Deadly Goals

by Wilt Browning

  For a time, that seemed enough. With less than seven minutes to play and facing a crucial third down, Kenworthy kept the ball on a scramble in an attempt to pick up the needed five yards for a first down. He got only one, and Guilford faced a fourth-and-four situation.

  But an Elon player was charged with unsportsmanlike conduct after the play. The 15-yard penalty gave Guilford a first down and hope. A pushing penalty would later cost the Christians five more yards on a third-and-ten situation. And when Kenworthy found flanker Reggie Peace on an 18-yard pass play, Guilford had a first down at the Elon 11 with 5:27 left to play.

  Moments later, Kenworthy dramatically kept the ball on a scramble play that left Guilford just a yard short of the Elon end zone on first down.

  For three plays in a row, Elon’s defense was magnificent, stopping the Quakers for no gain. But on fourth down, Guilford running back Johnny Hines leaped over both lines at right tackle and tumbled into the end zone for the touchdown. Guilford had a 13-12 lead with just three minutes and 11 seconds to play.

  Elon had another chance to win in the closing seconds of the game. At the Guilford 31-yard line with eight seconds to play, Elon only needed a 48-yard field goal to win, but Elon head coach Mackey Carden knew that his kicker had never hit one from that far.

  He called instead for a short pass to the sideline and a quick step out of bounds to stop the clock. With luck, Elon would pick up eight to ten yards, moving the ball within range for a field goal with two or three seconds left for the attempt.

  But it was Guilford that got lucky on the play.

  When Elon quarterback Sam Fromhart took the snap and quickly dropped back to pass, he collided with one of his own players. Thrown off balance, Fromhart struggled to regain his footing but suddenly felt the pressure of an on-rushing Quaker lineman. In his attempt to elude the tackler, Fromhart lost control of the ball. Before Fromhart could recover, the eight seconds had ticked away and the game had come to an end.

  Guilford had one of the most important victories in the college’s history, and roommates Lamar and Pernell had been among the defensive stars. Lamar had intercepted an Elon pass to stop one scoring threat, and Pernell had made seven solo tackles.

  In the excitement of the victory, Pernell ripped off his helmet and grabbed Lamar in a bear hug, then he rushed off to hug several other teammates and finally Coach Saunders. Although he’d had no dazzling returns or interceptions, he thought that he had played the best game of his life. While the celebration on the field was dying down, he felt a tug at the sleeve of his jersey and turned to see a silver-haired woman dressed in Elon College colors.

  “Mister Jefferson,” she said. “I must tell you that watching you play today was certainly worth the price of admission.” Then she was gone. But her words lingered. A decade later Pernell still considered them to be one of his greatest compliments as a football player.

  Head Coach Charlie Forbes told Greensboro sportswriter Tom Northington that this win had been his best in his 11 years at Guilford. When the national NAIA rankings were announced two days later, Guilford had moved up to No. 4. Elon had dropped to seventh.

  A week after the Elon game, Guilford beat Bridgewater College 35-7. The game was so one-sided that Charlie Forbes used four quarterbacks, including three freshmen. The Quakers were suddenly 6-0. Only once in the past ten years had Guilford won as many as six games in a single season. On Monday, the team became No. 3 in the national rankings.

  “People yell at me from across campus now, ‘Congratulations, coach!’” Charlie Forbes told a reporter that week. “We’re beginning to become known, and that has never happened here before.”

  Pernell, the team’s star, was getting even more attention than his coach, enjoying a fame few athletes, including M.L. Carr and Lloyd Free, had ever known at Guilford. He knew that his contributions to the team were far greater than his own remarkable plays. He had encouraged other key members of the team to begin using steroids, and many of them had followed his example with similar gains in strength. Although he had lost precise count, Pernell later estimated that more than 20 of his teammates were stacking steroids.

