Former USC Quarterback a Starter for USFL’s Gold : After a Long Wait, Evans Will Finally Be a Headliner in Denver

His story can be told in headlines from The Times:

--”Vince Evans’ Unending Fight to Be No. 1. ‘It’s Always Going to Be Like This for Me,’ Says the USC Quarterback.”

That was nine years ago.

--”The Long Wait. It’s Frustrating, Vince Evans Says, to Sit and Watch Your Skills Erode.”

That was seven years ago.

--”Bears’ Evans Is Back to Backup.”

That was five years ago.

--”Evans, Ex-Chicago Starter, Wants to Earn His Paycheck.”

That was two years ago.

And now, Evans can cut out the headline at the top of this story to add to his collection.

His unending fight to find peace and contentment in somebody’s backfield has had more sequels than “Rocky.” He was right nine years ago: It has always been like that for him.

“I’ve wanted to find somebody to say, ‘This is our guy. We want to go with him,’ ” Evans said.

He’s apparently found someone--on a field at Cal State Northridge where he is preparing for a new season as the new No. 1 quarterback of his newest team, the Denver Gold of the United States Football League.

“If Vince does not have the best arm in football, it’s close,” Mouse Davis, his new coach, said.

Here Evans is appreciated. Here he drew whistles and high fives from teammates as he rifled passes into the arms of receivers during the first week of training camp.

But is it enough?

After all, this is a guy who overcame the fact he had to go to junior college before he could even get into USC to lead the Trojans to an 11-1 record in his senior year. He then quarterbacked the club to a 14-6 win over Michigan in a Rose Bowl in which he was named Most Valuable Player.

This is a guy who overcame being chosen only 140th in the NFL draft of 1977 by the Chicago Bears and was allowed to throw only three passes in his first two years before finally winning the starter’s job in 1979.

For three games.

Then he contracted a staph infection that not only cost him his job, but nearly his life.

In 1980, however, he came back to start 10 games, throw 11 touchdown passes and complete 53.2% of his passes. And he showed off that big-league arm Davis was talking about by completing seven passes for 48 yards or more.

So what’s a guy like that doing in a league like this, far from the Marinos and the Montanas of the world?

Chicago went from 10-6 in 1979 to 7-9 in 1980 to 6-10 in 1981. By 1981, Evans saw his completion rate drop to 44.7% and his interceptions rise to 20. The Bears went from Neill Armstrong in the head coaching spot to Mike Ditka following the ’81 season. And Evans went from starter to reserve.

His biggest problem was inconsistency. He could throw three touchdown passes one game and three interceptions the next. Evans was a quarterback who needed time to mature, but in the unstable environment of Chicago--where coaches and offensive systems would come and go like the city’s El train and all-time leading NFL rusher Walter Payton was always the first option--he never had the opportunity. He was “in the wrong place at the wrong time,” according to one Chicago sportswriter.

“He didn’t get a chance to show what he could do in Chicago,” said receiver Kevin Williams, who first met Evans when both were at USC and has been reunited with the quarterback on the Gold. “It’s hard for a quarterback to be effective in an offense that switches every year, that is changing all the time. He never got into a groove.”

Said Evans: “I went through three coaches (Jack Pardee, Armstrong and Ditka) and four or five offensive coordinators. I never got locked into one system I could zoom in on. I think they would have had success if they had kept one system. The offense was designed around Walter. That’s fine, but innovative minds use all of their talent.”

But none of his struggles on the field compared to what he went through on the night of Oct. 5, 1979. It had all started with a simple cut on an arm several weeks earlier. It turned into a bacterial infection that shot his temperature up to 105.4 degrees. Heart or brain damage was possible. So was death.

Doctors at Illinois’ Lake Forest Hospital got him out of danger in half an hour and began treating him with antibiotics.

Total recovery took much longer. It was the following season before he was back to full health.

“People don’t realize what it was for him to come back,” his wife, Chyla, said by phone from Chicago. “He was left nearly crippled. He had to start learning to walk all over again, much less running and playing quarterback. That was quite an accomplishment in itself.”

There was another big change in the Vince Evans who emerged from Lake Forest Hospital. He had made a lane change on the freeway of life.

“While I was laying in the hospital, I did some inner searching. I changed my life around,” he said. “I realized my life had become a contradiction of the way I was raised. I got caught up in the fast lane. I grew up in a Christian home, but I had gotten off base a little bit. You know that part Nick Nolte played in the movie, ‘North Dallas Forty’? I could have done that part a little better than he did. I was a fake millionaire with the cars and the women and the night life.

“The biggest key to changing is discipline. There are people who legitimately care about you. The problem is, everybody is your buddy and you do not know who is for real. You’ve got the cash, you are at the parties and around the women and the cocaine. It’s all such a superficial and temporary excitement. After awhile, it’s really not even exciting. It’s all just a front--nothing, nothing.”

The settling-down process resulted in a return to religion and in his marriage to Chyla.

“He has grown tremendously,” his wife said. “He was definitely living a fast life. (When he changed) he was able to feel and have emotions. The old Vince was just out for himself and what he could get.”

The new Vince didn’t get much from the Bears. In 1982, Chicago, with Mike Ditka as head coach, used its top draft choice to select a quarterback. It chose Brigham Young’s Jim McMahon.

