Post by TheShadow on Oct 12, 2007 19:05:03 GMT -5
www.usatoday.com/
By Jim Halley, USA TODAY
The track at Robichaud High in Dearborn Heights, Mich., where Tyrone Wheatley once set state records, is bumpy and warped and there hasn't been a meet run there in several years. The oval, which surrounds the football field where Wheatley made his first steps toward a 10-year NFL career, is symptomatic of the area's decay.
Automaker jobs have been drying up for years, some real estate agents in Dearborn Heights and nearby Inkster work exclusively on foreclosure sales and 75% of the students at Robichaud are on the free lunch program.
Wheatley can't do much about the area's economy but he has turned around the school's football team.
The Bulldogs, after three forfeits because of an ineligible player, were 0-9 last year. This season, with Wheatley in his first year as head coach, Robichaud is 6-1 and headed to the state Class B playoffs for the first time in 13 years.
"It's not that I'm bringing anything different," he says. "All I'm asking of them is hard work, dedication and the understanding of what I'm telling them. What I'm telling them are the rudiments of football, the ABC's. Now my D's and E's may be a bit different."
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What's different is the connection Wheatley has with his players.
"He explains to them, 'There isn't anything you can tell me that I haven't seen or done yet,' " says Robert Brooks, Robichaud's athletic director. "They come from the same community that he comes from. They can look up to him and see that he's a great role model. He could have coached at a lot of different places, but he still bleeds (school colors) Red and Black."
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That road, like Robichaud's track, was sometimes bumpy. When Wheatley was 2, his father, also named Tyrone, was shot to death in Detroit. Wheatley was raised by his grandmother and he in turn often took responsibility for younger siblings and cousins when he was in high school.
At Michigan, he rushed for 4,186 yards and 47 touchdowns. In 1995, he was a first-round draft choice of the New York Giants. Early in his career, he was frequently hampered by injuries. His career picked up after he was traded to the Raiders in 1998 as he rushed for 936 yards in 1999 and 1,046 in 2000, but he also ran into controversy in Oakland.
In 2001, he was deluged by letters from animal lovers after he was quoted saying that dogfighting was "instinctive" and "motivational" in a Sports Illustrated article.
He says that he has an affinity for pit bulls, not for dogfighting.
"For those who don't know the life I have had, what I have been through, will never understand the quote," Wheatley says. "I don't apologize for it. I was just stating about the breed that I love and the determination of the breed."
In 2003, he was asked to testify in the federal grand jury that was investigating BALCO, though he never tested positive as a player for performance-enhancing drugs.
"I wasn't using the stuff and I testified because I knew of some people," Wheatley says. "That has nothing to do with what I'm about as a coach. The reason why I came back to coach is it is almost like putting my money where my mouth is. I would ask people from time to time 'Why are they doing so bad?' If you want to do something about it, then coach. I'm a kid who has been through the hardships, but not all of them, that these kids went through. I want a kid to enjoy the fruits of their labors, as I did."
Coaching both ways
Wheatley came back to Robichaud last November, not as a football coach, but to coach track, his first love. After he coached Robichaud to a conference title in track last spring, several friends and school administrators kept pushing him to try for the football job. Before he took the job as the school's football coach, he worked with Tampa Bay Buccaneers coach Jon Gruden, his former coach with the Raiders, this summer as part of the NFL's Minority Fellowship Internship Program.
At first, he says he was worried he would still be able to connect with teenagers.
"I was a little nervous," Wheatley said. "I remember coaches speaking about us, saying, 'Kids these days are just different. They don't make them like they used to.' Now I was the one thinking that. Are kids that different or is it that we're mature and looking at kids with different glasses? Just as it was when I played, you still have a group of guys who are very dedicated and will pay the price and then there are kids who are just there for the ride."
Once practice could officially begin at Robichaud, 35 players showed up. Now, there are 40 on the varsity and the same number on junior varsity.
"I told them, 'It's not going to get easy next week. None of the workouts are going to get easier. They're going to get harder but you're going to be able to bear it,' " Wheatley says. He tried various ways to make practice interesting and would even throw his 35-year-old body around in scrimmages.
"You can't be untouchable," he said. "We had fun. When two-a-days started, it was the excitement that you get when you get a new car, when it has that fresh new smell. The kids told me they had never had so much fun. Right then and there, I knew they were on their way."
The Bulldogs' first game was a 21-20 loss to Southwestern (Detroit).
"Immediately after the game, I told them that loss was on me. I had made a couple of calls where we were running the ball really well. I told my guys to run a post. (Our quarterback) underthrew the ball and they intercepted it. It was too early in the season to make that call. Two weeks after that, we make that throw."
The next week, the Bulldogs defeated Annapolis 30-12 and they won their next five games by a combined 169-56 score. Saturday, Robichaud plays its big rival, unbeaten Inkster High.
Millie Hursin, the principal at Tomlinson Elementary School, was a teacher at Robichaud when Wheatley was a student there, leading Robichaud to its only state football title in 1990. Hursin worked with Wheatley as a mentor for the study table. When Wheatley was playing for the Oakland Raiders, Hursin recalls saying how great it would be if he went back to his old school as a coach.
"It's nice to see him go full circle," Hursin says. "He's giving back to the same community," Hursin says. "For me to be able to see that has been a blessing. Often times, as a teacher, you ask yourself, 'Why am I here?' You're always told, 'Don't ask. You'll see it down the road.' "