Deadly Goals

by Wilt Browning

  But the Jets’ scout had something else he wanted to talk about.

  “How long you been on ’em?” he asked.

  “On what?” Pernell said, trying to appear innocent.

  “Steroids.”

  Pernell never had been honest with his college coaches about his steroid use, but this was another matter. His future, he now knew, could be riding on his answer.

  “How’d you know?” he asked, choosing not to dodge the issue.

  “Oh, there are always signs. Your build. Your stamina. The puffiness in your face. That sort of thing. Adds up to steroids; probably for a long time.”

  “More than two years,” Pernell confessed. “Closer to three.”

  The Browns wanted to use Pernell to return kicks, an area in which their needs were acute, and as a weak-side defensive back. If their scout detected steroid signs, nothing was said.

  Pernell was uncertain about his chances after meeting with the scouts. He was certain that he had ruined his chances with the Jets by admitting his steroid use, and he didn’t want to let his hopes get too high about the Browns. But Saunders thought he had a chance as a kick returner and encouraged him to stay ready. On May 4, only days after his meeting with the scouts, both teams telephoned contract offers through Saunders within 15 minutes of each other. Though both offers called for a $45,000 base salary, there were substantial potential differences. The Jets would write Pernell a check for $1,200 for signing and would include production clauses, most based upon games played and yards gained. The Browns would pay $1,500 for signing and would add $10,000 if Pernell were on the roster on opening day, another $5,000 if he earned a place on the NFL’s all-rookie team, plus various incentives based upon performance. Both teams said they needed a quick decision.

  Saunders called Pernell’s dormitory room, where he and Lamar were packing for summer break. Pernell was getting ready to go to Benson to visit his son, and he and Lamar were talking about getting together afterward when the phone rang.

  “It’s for you, Pernell,” Lamar announced. “Coach Saunders.”

  Saunders couldn’t contain his excitement.

  “Both of ’em want you,” he practically shouted into the phone.

  Pernell excitedly jotted down the figures as Saunders read them off. Saunders had to remove the phone from his ear when his star defensive back yelled the news to Lamar. Pernell was soon on his way to Saunders’ office, where he called his mother.

  “Mama, I’ve got a chance to play in the NFL,” he told her.

  “Where?” she asked. Pernell could hear the excitement in her voice.

  “Cleveland or the Jets,” he answered.

  “Where are the Jets?” she asked, almost breathless.

  “New York, Mama.”

  There was a brief silence on the other end of the line. “You sign with Cleveland,” she said, surprising Pernell. “I don’t want my baby in a big city like New York.”

  Pernell also tried to call Susan at the food brokerage office where she worked but couldn’t reach her.

  For the next 30 minutes, he and Saunders weighed his options. In the end, Pernell chose the Browns, not because his mother had wanted to keep him out of New York, but because the Browns played on grass and wanted him for the position he had played at Guilford.

  At 11:30, he called home again.

  “Mama,” he said, “I’m signing with the Browns.”

  “I’m proud of you, Pernell,” she told him, then laughed. “You can take care of Mama for a while now.”

  Quickly, Pernell had his agent, Tom Martinelli of Yonkers, N.Y., phone his decision to both the Jets and the Browns. Within minutes, the Browns were on the phone to Saunders. They had made a reservation for Pernell on a 1 p.m. flight to Cleveland through Charlotte. Pernell grabbed a bag from his room, and Saunders rushed him to the nearby airport for the short hop to Charlotte.

  When he boarded a second plane at Charlotte and took his seat, an athletic-looking young man in the seat beside him introduced himself.

  Unable to hide his pride, Pernell told him that he’d just signed with the Browns and was on his way to Cleveland.

  “Maybe we’ll make the team together,” said Greg Allen, an acclaimed running back from Florida State who’d been chosen as Cleveland’s No. 1 pick in the second round of the draft. When the plane landed in Cleveland, TV cameras and reporters were waiting for Allen and Pernell basked in the deflected attention.

