Someone will want him. They always do.
This time, the name is Cecil Collins. He’s a presumably gifted running back who, despite playing only six games in his college career, may be selected as high as the first round in next weekend’s NFL draft.
It seems the 5-foot-10-inch, 215-pound running back, who was featured recently in Sports Illustrated, runs a 4.4 in the 40, the ultimate barometer for football players who may or may not have a prison record, a history of sexual assault and a penchant for lying.
Collins has all three, but he could be anybody. The NFL, like its pro sports brethren, has a rich tradition of giving athletes second chances, even when it’s for the fourth and fifth times.
An entire book published last year and cleverly titled “Pros and Cons–The Criminals Who Play in the NFL,” written by Jeff Benedict and Don Yaeger, is devoted to such a subject. It reveals that one of every five NFL players has been charged with a serious crime, such as rape, kidnapping, drug trafficking or homicide.
After testing positive three times for marijuana at LSU, Collins was charged twice within a 12-day period last summer of forcing his way into apartments in the building where he lived, the first time allegedly sexually assaulting the 17-year-old roommate of a woman he knew. After getting kicked off the team, Collins transferred to Division I-AA McNeese State, where he failed another drug test, this time violating a judge’s order, and spent 28 days in jail.
Now he looks forward to moving on to the next level, and the NFL only can hope he’s referring to football.
The question is not whether Collins has changed his ways. Naturally, he says he has, but there is absolutely no way of knowing if this is true. For Randy Moss, so far it has been. For Lawrence Phillips and many others, it has not.
The Bears took a chance of sorts last year on running back Bam Morris, twice suspended by the NFL for drug violations, twice arrested–once for possession of 6 pounds of marijuana in his car and once for assaulting a woman–and once imprisoned for violating his probation.
But his off-the-field problems were really never at issue. He was low-risk because he came cheap and the Bears had no reason to think they would ever need him to be their featured back. Frankly, we all probably went easy on Morris, who has stayed clean and ended up having a productive season in Kansas City, for the very fact that he was inconsequential to the team.
That’s the funny thing about morality and sports. It comes into play only if the individual in question can actually make an impact. Otherwise, it’s easy to pass, easy to say: “He’s not our kind of people. We only want players with good character.”
Collins is in the first group, thought to be the fourth-best running back in the draft based on his recent workouts and the highlight of his incredibly brief college career–a three-game span in 1997 when he rushed for 583 yards on 69 carries for LSU.
The rest of the time he was sitting out as a Proposition 48 casualty, rehabilitating a leg injury or fulfilling other commitments, such as running back and forth to court. Now he is ready to become a millionaire, and no doubt will find a suitable employer. Some team surely will use Moss as a positive example of giving a person another chance to become a productive member of society. Shouldn’t any convicted felon, they will argue, be allowed the opportunity to make a living once he has paid his debt to society?
That’s the game of moral handball some NFL team will play with the media. Heck, who knows? Maybe it will end up being the Bears. Whoever it is, that team will then have to hope Collins doesn’t merely blow his second chance, but hurt someone in the process.
If he does, of course, the owner and GM will shake their heads, the coach will cut him and everyone will wonder how the bum could possibly destroy the trust and generosity of others.
There always will be an answer. “He would have been in trouble anyway,” they’ll say. “At least we gave him a chance.”
And that’s all well and good.
I just don’t want to root for the team that does.
