Will He Reach the Same Heights? : Chargers Throw All-Pro to the Wolves Monday

The phone in the office of the San Diego Chargers, the “Office of the ‘80s,” was buzzing. Rrrrring. Rrrrring. Rrrrring. Fortunately, secretary Pat Rogers, their best telephone receiver, was working this day, and she kept hearing the same question every time she answered.

Is Kellen Winslow gonna play? Is Kellen Winslow gonna play? Is Kellen Winslow gonna play?

Most of these callers identified themselves as “Fantasy Football players,” which means they had formed their own leagues, had drafted NFL players and use these players’ Sunday statistics to tabulate points. It’s a contagious disease, this fantasy football. Once, a fantasy player called about Dan Fouts and asked Rogers if she would say hello to some of his friends in the Charger front office.

“To whom am I speaking?” Rogers asked.

“Elroy Hirsch,” he replied.

Still, the Winslow question especially drives Rogers crazy as she has been answering it for about a year, ever since Winslow tore his right knee ligaments in October of 1984. Normally, she will just tell the callers that she doesn’t know when the All-Pro tight end will return.

But just five days before the Monday night Charger-Raider game, she had to change her tune because Winslow could play. That’s right, she told the callers, Winslow could play. The callers seemed shocked, even though Winslow, 27, had played a quarter of football the Sunday before in Minnesota.

Winslow, too, confirmed this, though he was not taking any calls. The right knee is stronger than ever, he says, and, for good measure, he leg-pressed 700 pounds just to show off.

On Oct. 21, 1984, Winslow caught a pass and turned upfield. His right foot caught awkwardly in the turf while he was hit by a good friend, Raider linebacker Jeff Barnes, and heard a tremendous pop.

The team doctor saw it happen, immediately knew it was a serious injury and told Winslow on the field that he would need surgery. When he operated, he found that the knee ligament looked like a “spaghetti mop.”

It will be a year before you play again, if you can play at all, the doctor told Winslow, 27.

Then, at a press conference a few days later, the subject of retirement came up. Winslow, who was on painkillers as he spoke, said: “There’s always the possibility that one day the Lord will tap you on the shoulder and want you to do something. If that’s the case, then you have to drop what you have. I feel I’ll be healthy enough to play football next year, but if the Lord doesn’t want me to play next year. . . . I’ll just have to answer that tap on the shoulder.”

Almost a year to the day later, the Lord hasn’t tapped any shoulders, and Winslow is about to play the Raiders again. Barnes is happy, saying: “Fantastic. It’s good that he’s back.”

And it falls on a Monday night.

“Maybe Howard Cosell can come out of retirement and do this,” Winslow said. “Howard’s one of my biggest fans. He always says: ‘Kellen Winsloooooow, the all-woooooorld tight end.’ I love it. We’re good friends. Really, I’m campaigning for a Cosell comeback. Of course, he might have to sit in another booth.”

In another place and time, Kellen Winslow was the NFL’s premier tight end. He could go deep, short and especially was adept at the comeback pattern. In an AFC Divisional Playoff victory over Miami on Jan. 2, 1982, Winslow caught 13 passes, scored a touchdown, blocked a field goal to send the game into overtime and did it all with a busted lip, a bruised shoulder, a pinched nerve and a case of heat exhaustion and cramps.

He received many letters after the game. In particular, a man wrote to tell him that he’d enjoyed it very much, and that his performance had inspired his pregnant wife to go into labor. Naturally, they named the baby “Kellen.”

Before long, Kellen’s were popping up everywhere. His secretary (yes, he’s so good he has one of them) named her baby Kellen, and even Kellen named one of his babies Kellen.

“In all, 28 people named their kids after me,” Winslow said. “To me, it’s one of the great honors I’ve had. It stems from the Miami game, I’m sure. People like what the name Kellen stands for. If I were out carousing or involved in sex scandals, I could have the cutest name in the world, but no one would use it.

“And I used to think I was the only guy with the name ever. Now, I’ve got to take a number.”

In these last 12 months, a number of people, too, have helped Winslow on his path of rehabilitation. But let’s return to where the story began, with the hit by Barnes.

These were everyone’s thoughts:

Winslow: “I’m thinking ‘Oh, the knee. Finally, the knee. It happened to me.’ ”

Team physician Gary Losse: “I could tell he was injured even as he was falling. When I got there, he was in a lot of pain. The knee wasn’t in its proper place. I put the knee in place with my hands. I told Kellen: ‘This is a severe injury. We have to operate tonight.’ ”

Winslow: “After he put it in place, it didn’t hurt. I actually tried to walk. I’m thinking ‘It’s arthroscopic surgery. I’ll be back in four weeks.’ He told me he was getting a stretcher, the kind with wheels.”

Winslow waved to the crowd.

Goodbye?

Losse opened up the knee.

“We couldn’t repair it,” he said. “We had to rebuild it.”

And they did, a stitch here and a stitch there. Soon there was a new knee. It didn’t look so good, though. It was swollen, and there were blood blisters and long scar, and everyone commented about how ugly it looked.