  A white limousine whisked the two young football players to comfortable rooms in the Helmsley Hotel in Berea, Ohio, and that night Pernell called Susan in Chapel Hill.

  “Guess where I am,” he said teasingly.

  Sensing the excitement in his voice, she tried to be imaginative, but nothing unusual came to mind, and after a couple of lame guesses, Pernell suddenly blurted, “Ohio.

  “The Browns flew me up this afternoon. Tomorrow morning I sign a contract with the Cleveland Browns and I’ll be here for the rest of the week in their mini-camp.”

  Susan shrieked with joy. “She was so, so proud of me,” he later wrote to a friend. “She really loved me.”

  Browns players were required to be in mini-camp for three days, but could stay as long as five. Pernell stayed for the full five and spent much time talking with two of the NFL’s best defensive backs, Hanford Dixon and Frank Minnifield, hoping to get tips that would help him make the team. “They even taught me how to cheat by holding the jersey of the receiver,” Pernell said. “Those two guys took a liking to me.”

  Chris Rockins and Don Rogers, second-year defensive backs from Oklahoma State and UCLA respectively, also took to Pernell, inviting him to parties twice.

  When the camp ended, Pernell flew home with the $350 he had been paid for the five days, plus his $1,500 signing bonus.

  “I sent part of it home to Mama,” he later recalled.

  Back in Greensboro, Pernell drove immediately to Chapel Hill, and that night he took Susan to their favorite Chinese restaurant and told her about his week. She’d never seen him so excited or happy. This, she thought, might be the start of a new life for her and Pernell.

  11.

  The End Of Dreaming

  SUSAN HAD REGULARLY REMINDED Pernell how important a college degree would be after his football playing days had ended, but at the end of his senior year, Pernell still needed six credit hours to complete his degree in physical education. Until the offer had come from the Browns, he had planned to attend summer school with his friend Lamar, but his pro contract changed that plan. His degree would have to wait.

  After the mini-camp, Pernell moved in with Susan in Chapel Hill. He had eight weeks to get ready for rookie camp, which would open at Lakeland Community College in Mentor, Ohio, in late July. Susan became his personal trainer, accompanying Pernell almost every evening to the soccer fields on the campus of the University of North Carolina, where she pushed him like a drill sergeant.

  Although he was anxious about training camp, with Susan’s encouragement, Pernell was growing more confident by the day.

  “I did not have any doubt about making the team,” he said years later.

  Big changes lay ahead for Susan as well as Pernell. A little more than a month after he was to report to training camp, Susan would be moving to Miami to work on a master’s degree in sports administration at St. Thomas University.

  She saw her move as a chance to start over. Her feelings about Pernell were in conflict. She wanted to be away from him and make a life of her own, but she still loved him, too, and knew that she would miss him.

  On the night before Pernell was to leave, he and Susan had dinner at the Chinese restaurant where they had become regulars and spent the evening talking about where the future might take them. It was clear that Pernell saw her as part of his life for a long time to come, but she was careful not to make any long-term promises.

  The next morning, Pernell held Susan in a long, intense embrace. “I’m proud of you,” she whispered, then stood watching as he drove off
to Greensboro to catch the flight to Cleveland.

  Pernell thought the Lakeland campus where rookie camp was being held looked a lot like Guilford’s. But here he was no hero; nobody paid him any special attention. Yet, after a quick assessment of his competition, he thought his chances of making the team were good.

  During the 1984 season, former Boston College star wide receiver Brian Brennan had been used as Cleveland’s primary punt returner. But the Browns, the last of the great tight end teams (the incomparable Ozzie Newsome gained more than 1,000 yards as a receiver in 1984), wanted Brennan to take a bigger role in the team’s offensive plans. He was too valuable as a wide receiver to risk injury as a punt returner.

  Running back Earnest Byner, whose college career Pernell had followed at East Carolina University in Greenville, N.C., had been Cleveland’s workhorse on kickoff returns. The Browns entered training camp hoping to find a return specialist who could save wear and tear on him as well.

  Pernell had done both at Guilford College, and on at least one level, he had done it better than anyone in the nation.

