Dexter Manley’s Future Now in His Own Hands

The troubled life and professional football career of Dexter Manley of the Washington Redskins took a new twist with a drug-related suspension by NFL Commissioner Pete Rozelle.

Manley will be sidelined for 30 days for violating the league’s substance abuse policy and will be eligible to return to the team in time for the regular season opener Sept. 5 against the New York Giants.

But, as Manley reeled from the latest in a series of self-inflicted wounds to his career and life, his friends, teammates and coaches wondered whether the former all-pro would be able to put his problems behind him once and for all.

“Everything lies in Dexter’s hands,” said Bob Woolf, Manley’s Boston-based agent and lawyer. “He understands that. I really think he’s been embarrassed by the exposure, which may very well be a good thing for Dexter. He’s a very proud person and there is no reason why he shouldn’t be able to lead a nice, normal life.”

But a nice, normal life has so far eluded the 29-year-old Manley. His football career and personal life have been punctuated by repeated conflicts and controversies, although his personal popularity in Washington has grown steadily.

Manley has managed, almost despite himself, to become one of the premier players at his position in the National Football League. He is the Redskins’ all-time leader in quarterback sacks, has more than any other active NFL player and was selected as a Pro Bowl starter in 1986.

Manley has engaged in an uphill battle with substance abuse for several years. Many believe that is the root cause of his sometimes erratic and unpredictable behavior.

After a night of heavy drinking, Manley skipped a team practice twn days before a 1986 playoff game against the Rams and was fined $1,000 by Coach Joe Gibbs. Four months later, Manley entered the Hazelden Foundation, a Center City, Minn., drug rehabilitation clinic, at the urging of his wife, Glinda, for treatment for an admitted alcohol and reported cocaine problem.

Manley helped the Redskins return to the Super Bowl for the third time in his seven-year career in the 1987 season. but less than two months after a victory over Denver in Super Bowl XXII, Rozelle met with Manley about his suspected continuing substance abuse problems.

Manley reportedly agreed to guidelines from the commissioner that included random drug testing. After Manley reportedly tested positive for cocaine use in one of the random tests, Rozelle summoned Manley to the league’s New York offices on July 22, deliberated five days, then announced the suspension.

Manley will be eligible to return to the team on Aug. 26, one day before its final preseason game and 10 days before the nationally televised Monday Night Football opener against the Giants.

Rozelle has now suspended 10 players under the drug abuse policy included in the 1982 collective bargaining agreement, whose terms continue despite expiring last Aug. 31.

The other players suspended include: Washington’s Tony Peters, St. Louis’ E.J. Junior, Houston’s Greg Stemrick, Cincinnati’s Pete Johnson, Ross Browner and Stanley Wilson, Kansas City’s Mike Bell, New Orleans’ Chuck Muncie and the Rams’ Mike Riley.

But it has been 25 years since Rozelle had disciplined a player with the fame and notoriety of Manley. The commissioner suspended “indefinitely” Green Bay’s Paul Hornung (now a member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame) and Detroit’s Alex Karras for betting on their own teams to win in 1963, then reinstated the pair the following year.

The Redskins front office has been steadily losing patience with Manley, as controversy after controversy gripped his career. But, after the suspension was announced, General Manager Bobby Beathard said the team wants nothing more than Manley’s ordeal to have a happy ending.

“All we’d like to see is things turn out well for Dexter,” Beathard said at the team’s Carlisle, Pa., training site. “It’s a problem and I think he needs all the help that he can get and we’re here to try to do that.”

Coach Joe Gibbs says the Super Bowl champions will welcome Manley with open arms.

“I think, obviously, he means a lot to us,” Gibbs said. “We’ve missed him. He’s been a part of what we’ve done around here. We need him back and we want him back.”

For his part, Manley has had very little to say about the suspension. He has refused to talk to reporters and his only public comments have come on his contracted appearances on a local radio station and a local television station.

“I’m just going to comply with what the commissioner wants me to do and that’s basically it,” Manley said. “I know what the situation was and I know that everything is behind me.”