfortunately, the projector somehow interfered with the television reception—causing “snow” on the veteran players’ TV screen.

In addition to many great players, that team included some really solid Christians. Because of our physical and rough style of play, we weren’t necessarily seen as a group of believers. But even head coach Chuck Noll, who was a devout Catholic, often used Bible verses to inspire us. When Mark Brunell, Tony Boselli, Kyle Brady, and other Jacksonville Jaguars players were criticized in the late 1990s for not being tough enough on the football field because they were Christians, I could only think of our Steelers teams of the 1970s and smile.

Larry Brown, Jon Kolb, Donnie Shell, and John Stallworth all really worked hard to put God first in everything they did, every day. “What would Jesus do?” they asked, well before bracelets and bumper stickers made that phrase popular. Donnie, in particular, was one of the most fired-up Christians I had ever met. He was the captain of the special teams when I arrived, and he was determined to become a starter on defense, even with the great players the Steelers had then. He and John Stallworth were best friends, and both were great examples for me.

Jon Kolb and Larry Brown, two of the biggest, strongest linemen I knew, both had mild, gentle spirits. When I arrived in Pittsburgh, they were still known as the Steel Curtain and had a tough, somewhat negative image. Once I stepped inside the circle, I realized how far from the truth that perception was. It was refreshing to see how different these guys were from any other group I had ever been around.

As I alluded to earlier, I had always had a problem with my temper. I often earned technical fouls in my high school basketball games and was known to lose my cool in football games as well. In high school and college, I was a perfectionist, usually riding my teammates rather than encouraging them.

“Venting,” I called it.

“Dumb,” my dad called it.

Our exchanges usually ran something like this:

“Did you change the referee’s call?”

“No.”

“Did it make the situation better?”

“No, but I felt better, and then I could focus.”

“Well, you might have felt better faster if you were thinking about the next play instead of taking three or four or ten plays to ‘vent.’ You waste a lot of emotion and energy in venting or in worrying about an injustice or something you can’t do anything about.”

That was excellent advice from my dad, but I wasn’t ready to listen. It wasn’t until those Steelers invited me into their Bible study that I really began to change. There I was exposed to guys I respected who were constantly in God’s Word—always praying and reading their Bibles together. These professional players were not the weak and the meek; they were some of the biggest, toughest guys I had ever met. And yet they were drawing their strength and purpose from God.

I had known from a young age that I was going to heaven, but I had never fully engaged God and let Him direct my life moment by moment until I saw those guys doing it. I had been a good kid, by and large; I stayed out of trouble, was usually polite, and stood up for my values. Yet the concept of putting God first in
everything
I did hadn’t been my primary focus. Finally I understood, and I started to move from being a casual Christian to a fully committed follower of Jesus.

My crash course in playing safety must have worked, because I was still on the team as we headed into the final cuts before the regular season. Some of my success resulted from my efforts to absorb the defensive scheme by asking questions and watching film on my own, but a good bit of it stemmed from the fact that I bought into Coach Noll’s approach so quickly.

At the Steelers minicamp, shortly after the draft, I had taken to heart Coach Noll’s words about what it took to win in the National Football League.

“Champions don’t beat themselves,” he told us. “If you want to win, do the ordinary things better than anyone else does—day in and day out. We’re not going to fool people or outscheme them. We’re just going to outplay them. Because we’ll know what we’re doing. When we get into a critical situation, we won’t have to think. We’ll play fast and fundamentally sound.”

Chuck Noll developed much of his coaching philosophy from the legendary Paul Brown, and I got mine from Chuck. I tell people that I’m from the Paul Brown school of football.