  Pernell and his teammates had become campus heroes. But that was about to end On an Indian summer Saturday at the end of October, Guilford’s offense fumbled the ball six times in a game against Hampden-Sydney College and watched as three of those fumbles turned into scores for their opponents. Hampden-Sydney won 31-17.

  Since the victory over Elon, Forbes had been worried about just such a game, and now the coach got tough. He lectured his players about commitments and goals, never telling them that his own expectations had been so low in late summer. And the following Saturday, he stormed through the dressing room ranting and raving at halftime with his team trailing Salisbury State 14-7. His lecture worked. In the final 30 minutes of the game, Guilford scored 31 points and safety Tim Everhart intercepted two passes to post another victory, 38-21. Once again, Guilford’s prospects as an NAIA playoff team looked good.

  Though Pernell was still playing well, he had not had the dramatic impact that he’d had at the beginning of the season. In the next game against Catawba, he recovered a fumble deep in Guilford territory to stop one threat, but it wasn’t enough. Catawba, which had lost five games in a row, upset the Quakers 19-17, eliminating any possibility that Guilford would be selected for the national playoffs.

  The season ended dismally on a chilly Saturday in Athens, West Virginia, where Concord College beat Guilford 21-9. Guilford’s only touchdown came on a 90-yard kickoff return by Pernell in the fourth quarter.

  Pernell’s season had been sterling, even if his team’s had not. He was the leading punt returner in the nation, and he soon would be named to the NAIA All-American team for 1984. He even had made a dramatic comeback academically and was carrying a grade point average of just less than 3.0 in his physical education major, though the grades on his other subjects remained low.

  Because he had had an outstanding season, Pernell’s photograph appeared once more in the News & Record and his German professor at Bennett College once again took note of it.

  “Well, Mister Jefferson, may I congratulate you on a fine football season,” he said after a class in mid-November. “I see, though, that the newspaper once again ran the wrong picture.”

  “I saw that.”

  “Sir, whoever you are, I perhaps can accept that the newspaper may have made such a mistake once. But I cannot accept that it would happen twice. I do not believe that you are Pernell Jefferson. Who are you?”

  The conversation ended abruptly. The student gathered his books and left. The Bennett College professor reported the incident to the Guilford College administrators.

  9.

  Trouble In Chapel Hill

  AFTER HER GRADUATION, Susan Demos had moved to Chapel Hill, where she had taken a job with a grocery brokerage company and had moved into an apartment near the campus of the University of North Carolina. She had continued seeing Pernell, although far less frequently, and had attended most of his football games in his final season at Guilford. Although she continued to suffer from his periodic outbursts of violence and verbal abuse, she remained devoted to him, and after he was named All-American, she bought a used, low-mileage Datsun 240, adorned it with a personalized license plate—NAIA A-A—and drove it to Guilford College, where she presented the keys to Pernell.

  This was not the only gift he received in the wake of his fine season and subsequent honors. He also was wearing a big, crested gold ring bearing the inscription NAIA All-American. The continuing adulation gave him a swagger and confidence that he’d never known before, so much so that he didn’t seem concerned when in December he was notified that he would have to appear before a faculty committee investigating honor code violations involving his German class at Bennett College, charges which could result in his expulsion from Guilford. Indeed, Pernell responded by threatening to “blow the lid off this place” if administrators pressed the matter.

&n
bsp; After learning of the threat, a member of the committee informed athletic director Herb Appenzeller and invited him to take part in the hearing, which was convened in an oak-paneled room in the administration building. Sitting at a table facing the committee, Pernell brazenly attempted to carry through with his threat.

  “Ever since I’ve been at Guilford, people have given me money,” he said, knowing that such revelations, if made public, could bring censure and disrepute to the school’s athletic program and to the college itself.

  He took the big gold ring from his finger and held it up for all to see.