  The Browns also had brought in free agent Todd St. Louis out of tiny Augustana College in South Dakota as a kick return candidate. Nebraska’s Shane Swanson, who had been drafted in the 12th round, was also a potential punt returner.

  Wide receiver Bruce Davis, a nine-year veteran out of Purdue, had been the team’s second leading kickoff return specialist in 1984 and was still there if needed. Wide receiver Nate Johnson, who had played briefly in the Canadian Football League, rounded out the list of players who would get chances to return kicks in training camp.

  In the early days at camp, Pernell also worked as a defensive back just as he had done in mini-camp back in May, taking his turn with Minnifield, Dixon and the rest of the veterans.

  His first phone calls to Susan were hopeful, full of enthusiasm. He had broken up a pass to Ricky Feacher, and the coaches had noticed, he reported. And he had stepped in front of Dwight Walker for an interception in another practice session.

  “I’m having a good camp. I think they’re beginning to notice,” he told her one night in late July. “I’ve figured this thing out. Know what I do? I study one of the wide receiver’s playbooks. So when they come on a pass pattern, I know about where they’re going to make their move and where they’re likely to break off a pattern. And I get there.

  “I’ve been jumping their bones. I got ’em wondering how in the world a rookie free agent from little Guilford College can run man-to-man like that.” Susan loved the boyish enthusiasm that now filled Pernell’s voice.

  All those evenings back in Chapel Hill when perspiration had poured from his body as he prepared for this week were now paying off, he told Susan. He knew that he was in the best condition of his life, and his confidence was at a peak. He felt strong enough to control his own destiny. Indeed, he felt so strong that he made a remarkable decision. For the first time in almost five years, he quit using steroids. Cold turkey.

  All NFL players had been warned that concern about the use of illegal drugs might soon prompt drug testing, and Pernell wanted to make certain that if testing came about, a positive finding wouldn’t threaten his budding career. Steroids had helped get him to this point, he reasoned, but he would do it on his own from here. It would be years before he would learn that stopping use of the drugs suddenly could have serious, even devastating consequences.

  Marty Schottenheimer, the Browns’ head coach, reminded Pernell of his college coach, Charlie Forbes. They both were about the same size, on the short side, like Pernell. Both were well built, even though their playing days were long past; and both had the same fair complexions and sandy hair, neatly trimmed. Neither smiled much. Quiet and strong, Schottenheimer, like Forbes, was a man who talked little but seemed to miss nothing. Pernell wondered if Schottenheimer even knew his name, until an incident in the training room following practice one day.

  “Jefferson!” Schottenheimer called out forcefully. Everyone in the room turned to look.

  “Yes, sir,” Pernell responded loudly, as if he were a Marine recruit.

  “Do you love football, Jefferson?” the head coach shouted, his voice echoing.

  “Yes, sir!” Pernell responded enthusiastically.

  “Attaboy, Jefferson,” Schottenheimer said, then was gone. Some of the veteran players only smiled. At that moment Pernell felt like a rookie and wished Schottenheimer had not chosen him.

  For two weeks, the Browns practiced twice daily in the hot Ohio sun, scrimmaging several times each week, and day by day, Pernell’s optimism waned. He was beginning to feel weak and a step too slow. At first, he blamed the pace of the practice sessions, and the dining room conversations he had with other players made him feel that he was not alone.

  When Schottenheimer gave his team a two-day break in the middle of training camp, Pernell flew home. His brother Willie met him at the airport.

  “Man, this is different,” he said on the drive from the Raleigh-Durham Airport to Benson. “I don’t think I can make it All these guys are bigger and faster than I am. This is a different league.”

  Willie had never seen his brother like this. For as long as he could remember, Pernell had been an optimist. For years, Willie thought there was nothing Pernell could not do. But this was a different Pernell. He had suddenly changed, and he seemed almost fearful.

  Pernell visited for only a few hours, then began the long drive back to training camp in a new gold Pontiac Fiero that he had purchased in late spring when he had been so full of hope. After he left, Willie told his mother, “Pernell’s going to quit.”