“It didn’t look like his leg anymore,” said Charger trainer Mark Howard, who trained Winslow to run again.

But he had to walk first. And so, they played this little game. Howard would say things like, “If you can bend your leg just 30 degrees, that would be great.” And Winslow would bend it 30 degrees, and he’d think it was great, and before long, he’d be smiling. And, just to keep him going, Howard would joke with him.

“You’re gonna come back on a white horse with a big hurrah, and then they’ll just throw you to the wolves,” the trainer predicted.

And they’d laugh, and Winslow would be happy. But then he’d get bored sometimes because he’d do leg lift after leg lift and still he couldn’t run. Howard would tell him to take a day off, then tell him to take two off. Go on home and relax, he’d say.

But that was a mistake because Coach Don Coryell was quoted as saying he didn’t think Winslow was working hard enough to get back on time. Whether it was said or not, it hurt Winslow.

“I heard about that (story), and I told Kellen: ‘You’re doing fine. Just listen to me,’ ” Howard said.

He listened not only to Howard but to God. Winslow, raised strictly back in East St. Louis, Ill., had always been a church-goer, but he once told his minister here in San Diego, the Rev. Ellis H. Casson, that there was a void in his life.

The void was filled when he became involved with the church during his injury. He began singing in the church choir, and that wasn’t easy because when he first joined the church here, people would pass him pieces of paper as he sat in the pew, asking for autographs. He went to Casson, who had never heard of him (“They said ‘Oh, Kellen Winslow!’ and I said: ‘Who’s he? What’s his claim to fame?’), and Casson asked his congregation to treat him as anyone else.

Then, “It was like living back in East St. Louis when I was growing up,” Winslow said. “These people know what I do for a living, but they don’t care. Being involved with the church really gave me peace of mind and contentment.”

In church, he sings a solo, a reworking of the song called “Up Where We Belong” from the movie “Officer and A Gentleman,” where the words have been changed to “Lord lift us up where we belong.”

Who knows what tomorrow brings in a world few hearts survive? All I know is the way I feel; When it’s real, I keep it alive . . .

But what kept Winslow’s hopes alive? There was work, of course. He is part-owner of four companies, including a radio station in Yuma, Ariz. Barnes, the man who had hit him that day, worried that Winslow would never play again, but he took solace in Winslow’s potential as a broadcaster.

“I think when this is all over for him, there will be a job for him to do,” Barnes said. “Like a (Joe) Namath. He could be on Monday Night Football easy. No problem.”

And there was Kellen Jr., who lives with his dad 3 1/2 days a week and with Winslow’s ex-wife, Katrina, 3 1/2 days.

“If I had to point outside my relationship with God, my children got me through it,” Winslow said. “To know that no matter how bad it might have seemed at times and no matter what the outcome might have been, they loved their daddy because I was their daddy. Whether or not there was another article in the paper saying I was the best ever or the Chargers would be this or that with Kellen Winslow . . . well, that was no longer important.”

Finally, he made it through his first Charger practice. He came inside the locker room and Howard reminded him: “You’re gonna come back on a white horse with a big hurrah, and then they’ll just throw you to the wolves.”

But there was controversy. Winslow, noting that the Chargers could be headed for a mediocre season, said he might not come back if they aren’t in contention by midseason.

He turned a few heads, but he meant it, saying later: “If we had the record of Tampa Bay at 0-7 or if we were 2-5, we’d be out of the AFC West; we’d be out of this race. You know, I couldn’t see any reason (to play) when the bottom line is winning your division and making the playoffs. Some people accept it as facts. But some people say ‘He’s not a winner. He’s not a competitor. He’s not a team player.’ Before I can be a team player, I’ve got to take care of home first.”

At that point, he stopped talking to the media, a surprise because he normally never stops talking.

“It was the same old thing over and over,” he said. “The same old stories. No new angles. I had to go out and practice for the next two weeks and find out after a year of hard work how my leg would respond to actually playing football. Running is one thing, cutting is another. But putting on the equipment and getting hit is night and day. It’s apples and oranges. So it was a total waste of time to do interviews. I had nothing new to say.”

He traveled with the team to Minnesota last week. And on the morning of the game, at 6:30 PDT, he called the Rev. Casson.

Asked Winslow: “Pastor, did I wake you? It’s Kellen Winslow. Please, could you remember me in your prayers?”

Casson, after he hung up, got out of bed and onto his knees. That day in church, as the game was being played 2,000 miles away, he asked the congregation to remember Winslow in their prayers. And they all did.

Winslow caught two passes, escaped unharmed and later joked with some members of the church members: “Yeah, as everyone dropped to their knees for me, so did I. Except there was a defender on top of me.”

The Raiders are next, and more prayers will be needed. Coryell says Winslow can play a lot against Los Angeles, maybe even start, maybe can even catch 10 passes.

Coryell’s plans were relayed to Winslow, who said: “Throwin’ me to the wolves, huh?”