  “One influential alumnus gave me this ring a few days ago,” he said. “Another has given me a car…”

  “Mister Chairman,” Herb Appenzeller called out, interrupting the meeting. “May I request a brief recess so that I can speak privately to Mister Jefferson? It will take no more than five minutes, and then we can continue.”

  “Any objections?” the chairman of the committee asked. No one responded.

  “Five minutes,” the chairman said.

  Appenzeller and Pernell retreated to a nearby room. Appenzeller did the talking. Forcefully.

  “Pernell,” he said, “I know you’re lying. I expect you to go back in there and tell the truth, no matter what the truth is. If you keep lying there’s nothing I can do to help you. If you tell the truth, I will do everything I can to help you get through this. Do you understand?”

  “Yes sir,” Pernell said, suddenly contrite.

  “Then, let’s go.”

  Pernell was a different person when he returned to the hearing room.

  “The truth is,” he told the committee, “a girlfriend gave me this ring. Another girlfriend gave me the car to use. It’s not even mine. And no one has ever given me any money. I’ve worked in the summer and during the off-season for my money.” Indeed, Pernell had become so proficient in the art of weightlifting that several Greensboro spas employed him part-time as an instructor for much of the year.

  Pernell then admitted that he had persuaded a friend to pose for him in his German classes. He apologized and asked for another chance.

  Pernell waited outside the meeting room while the committee discussed his case. It seemed to take much of the morning. When Pernell was called back into the room, he was let off with a light sentence. The committee expelled him but suspended the expulsion and allowed him to continue his classes during his final semester on condition that he take another German class, this time at Guilford. If he completed the course, maintaining a C average, the expulsion would be removed from his record. He quickly accepted the decision.

  While Pernell had won a reprieve, Susan had not.

  When she came to Greensboro driving a car Pernell did not recognize, he asked her about it. She attempted to sidestep the question. Later, though, he confronted her about it.

  “I know about your car,” he said. “I found out what happened.”

  Susan said nothing.

  “Get your coat on,” Pernell ordered.

  “Where’re we going?” she asked.

  “We’re going to Chapel Hill.”

  Outside, the early spring day had turned leaden and the temperature was dropping. Freezing rain began falling as Pernell followed Susan to Chapel Hill, and ice began forming on power lines and tree limbs. By the time they arrived, even the ground was frozen over.

  Susan was filled with dread, but when they got to her apartment, Pernell said little. It was as almost as though he had forgotten why they had made the trip. Still, Pernell was in a dark mood, and that always made her wary. She settled in a chair and picked up a book.

  “Where’s your car?” Pernell asked a few minutes later.

  “I thought you said you’d found out what happened to it,” she responded.

  “I want you to tell me about it,” he said.

  “I let a friend borrow it.”

  Pernell let the subject drop for a while, but he soon returned to it.

  “When’s she going to bring your car back?”

  “He,” she said, correcting him.

  “What did you say?”

  “I said it’s a he, not a she.”

  “Who is he?” Pernell pressed.

  “Just a friend of mine.”

  Susan realized that the conversation had gone too far. She knew the pattern all too well. First questions. Then anger. Then calm, followed by gentler questions, as if she were a child and he the father. Then anger again. And violence. Inevitable violence.

  “Well, when’s he going to bring your car back?” Pernell asked.

  “Pernell, it’ll be a while,” she said, trying to diffuse the issue.

  “Call him and tell him you want it back right now.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “He can’t bring it home right away because there was a little accident. He wrecked the car.”

  Pernell exploded.

  “You stupid bitch!” he shouted into her face. “You nigger whore!”

  He ranted on before suddenly calming himself.

  “Okay,” he said. “Let’s go over this again. What, exactly, did you do?”

  “I loaned my car to a friend.”

  “And what happened?”

  “He had a little wreck.”

  As his inquisition continued, Pernell grew angrier and angrier, the veins in his neck bulging, and as Susan steeled herself for the inevitable, he yanked her from her chair and tossed her across the floor. Quickly he was on her, pinning her shoulders to the floor with his knees.