The handwriting was not only on the wall, it was soon on the starting lineup sheet as well. McMahon became a starter two games into that strike-shortened season and finished with nine touchdown passes in eight games, a 57.1% completion rate, 1,501 yards gained passing and the NFC Rookie of the Year award.

Exit Evans.

“I had high expectations,” he said, “but they drafted Jim McMahon and it was obvious they planned to go with him. Just because it was not working for me, I was not going to go in the tank. My real strength is in being able to come back and fight for a thing. I was not going to quit, not give up. I understand some things are out of my hands. I was not bitter or anything.”

But then, he wasn’t stupid either. With his contract up after the 1983 season and the Chicago Blitz of the USFL waving millions at him, he turned his palm up. Evans eventually settled on four years with the Blitz for a reported $5 million dollars.

“It was not the money. It was the fact that someone had confidence in him, wanted him to be a starter. His main ambition has always been to be a starter,” Chyla said. “He had wanted to make contributions as a black quarterback in the NFL. He wanted to go to the Super Bowl and he had doubts about the viability of the USFL, but the Bears were so hard to deal with. Ditka likes people who are totally dedicated to him. Once he found out Vince had talked to other teams, he cut him out immediately. He didn’t think Vince had loyalty. He felt McMahon was the future of the team.”

Just another battle in Evans’ lifelong war to establish credibility. Can you believe he’s still only 29?

Evans’ own family doubted his ability to make it to USC when he left home in Greensboro, N.C., and enrolled at Los Angeles City College. Trojan fans certainly doubted him the year they distributed bumper stickers that read, “Save USC Football--Shoot Vince Evans.”

Even the Bears had doubts about his ability to play quarterback. When he signed with Chicago, he asked for a clause in his contract that stipulated he would play only the one position.

“They looked at my athletic ability and thought I could play several positions,” Evans said. “I wanted to play quarterback. I knew what I wanted to do. Some guys are quarterbacks in college and then they are shifted to other positions. I didn’t want that to happen to me.”

After one year, however, Evans had bigger problems. The Blitz, facing severe financial problems, was about to be disbanded.

Evans had been impressed with the run-’n-shoot offense of the USFL’s Houston Gamblers. He knew the brain behind it was Mouse Davis, who was then Houston’s offensive coordinator, and he knew Davis was taking the head coaching job with Denver. So he invested in a telephone call.

Davis was thrilled. “We thought it would be an excellent marriage,” the Gold coach said.

So did Evans when Denver agreed to assume one year of his hefty contract, plus an option year.

“I still have a dream of going to the Super Bowl,” he said. “But if not, I’m going to give all of my energies to see that the Gold makes it into a championship game.

“We have a lot of good guys here, eager to work. In the NFL, you’ve got guys who have been playing for five years and know they have a job. Playing here rekindles the energy in older guys like me. They are running hard on every play, trying to do everything right. It’s encouraging. The eagerness a young guy has to improve still burns in me.”

What is particularly encouraging to Evans is the run-’n-shoot offense, which he refers to as “a quarterback’s dream.” It consists of a movable pocket that allows the quarterback to roll to one side with accompanying blockers while he looks for one of four receivers downfield.

“The offense changes every time,” said Williams, who figures to be one of Evans’ favorite targets. “We have four primary receivers on every play. If everybody does their job, somebody will be open. The quarterback has to be smart, has to be able to read the whole field, and he has to have an arm. It’s really Vince Evans’ kind of offense. He is still throwing the ball 70 yards and he thinks like a quarterback. And if everything shuts down, he’s quick on his feet. He gives us some security.”

Said Davis of his new quarterback: “He’s a winner. He showed that at USC. In Chicago, he got caught in a three yards-and-a-cloud-of-dust offense. But you do what you can do. Here he’s just going to get better and better.”

Davis is well aware of his quarterback’s ability to carry the football as well, but he says his goal for Evans in the run-’n-shoot is to “slow him down. We are going to build the run into a couple of packages, but we’re primarily interested in passing. It’s pass, pass, pass, pass, and then run.”

Evans has waited a long time to hear that. Never heard it from the Bears. So who needs ‘em, right?

It wasn’t quite that easy for him to turn his back on his old club. For one thing, he and his wife still live in Chicago. He had to sit at home and watch the Bears win the NFC Central Division title in 1984, their first championship in over two decades.

For another thing, he could not help but do a little second-guessing when injuries knocked out McMahon and backup quarterback Steve Fuller, leaving Payton to play the position for one game.

“It was hard for him not to have thought about it,” Chyla said. “Hindsight is 20-20. But with the attitude Ditka has, who’s to say he would have started even now? It’s hard to imagine what he’s been through if you haven’t been in his shoes, to know you have the ability to be a starter and not have a chance to prove it because of outside factors. He’s really been through a lot. His faith kept him strong for a long time and let’s hope it’s finally going to be rewarded.”

When Payton took over the quarterback role, Evans said he was in the stands, thinking, “Damn, if I was here, I could have possibly been in the Super Bowl. But the decision is made and you have to go with it.”

It was a decision some Bears fans indicated they regretted. When Evans walked into Soldier Field as a spectator that day, the fans nearby showered him with cheers.

“It was gratifying,” he said. “But I know I would still get booed if I was to go out there and throw my first interception.”