Jeanette Boyd remembers the times her famous nephew didn’t have enough money to do his laundry. And the times he’d have to reverse the charges on a telephone call from Ann Arbor, which is in the same area code.
She understands more than most people how hard it was for her nephew, Tyrone Wheatley, to come back for his final year at Michigan instead of taking millions of dollars as a first-round NFL draft pick. She raised him in this tough Detroit suburb.
“There were times when he’d go out with his friends at school and he couldn’t pay his share,” she said. “I know it was embarrassing.”
Wheatley’s decision to stay in school sent shock waves through college football’s off-season. Most observers had assumed the big, speedy tailback would, as coach Gary Moeller later phrased it, “take the money and run.”
After all, the 22-year-old had already enjoyed a dream college career. He had led his team to the 1992 Big 10 Conference championship. He had sparked a Rose Bowl victory with one of the most dramatic performances the grand old game has seen-235 yards and three touchdowns in only 15 carries. He hadn’t experienced a national title, but then, neither had any other Wolverines since 1948.
Not only that, but Wheatley had come of age on a campus that had witnessed a parade of early-departing talent, including basketball stars Chris Webber, Jalen Rose and Juwan Howard.
So when Wheatley walked into Ann Arbor’s Schembechler Hall last Jan. 10-the deadline for underclassmen to declare for the draft-everyone figured he was going to bolt as if he had seen the goal line with one safety to beat.
When he didn’t, he immediately became the leader in the 1994 Heisman Trophy derby. And strangers and friends alike praised him as a standard-bearer for education.
“I was surprised to some degree-to a large degree,” Moeller said. “Hopefully, he’ll send a message to a lot of kids that he did the right thing.”
Wheatley isn’t comfortable in the role of academic champion; he insists that what’s right for him might not be right for future budding superstars.
“I’m going to do what’s best for me, but by the same token, if they follow me, they’re going to have a good path to follow,” he said.
Wheatley, who’s on time to receive a bachelor’s degree in education, isn’t exactly gambling away his future.
For starters, he said he has designs on being one of the top two or three NFL picks next spring; he estimates he would have gone as a fifth, sixth, seventh or eighth pick this year.
And like many college stars, he has taken out an insurance policy against a disabling injury. Such policies have become common in a time of big-buck contracts for NFL and NBA draftees.
“Every major college athlete-99 percent of them-has insurance of some kind,” said Marc Idelson, a sports underwriter for American Specialty Underwriters, Inc., of Woburn, Mass., whose products are endorsed by the NCAA.
Idelson said some policies pay off only if the athlete suffers a disabling injury. Others pay if an injury causes a player to lose value in the draft. The underwriter projects where the player would have gone if he’d been healthy.
Such athletic policies can pay as much as $2 million, Idelson said, with premiums that can range as high as $20,000.
Armed with insurance, Wheatley can try to limit the financial blow of a career-ending injury. But the policy won’t help him avoid heavy hits this fall.
Wheatley prides himself on his straight-ahead running style; he sometimes seems to aim his 6-foot-1-inch, 226-pound frame at tacklers instead of trying to maneuver it around them.
That makes him the target of extreme physical punishment, perhaps more susceptible to serious injury.
“There are only so many big hits in anyone’s body, even that body,” said one rival coach who doubts the wisdom of Wheatley’s decision.
Wheatley seems genuinely surprised by all the fuss over his decision. And while he scoffs at talk of injury, he concedes that Moeller probably won’t ask him to play on high-collision special teams this year. Last October, Wheatley hurt his shoulder trying to strip an Illinois punt returner.
“I could have made a wrong decision,” Wheatley said. “People say, `Not everybody has a chance to play in the NFL, and everybody has a chance to get a college degree.’ I’m going to do both.”
When Boyd hears that quote, her eyes light up. The 34-year-old group home manager knows the value of the higher education she never received.
“Tyrone is one of the few kids who understands the struggle,” she said. “And he knows that getting an education will help him overcome the struggle.”
The young Wheatley experienced the struggle firsthand. His father died when Wheatley was 2 years old. His mother, strapped by trying to raise three children, sent him as a youngster to live with Boyd, her husband Michael and their three children, and Wheatley’s grandmother, Beulah Clark.
Steady incomes kept the household afloat. The financial straits weren’t so dire that Wheatley had no choice but to go pro.
“I’m just happy we weren’t the kind of family that said, `Please, please take the money!’ ” Boyd said, pounding the sofa with her right hand.
The Boyd’s small ranch house sits on a tidy sidestreet, but only a few blocks to the east a pair of dreary liquor stores stand watch over the main thoroughfare, Middle Belt Road.
When Boyd can’t attend Wheatley’s games, she’ll throw open the front door and invite neighbors in to watch on TV. She used to mark the occasions by flying a maize and blue “M” flag in the front yard. But someone stole it last season.
“If you hang around on these streets, you’re going to end up dead or on drugs or a bum in the streets,” Clark said.
Detroit Metropolitan Airport is only five minutes down the road. But on a recent afternoon, a passing summer thunderstorm muffled the drone of jet engines.
Despite the dismal weather, all was bright inside the Boyds’ living room. A cabinet loaded with shiny trophies paid tribute to Wheatley’s career as an amateur track star. On the opposite wall hung various football plaques and photographs.
The largest portrays a smiling Wheatley, his left arm cradling a football and his right foot planted atop Michigan’s famous winged helmet. Wolverines are supposed to look menacing, but Wheatley seems quite content.
Cynics have sneered whenever Wheatley says he’s sticking around because he enjoys college life, but maybe it’s true.
Webber, now with the Golden State Warriors, once told Wheatley he’d had second thoughts about leaving Michigan after his sophomore year. Wheatley doesn’t criticize the ex-Wolverines who went out early, but he doesn’t want to trade places with them, at least not yet.
“They wanted to move on. They wanted to seize the moment. Some people want to wait,” Wheatley said.
“I’ve got the rest of my life to work and pay bills. I’m still a kid. I still have room for mistakes. After you go, there’s no room for mistakes.”
