Waking Up the NFL : Slaughter Provides Lots of Excitement for Cleveland Fans

Webster Slaughter was so excited on the day of this year’s National Football League draft that he . . . fell asleep.

Luckily, his friends were there watching the television and awakened him to tell him that he was selected by the Cleveland Browns.

Now, in the final game of his first NFL season, the former San Diego State wide receiver is getting a chance to face the Chargers.

Is he excited?

“To be honest, other than the fact that we need this game to get home-field advantage throughout the playoffs, this game really isn’t anything special,” he said. “It’s no big deal to face the Chargers just because they’re from San Diego.”

Slaughter may not be excited about playing against the Chargers, but his friends and fans here are. They remember him for his exploits on and off the field.

During his senior year at SDSU, Slaughter would play in pickup basketball games on the outdoor courts right outside the Aztecs’ locker room on campus and show off a little bit.

“I’ve never seen a guy captivate people more than Web,” said Chris Hardy, a senior running back at SDSU, who was one of Slaughter’s close friends. “We used to come out just to watch him play. He was so good out there. And, I’m not talking about just a few guys. I mean the whole team would come out and watch him.”

Or what about the times when Slaughter lived in the dorms on campus and felt like entertaining?

“They had a piano in one of the rooms downstairs and he’d go down there and play,” said Corey Gilmore, another Aztec running back. “He’d play for a while and by the time he was finished there was a whole bunch of people down there cheering for him.”

Now, there are more people than ever cheering for Webster Slaughter.

Slaughter’s friends did a lot of cheering last April 29--even if Slaughter didn’t notice.

They and Slaughter stayed up all night in anticipation of the draft, the first couple of rounds of which were on cable television.

“But the first round took so long,” Slaughter said. “I was laying on the floor and the next thing I knew people were waking me up to tell me I’d been drafted.”

Gilmore was one of the people there: “We’re all jumping around celebrating and we look down, and he’d fallen asleep. That’s him.”

Slaughter: “I actually thought I might be taken a little higher (he was the 43rd pick overall). But, then I thought about it, and I was happy to be going to a team that had a shot to do well this season.”

Slaughter joined a Browns team that had two 1,000-yard rushers in 1985. He thought they could use some help with their passing attack, and had drafted him just for that purpose.

But when Slaughter arrived, he found that he was treated like any other rookie. He didn’t particularly like it.

“You know, they’d make you stand up at the dinner meal and sing a song, stuff like that,” Slaughter said. “It took me a while to get used to being the new kid on the block.”

Said Gilmore: “Web is the kind of guy who commands respect. So he goes out and proves his territory. I know when he got to Cleveland, he thought he should be respected right away.”

Slaughter had to earn respect. He was named a starter the first week of the season, but there were still some questions about his ability.

Slaughter played well in the first half of the season but it wasn’t until week 12, in a game against Pittsburgh at Cleveland, that he finally made his mark.

He caught a 36-yard touchdown pass from Bernie Kosar--the first scoring reception of his career to give the Browns a 37-31 overtime victory over the Steelers.

“That seemed to be the turning point for me,” Slaughter said. “Up here (in Cleveland), it seemed the fans were kind of on the edge about me . . . that one catch seemed to put me over the hump.”

Although the fans may have been undecided, Slaughter never doubted his ability.

As one Cleveland sportswriter said: “When he got here, he always seemed confident. He didn’t pop off about it or anything, but you knew this was a kid who believed in himself.”

Slaughter always has been that way. His father died when he was 13 and he and his two brothers and three sisters were reared by their mother in Stockton.

He found out at an early age that if he was to accomplish anything, he would have to do it himself.

He didn’t play football until his senior year Stockton’s Franklin High School, and only because the coach invited him to try out. He caught 24 passes that year and was went on to play community college football at San Joaquin Delta.

Even then, Slaughter still had his own ideas about how the game should be played. One time, after he felt his quarterback had not thrown to him enough, Slaughter complained to Coach Jack Jordan.

Jordan made Slaughter play quarterback in practice one day the next week. That seemed to cure the complaining.

“After one day, he didn’t want to do it anymore,” Jordan said. “After that, he worked extremely hard at catching the ball. He stopped worrying about the quarterback.”

Similarly, Slaughter didn’t worry this year about the Browns’ not passing enough to him. He just worked hard, figuring if he played well, Cleveland would begin to throw more.

“We thought Webster was a very fine prospect,” Brown Coach Marty Schottenheimer said. “People said he wasn’t real fast but he does have good speed and quickness. I’m not surprised he’s produced the way he has for us.”

Slaughter’s statistics for his first season: 36 receptions for 513 yards and 3 touchdowns. Two of his scores came in last Sunday’s 34-3 victory over Cincinnati that clinched Cleveland’s second straight AFC Central Division title.

“Up here, people are going crazy,” Slaughter said. “And, we’re going crazy. After the Cincinnati game, all of us were in the locker room barking like dogs (Cleveland’s defense is called the ‘dogs’). It was great.

“I really consider myself lucky. In my first season, I’ve started every game and we’ve won a division title. We’re going to the playoffs and I have a chance to be in the Super Bowl. I guess I couldn’t ask for much more than that.”

However, Slaughter does miss his friends in San Diego. He lives alone in an apartment in Berea, a suburb of Cleveland, three minutes from the Browns’ practice site.

In the past, when he was lonely, he would break out his saxophone and play. But he didn’t take his saxophone to Cleveland.

“I’ve thought about buying a new one but I guess I just haven’t had the time,” he said. “When I get back home, it’ll be fun to play it again and see all of the guys.”

The weather in San Diego will be better, too. Just the other day, Browns’ wide receiver Reggie Langhorne was quoted as saying he and fellow receiver Brian Brennan had decided they weren’t going to wear gloves anymore.

“I can’t believe that,” Slaughter said. “I guess I haven’t adjusted to the cold that well yet. I know when it’s cold, I’m still going to wear them.”

Said Corey Gilmore: “It’ll be great to see him again. We all miss him. But he calls all the time to stay in touch.”

Slaughter called his former teammates after the Aztecs beat BYU, 10-3, to win the Western Athletic Conference championship.

“He was all excited,” Gilmore said. “He said he watched the game and was taking some razzing from some of the other players. He told us he was glad we won so he could razz them back.”

Chris Hardy is also excited about seeing Slaughter again.

“First of all, we’re hoping he’s going to send us some tickets for the playoffs and maybe we can go see him,” Hardy said. “But, if not, we’ll just look forward to seeing him when he comes back.

“You know he’ll be the same old Web. And we’ll be his same old friends. He’ll come back and hang around with us and we’ll just enjoy watching him perform for us.”