BACK TO THE SCRAMBLE : Is There a Life After Prison for Tony Robinson?

The very moment Friday becomes Saturday--and not a minute earlier--W. M. Russell, superintendent of the Knox County Penal Farm, will instruct guards to escort the farm’s most celebrated inmate to the gate house for release. This being a minimum security facility, the guards might even offer a handshake, maybe ask for an autograph or two. And this being Tony Robinson--”T. Rob,” to folks in football-crazed East Tennessee--he might just jot his name down.

Camera crews and reporters most likely will be there as Robinson steps past the guard gate and the two barbed-wire fences that encircle the weather-worn, 45-year-old building. Figures, since Robinson has spent almost as much time on front pages here as the daily weather report.

It’s been a doozy of a story, all right. The plot line twists and curves like soft taffy:

Former star quarterback gets arrested on cocaine charges, is sent to a penal farm, violates work-release arrangements, convinces a judge to let him play minor league football, receives a strike-inspired call from the Washington Redskins, leads his replacement team to an unlikely win over the arch-rival Dallas Cowboys, is released by the Redskins, returns to the penal farm and somehow earns a Super Bowl share worth $27,000?

That’s just the Cliff Notes version, though don’t expect Robinson to sit and chat about the rest of it come midnight Friday. Mum’s the word then. No interviews. No comment. No nothing that morning. Robinson said he plans a speedy departure, first from the immediate premises and then from the city that turned on him. And if his ride is late, he said he won’t stick around.

“If I have to walk, I will,” he said. “I’ll run down the street.”

He will, too; run into the darkness until he can’t remember a thing about the last 14 months. Run to the Redskins to try to mend some ill feelings. Run to the Pittsburgh Steelers for a possible tryout. Run anywhere, he said, but run far away from here.

“It’s been an experience,” he said. “You see some things. You’ve got time to think. You think about the past, think about the future, what you want to do with your life.”

That’s the easy part. Since he was a teen-ager growing up in Tallahassee, Fla., Robinson wanted to be a quarterback. It was one of those naive and innocent kid dreams, inspired by hope and nothing else. After all, he had this gangly look about him: His legs were as skinny as a chicken’s and the rest of his body never quite met a muscle it liked.

But he could run on those chicken legs and his passes could sting a receiver’s hands when he wanted them to. When it eventually came time to select a college, Robinson’s heart told him to sign with the University of Georgia, but something else--he said he still doesn’t know what--told him to come to the University of Tennessee and play football.

Robinson made it as far as the cover of Sports Illustrated before a knee injury his senior season ruined any Heisman Trophy chances and a prison stay jeopardized the rest of it: The National Football League, the big-time contract, the chance to do what he does best.

Making choices has been a bit of a problem for Robinson. Not that he holds a grudge against Tennessee, he doesn’t, but deep down he said he wishes he would have taken Georgia’s scholarship offer.

And while he’s at it, Robinson said he could do without a few other decisions, like the time the maintenance man from his Knoxville apartment complex knocked on the door on a cold winter’s day, asking if he could come inside, warm his feet, maybe take a swig of a little something to warm his insides, too. Robinson, knowing better, told him to take a seat.

Then there was the morning of Jan. 8, 1986, when his roommate and former Tennessee teammate Kenneth Cooper asked him to reach into a closet, pull out a paper bag of something and give it to the maintenance man’s brother-in-law, who was waiting at the apartment door.

Except that the maintenance man was really a police informant. The brother-in-law was really a narcotics detective. And the bag, that little paper bag that would turn Robinson’s life upside down, was partially filled with cocaine.

Robinson knew better. “I had an idea, but I wasn’t sure what was in the bag,” he said, a sad smile crossing his face.

Robinson and Cooper were later indicted for conspiring to possess, sell and deliver more than 30 grams of cocaine. Under Tennessee’s Class X felony law, a conviction requires a sentence of 10 years to life.

But just five days before they were to stand trial, a bargain was made. Robinson pleaded no contest to three counts of attempting to deliver cocaine and in return, he received three consecutive two-year prison sentences. Under the agreement worked out between the Knox County attorney general’s office and defense attorneys, Robinson actually would serve only 90 days in jail, all at the penal farm. The remainder of his sentence would be spent on probation.