  “No, son,” she said. “Pernell has never been a quitter.”

  “He will be this time, Mama. I just don’t think Pernell would have taken that car if he thought he was going to make the team. I think he took the car because he’s thinking about coming back home.”

  Back in camp, Pernell felt homesick for the first time in his life. He felt alone, and he began falling into a depression that grew deeper and darker as the days went on, but he didn’t connect it to his abstinence from steroids.

  As his depression worsened, Pernell began to think that he didn’t belong. He thought about P.J., Susan and Lamar and wanted to see them. He began to wish that he’d stayed in Greensboro, gone to summer school and finished his degree. His legs felt heavy on the field, and he worried that his strength was failing. After practice one day, Nate Johnson, a second-year wide receiver who was battling Pernell for one of the kick return positions, fell in beside him.

  “How ya doin’?” Johnson asked.

  “I ought to be doing better,” Pernell said, not bothering to hide the pessimism he felt.

  “Rookie,” Johnson said, “you looked around yet?”

  “What do you mean?” Pernell asked.

  “I mean, take a look at who’s here,” Johnson said, speaking low, as though he wanted no one else to hear. “We’re all superstars up here, man. Guys from big schools. Guys who have played pro football. Where’d you say you went to school?”

  “Guilford College,” Pernell answered.

  “Where?”

  “Guilford College, in Greensboro, North Carolina.”

  “What’s a Guilford College, man? Never heard of it. Listen, guys from small schools like that just ain’t going to make it here.” Johnson said.

  Unaware that Johnson himself was from tiny Hillsdale College, Pernell felt his spirits sinking. He never knew if the conversation with Johnson was a classic rookie put-down, or if the former Canadian Football League veteran was merely practicing a bit of reverse psychology in an effort to lead him out of the doldrums. At the time, Johnson’s motivation didn’t matter, his words sent Pernell’s mood spiraling downward.

  “Susan, I ain’t going to make it,” he said over the phone that night.

  “You’ve got to give yourself a chance,” she said, pleading. “It’s only been—what—two weeks?”

  Even through the long distance line, she cou
ld feel the depression in his voice. She had seen it coming, mentally charting his moods that had been growing darker with each call. Now this. This was a Pernell she had never known. Something had changed drastically.

  For more than three years, Pernell had told her again and again that she wasn’t good enough, that he was the important one, because athletics made him special. Now he was saying that he wasn’t good enough and the sound of it frightened Susan. Pernell, she realized, had lost all his swagger. Susan took no joy in the realization that the tables were now turned.

  “Listen, you’ve got what it takes,” she said, attempting to encourage him. They talked for a long time, Pernell mostly listening. But nothing Susan said seemed to lift his spirits.

  As soon as she had hung up, Susan called Lamar.

  “I’m worried,” she said, going on to fill him in on her conversation with Pernell. “Call and see if you can cheer him up.”

  Later that night, in separate calls, Susan and Lamar offered to drive to Ohio and stay as long as necessary to see Pernell through this crisis, although doing so could endanger Lamar’s standing in his senior season on the football team and Susan would have to postpone her plans to get her master’s degree. But Pernell rejected their offers. Over and over, they reminded him that he was at an important crossroads in his life, but he seemed not to hear them.

  The Browns already were making the first roster cuts, and as Pernell dressed for practice each morning, he couldn’t help but notice the freshly emptied lockers that stood as symbols of lost dreams.

  He imagined what it would be like to be told that there would be no place for him on the team, and he couldn’t help but wonder if he truly loved football as much as he had assured Marty Schottenheimer that he did.

  “What if I get cut?” he asked Susan on the phone. Until now, Pernell had been a star athlete all his life, from the very youngest baseball teams back in Benson through his three-sport high school career at South Johnston High School, and on through four sometimes rocky seasons at Guilford. Until now, however, the possibility that he might not be good enough had never occurred to him. Now it seemed to haunt him, spoiling his sleep and stealing his appetite.