Charles White, Again an Irresistible Force

Dennis Harrah said, “If you were a coach, you would want 45 Charlie Whites around. If you were in the service, in the foxholes, you’d want 45 Charlie Whites there with you, because he’ll give you everything, everything he’s got.”

Harrah has been hanging around pro football players, principally the Rams, for 13 seasons now, observing them, eating and drinking and perspiring alongside them, butting helmets and playing mind games with them, and in this time he has become a pretty good judge of character. Maybe even without meaning to, though, the oldest man on the Rams had his young teammate pretty well pegged.

You see, there must be at least 45 Charlie Whites.

There is the Charlie who scooted up the middle, skirted around end and squirted through holes 34 times for 213 yards in Sunday’s 27-24 win over the St. Louis Cardinals, a bunch of confused souls who went away thinking that the Eric Dickerson deal must have been a hoax, that the Rams must have just asked Dickerson to change his uniform number from 29 to 33.

There also is the Charlie who skedaddled out of St. Louis without any desire to discuss what he had done, the guy who whisked his blue denim jacket and tan cap from his cubicle before any non-player could get there, took refuge in the showers for as long as he could, then made his rush for the bus, not even breaking stride when he called over his shoulder to a Ram staff member, “I ain’t talking to nobody.”

Possibly this Charlie was a direct descendant of the one who on Aug. 21 was found wandering around aimlessly with a garbage-can lid in his hand, in a drugged stupor, and has spent the last three months trying to avoid talking about the Cocaine Anonymous meetings he has attended, or the daily urine tests the Rams now demand, or the scar-like marks that remain to this day on his wrists, from where the cops’ handcuffs pinched.

Maybe the only way he could truly reconcile what happened to him Sunday--the greatest day of his professional life--was to let it slip-slide away without a word. Why he wouldn’t just talk about the game itself, about the Rams’ spectacular 11-minute, 94-yard slog through the rain that led to their last-second success, while asking everyone present to please lay aside their personal questions, well, who can say? The Charlie of today might not trust anybody to do the right thing anymore, including himself.

In his absence, his colleagues said nice things.

Quarterback Jim Everett said: “I’m very happy for Charlie. All the things he’s been through . . . he deserved this. He’s just a tremendous man.”

And tackle Jackie Slater said: “I’ve said all along that Charlie White is an above-average football player. Far above average.”

And defensive end Gary Jeter said: “He’s like that kid up at Michigan State, the one that carried the ball all those times yesterday and got close to 300 yards. He did that when he was at USC. Charlie was like my late dear friend, Ricky Bell, running the ball all the time, 35, 45 times a game, whatever. You think they’d get tired! But the more you give guys like these the ball, the more they run it down your throat.”

Lorenzo White was the Michigan State man Jeter was thinking about, making this a pretty bright weekend for backs named White. Few college or pro backs have had days as good as these two just had.

There once was a younger, happier Charles White who came to the pro game in 1980 with a Heisman Trophy under his arm and great expectations. Let Lorenzo be forewarned that such things do not guarantee success. Charlie even dominated everybody in television’s trashy but competitive “Superstars” competition that summer, and charged right out and scored five touchdowns for the Cleveland Browns as a rookie. The world was his oyster.

Who could foresee what would befall him? The dope problem of 1982. The broken ankle of 1983. The kiss-off from camp of 1985. How could it be that Charles White would get all the way to 1987 without ever gaining more than 342 yards in a season? How could he gain more yards in one game Sunday than he had in three of his last four seasons?

The answers aren’t easy, but neither are the questions. Ram fans are asking themselves this morning if they really do have a suitable replacement for Dickerson. Maybe Sunday was a mirage, aided by a Cardinal defense that couldn’t have contained Vanna White. Maybe Charlie would revert to his old form by next Monday’s game with the Washington Redskins.

Or maybe not. That’s the question, see--a question of identity. Will the real Charlie White please stand up? Are you the one who ran for 166 yards against Pittsburgh’s “replacement” players and 155 against Atlanta’s during the strike? Or the one who never gained more than 54 yards this season against any “real” players, at least before running into--and over--St. Louis’?

Charlie White broke his silence the other day, long enough to say that he was taking life day by day. He is a 29-year-old father of five who has responsibilities, rewards and regrets, who thanks God every day for his athletic gifts, and wonders why he often squanders them. The Robert Duvall character from “Tender Mercies” said near the end of that movie, “I don’t trust happiness. Never did.” Maybe Charles White feels that way these days.

He fumbled the football at St. Louis’ six-yard line with less than 90 seconds to play Sunday, which could have cost his team the game. Fortunately, he fell on the loose ball himself. But that’s how quickly happiness can be taken away from you, if you aren’t careful. Because one of the 45 Charles Whites of this world, you see, is an unlucky one, a pessimistic one, to whom bad things happen.

Maybe his luck is changing.