Cooper, who pleaded no contest to four counts of attempting to deliver cocaine and one count of attempting to sell cocaine, was given four consecutive two-year terms and a one-year term to be served concurrently. His penal farm stay would last 150 days and like Robinson, he would remain on probation until the completion of his full sentence.

It was all set: Robinson would be free by mid-February 1987, enough time to ready himself for a try at the NFL. But he didn’t. Turns out he and Cooper often spent time at their apartment rather than report to work at a landscaping company. Someone tipped one of the local newspapers, who sent a reporter and photographer. They weren’t disappointed.

For this, Robinson and Cooper received six more months of penal farm time, an extra year of supervised probation, revocation of work release privileges and a stern lecture from Criminal Court Judge Ray L. Jenkins.

“If the defendants had set out intentionally to violate the orders of the court, they could have not have improved on their performance,” Jenkins wrote in his four-page ruling.

Which is why Robinson is still here, counting down the time as if he were a child waiting for Christmas. Only four more days now. Four more days of shooting the same bull with inmates, of staring out at those same barbed-wire fences, of mopping the same floors, eating the same food, reading that same sign that hangs on that same corridor wall: You Will Be Treated The Way You Behave .

Fair enough. Robinson wasn’t exactly a model work release person, so his link to the outside was revoked. Robinson went AWOL for a few hours during a group work assignment and he was placed in “The Hole,” for 24 hours. He can thank some of his fellow inmates for that one, said Russell; they reported his absence. Robinson was once allowed to take a football to a nearby field and work on his throws. “But then he lost that,” Russell said. And he reported late to the penal farm in the first place, which explains Russell’s insistence that Robinson not leave a moment before he arrived. “With the way the media’s been watching this, he’s got to do the full thing,” Russell said.

So Robinson does his time. Granted, the Knox County Penal Farm isn’t San Quentin. Then again, it isn’t a country club, either.

The place, located about 10 miles outside Knoxville, was built during the Franklin D. Roosevelt Administration, mostly to provide some construction jobs to the locals. It’s predictably drab, decorated in early institutional. Wall highlights include the Royal Crown Cola clock in the main office and a Blount County Sheriff’s Department calendar in an adjoining workroom.

There are no gun turrets or such nonsense, only a hyperactive black retriever named R.T. who wouldn’t know a snarl if you got on all fours and demonstrated.

Robinson’s day begins at 5:30 a.m. He could sleep later, but then breakfast would be finished. And lunch being what it these days--pickle loaf or bologna--Robinson gets up, eats, then goes back to bed. His next real thrill is dinner.

As for staying in peak condition, forget it. Robinson does maybe 25-50 push-ups, plays a little basketball on a cramped, concrete indoor court that produces some nasty injuries, and then calls it a day. He can’t play catch anymore and the only weightlifting set is located in the farm’s library/lounge. There, near the National Geographics and the reading table, is a tiny bench press and maybe 25 pounds of weights. “Toy stuff,” Robinson said.

A stray cat slips in through an open window, jumps cautiously atop an old piano and then steps gingerly across the keyboard. Two inmates watch a morning soap opera on the small black and white television set. Robinson, trying to rub the sleep from his eyes, slouches on a nearby worn couch.

Everyone knows Robinson here. They know who he was, what he could have been, and what he still might be. Until Friday midnight, though, he is one of them, which means he picks his moments to talk and doesn’t start anything he can’t finish.

“This place is all right just as long as don’t give no trouble,” he said. “Since I’ve been here, they’ve treated me pretty nice. They’ve been pretty fair to me.”

Like the time Russell allowed an NBC crew to conduct a live interview between Robinson and “Today Show” host Bryant Gumbel. Probably wasn’t a problem, since Robinson had to get up early anyway.

All things considered, Robinson is probably the most exciting thing to hit the ol’ Knox County Penal Farm since the last ill-fated escape. Seems an inmate got loose, fled to the next county, got into an argument with some old friends and got shot in the head. Robinson escaped, too, but with permission from Judge Jenkins. The deal was this: Robinson would be excused from the penal farm as long as he remained on a pro roster. At the conclusion of a season, or if he were cut from a team, Robinson would have to return and serve whatever time he had left on his sentence.

“Before (Robinson’s) arrest, there were numerous teams interested,” said Neal Geisinger, Robinson’s agent. “After his arrest, there were five teams interested in him. When he had problems with his work release, those five teams lost interest. And when the judge let him out, there were no takers then.”