  He slapped her, then hit her again, this time with his fist. Once more his fist smashed into her face. This time the ring on his right hand, a ring Ruth had given him, cut into her flesh just above her left eye. She felt searing pain as she struggled to free herself. Suddenly, she broke away, made a dash for the door, and ran down the steps toward the parking lot. But Pernell was right behind her. He caught her on the small lawn and threw her to the ice-coated ground. The hit was vicious, but Pernell didn’t stop with that. He grabbed her head, and ground her face into the ice. She felt as if a dozen knives were slicing her brow, cheeks and nose.

  Still enraged, Pernell lifted her from the ground, spun her around to face him, and saw the blood streaming from her face. She wanted to cry. Instead, she stared into Pernell’s face, not bothering to wipe the blood away, forcing him to see what he had done. Even as the blood began to flow into her eyes, she did not blink. She saw Pernell’s rage evaporate from his face almost instantly, and she started to cry. He lifted her sobbing into his arms, carried her to his car and drove her to the nearby university hospital, where an emergency room doctor stitched closed a gaping wound over Susan’s left eye.

  “How’d this happen?” the doctor asked as he worked.

  “Just a little disagreement.”

  “Your husband or boyfriend?”

  “Boyfriend,” she said after a moment of hesitation.

  “You’ll have quite a scar there,” he told her when he had finished. “But almost all of it will be hidden by your eyebrow and I don’t think anyone will be able to see it.”

  “Thanks,” she said but she was thinking something else: I have lots of scars nobody sees.

  “Now, I’m not going to admit you to the hospital, but I want you to remain here in the room for a while until the anesthesia wears off,” the doctor said. “A nurse will be by in a bit to check on you.”

  Excusing himself, he left the room. Within 30 minutes, a Chapel Hill police officer arrived and began to question Susan. Reluctantly, she told him what Pernell had done.

  “Where is he now?” the officer asked.

  “I think he’s in the waiting room.”

  The officer told Susan that he had to charge Pernell with assault, but she pleaded with him not to do it. “If you do, he’ll beat me. I won’t testify against him, and I won’t press charges.”

  The officer told her that he had no choice. He arrested Pernell in the waiting room and took hi
m to a magistrate’s office, where he was quickly released on his own recognizance. He returned to the hospital and drove Susan home, but he didn’t beat her.

  “It was as though he had done what he had to do and it was over,” she recalled years later. “He didn’t talk about it. That’s the way it always was. It was as though I had behaved in a way he felt was not appropriate, and he had to punish me.”

  Two weeks later, Pernell returned to Chapel Hill, where a judge found him guilty of assault and fined him $200. Susan paid the fine.

  10.

  The Pro Treatment

  PERNELL THOUGHT THAT HIS FOOTBALL CAREER had ended, but soon after the incident in Chapel Hill, Tommy Saunders called to tell him that two National Football League scouts, one from the Cleveland Browns, the other from the New York Jets, had asked to see game films featuring him.

  “Stay ready,” his former coach told him. Pernell had continued his weightlifting, but now he intensified his daily workouts, adding 40-yard sprints to his regimen. Excited that he might become a professional football player, Susan occasionally timed his sprints and ran with him, encouraging him. Pernell also adjusted his daily intake of steroids, adding to the stack, reaching for more strength.

  Within a day of each other, the two scouts arrived on campus. Each discussed Pernell’s abilities with his coaches, then met with Pernell and timed him in the 40-yard dash, a standard procedure in the NFL.

  Both the Browns and the Jets had been attracted by Pernell’s ability to return kicks, but both saw his potential beyond special teams work. The Jets talked to Pernell about moving to the offensive backfield as a halfback. New York’s star running back, Freeman McNeil, had suffered an injury late in the 1984 season, and the Jets were looking for someone who could back him up. Pernell would be used primarily on third-down situations, he was told.