MORGANTOWN — This past year, the fire that had burned so hotly within Quincy Wilson began to flicker. The glowing embers were starting to cool as the realization set in.
It was one thing when the Cincinnati Bengals had called the former West Virginia University running back in and told him that he wouldn’t be playing for them any longer.
Stuff happens like that when you’re on the fringes of the NFL.
But he was young and strong and fast.
“I thought I’d have another chance somewhere,” he admits.
But hours sitting by the phone turned into days and days turned into months and then he looked at the calendar and a year had gone by.
He began to accept the reality of the moment. Even the Canadian teams that had shown interest, like Toronto, for whom he had worked out, weren’t calling.
“I’d played four years. That’s more than most,” he said. “I almost accepted it.”
Then one day he learned that a new league was forming, the United Football League.
It had a good premise. It would start small, just four teams, one each in Orlando, Las Vegas, San Francisco and New York. Each team will play three away games, two home games and a game at a site into which they hope someday to expand.
Player salaries are capped at $12- to $20-million, coaching staffs at $3 million.
And all players are free agents if the NFL wants to sign them.
“It’s like a Class-AAA league for the NFL,” Wilson said. “They’re not connected yet, but they will be the only league playing during the season.”
This past June, Wilson came to learn that without so much as a workout, he had been drafted by Orlando, coached by former Steelers assistant, New Orleans Saints and St. Louis Rams head coach Jim Haslett.
That’s when the old feeling came back.
“The fire is burning again,” Wilson said.
It isn’t that he has to have football. No. No more than a heroin addict needs heroin or a diabetic needs insulin.
When you are hooked, you’re hooked, and the only thing that can keep you away from it is the passage of time.
With Wilson, it isn’t a grasp for glory.
He has always managed to keep his feet firmly planted on whatever artificial turn was under them.
Even though he never became an NFL star or regular, for that matter, it didn’t matter.
“I always tell people that getting there, to me — being drafted and playing — that was enough,” Wilson said. “People are saying to me ‘You never had a chance.’ But that’s not what it’s about. Sure, there are people who want to be the big star, to make the commercials, to have their own TV shows, but that’s not reality for 80 percent of the NFL.”
For them, it’s enough to know that you are an NFL player.
You do it not for the glory, not even for the money.
You do it because there’s something inside of you that drives you in that direction, that makes you want to compete and do so on the highest level.
It’s the game, the challenge, the binding of a team that can be found nowhere else.
In college, Quincy Wilson was a star. He tasted that part of the game. He still can lay claim to what arguably was the most exciting touchdown play in West Virginia University history — a catch and run of a swing pass against Miami that became a YouTube.com sensation and an ESPY award nominee.
And although the NFL stats show him with nothing more than two yards on two carries in his career, there are clear memories that remain in his mind.
“There was my first game,” he said, “playing at Pittsburgh. I had 15 or 20 people there. I was awestruck running down under the first kickoff. And then there was the first touchdown against Indianapolis in an exhibition game …”
Now he is getting another chance, one he didn’t expect but certainly one he deserves. He’ll be working out in Morgantown in August, heading for training camp in Orlando in September.
It will be hot in Orlando then, but not as hot as the fire that has been relit within him.
E-mail Bob Hertzel at bhertzel@hotmail.com.
Bob Herzel
HERTZEL COLUMN: Quincy Wilson has another chance to play
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