So Robinson accepted an earlier offer from John McGregor, head coach of the minor league Richmond Ravens. Actually, it wasn’t much of an offer at all. Players didn’t get paid--league rules. Turns out, McGregor said, that coaches didn’t, either, at least those for Richmond.

“We didn’t have any secrets about it,” McGregor said. “Everyone’s dream was to advance themselves professionally.”

First they had to earn enough money for rent, to eat, to put a few bucks of gas in their cars. Robinson tried selling sales and management training videos over the phone. “Telemarketing,” McGregor said.

Disaster, might be a better word.

Then came a stint selling imitation cologne. Robinson would wait outside shopping malls and try to hawk the stuff. He would prowl parking lots and sidewalks for potential customers. No luck. Seems no one wanted to smell imitation nice.

Robinson settled on a construction job. “Boy, that was hell,” he said. “Highway construction . . . not repaving, but starting from ground up. Then I’d have to go practice. Then I’d have to get up the next morning at 5.”

The Ravens practiced every Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday nights. Games were played on Saturday nights and film reviews were shown Sunday evenings, that is, until the budget ran out. And McGregor, who has since resigned, would be happy to give you Robinson’s season statistics, but none are available. “Uh, we didn’t have a statistician at the end of the year,” he said. “But Tony did very, very well.”

Must have, because one day while digging a hole for a fire hydrant, Robinson received a message over the foreman’s radio: Call McGregor as soon as possible.

Robinson called and McGregor told him that the Redskins, in need of replacement players, were interested. After meeting with Redskin General Manager Bobby Beathard in Washington and later NFL commissioner Pete Rozelle in New York, Robinson was told he could play if he passed a drug test. He did, and about three weeks later, as a replacement for injured starter Ed Rubbert, Robinson, without the benefit of a warmup pass, completed 11 of 18 attempts and led the Redskins to a 13-7 victory over the Cowboys.

He was released the following week.

“A week before the Dallas game, a Monday night game, he didn’t show up for a couple of days,” Beathard said. “I think that kind of scared us. He said he had car trouble. We haven’t done any more research on Tony since he left here.

“There’s no question about it, he’s got all the tools. I hope it works out for him.”

Robinson returned to the penal farm an odd hero. “It was like I never left, like I was still playing for UT,” he said.

Those were the days, all right. Four touchdown passes against then-No. 1 Auburn University. Keith Jackson talking you up for a Heisman award on national television. The Sports Illustrated cover. A 90,000-plus standing ovation when you were introduced at the Vanderbilt game.

Now he would have to settle for the daily questions from the other inmates or guards. “That’s all they wanted to talk about, the Dallas game,” Robinson said.

Robinson had other things on his mind, such as his stake in the Redskin playoff results. A Super Bowl win meant maybe enough money to pay his attorney fees.

On Super Bowl day, Robinson lugged his own color television from his cell area to the library/lounge, so everyone would be spared the tiny black and white set. And for a change, he cheered and laughed and had a grand time as the Redskins, his Redskins, earned him a nice paycheck. “Now I want to find out if I get that Super Bowl ring,” he said. “Take out $10,000 and give me that ring.”

That was last month. This month, all is quiet. Robinson continues his daily countdown and readies himself for the world again.

Help is waiting. Tennessee offensive coordinator Walt Harris already has put together a highlight film of Robinson’s 15 games at UT. He made one copy for NFL teams interested in reacquainting themselves with the 24-year-old quarterback, another for Robinson and another for himself.

“I think the young man deserves a second chance to prove he’s a good person,” Harris said.

Robinson will likely get the opportunity. The Redskins might be persuaded to take another try. The Steelers, Robinson’s all-time favorite team, could use a quarterback, as could several other teams, including the Raiders. According to Harris, at least one NFL team has offered Robinson a contract, subject presumably to approval from Rozelle.

“I don’t have any doubts,” Robinson said of his future. “I’ve always believed in the Lord. I haven’t given up at all.

“Everybody that knows me knows that I’m not a trouble person.”

The Knox County Attorney General’s office might disagree, but with only four days left, why start something.

And if football falls through, if the NFL changes its mind or the Canadian Football League grows picky, Robinson said he could complete his three remaining quarters of school and get a degree.

His major?

Criminal justice.