Season of Pain : Rams’ Rocker Can’t Escape Incident That Left Utley Paralyzed

Mike Utley and David Rocker--two men forever entwined in football history because of a painful experience.

One man’s suffering has been apparent, the other’s has been trapped in private contemplation.

“I’ve watched the play on tape several times,” Rocker said. “When I see that play, it comes back to me each and every time like it was just yesterday.”

It was a play like any other play. Rocker, the Ram defensive lineman, rushed the passer. Utley, the Lion offensive guard, tried to stop him. Rocker leaped to knock Erik Kramer’s pass down, Utley pushed forward, stumbled and fell. Rocker fell on him.

“I knew something was strange right away,” Rocker said. “It’s that feeling you get when when you see the way a guy falls. You say, ‘That’s a pretty hard shot.’

“You see a guy lying on his back and you can see his eyes going down because he’s getting ready to lift up. Then the next thing you see is his eyes coming back up, but he’s not moving. That’s when I realized something was seriously wrong with him.

“I was no longer an opponent, I was a fellow player. It was like, ‘Come on, man, get up.’ You just want this person to get up. ‘Get up.’ You’re not seeing it happen. ‘Get up.’

“I remember just sitting and watching. I was not talking to anybody because I didn’t know anybody. I’d only been with the Rams a few days and I didn’t know the guys on my own team.

“It was all so strange--the whole year. I was getting released in Houston a couple of days before the regular season starts, 10 weeks later I was in a totally different uniform, and the first time I ever play in an NFL game I was in this type of situation. My head was spinning.”

A stretcher was rolled onto the field, Utley was carried out, the game continued.

“I was on the plane home and it was the first time I heard someone say he might be paralyzed,” Rocker said. “I was thinking, ‘He’s probably a little numb and tomorrow I’m going to read in the paper how he’s normal again.’

“I watched ESPN and the play was being shown and it began to sink in--this is really serious. Everybody wanted to talk to me, but I didn’t want to make it a big issue and become some sort of villain. I agreed to one interview with ESPN. I didn’t want to talk to anyone else. I just wanted to drop it.”

But it will not go away.

“It will always be there,” Rocker said.

It will be two years since the incident in November, and for both men the rehabilitation continues.

“David’s not the same person,” said his wife, Erica. “We’re talking dramatic change, night and day.

“You have to understand what he went through that year, how he poured his heart and soul into football, and then it all went bad.”

David Rocker, strong and successful, a standout at Auburn. Football was everything while he was growing up. It was a family thing. His brother, Tracy, an Outland Trophy and Lombardi Award winner at Auburn, played for the Washington Redskins.

“Ever since I was a kid my goal was to play professional football,” Rocker said. “Everything about me was football. If it had anything to do with football, I could fix it.

“I was drafted by Houston, I started in the exhibition games and two days before the regular-season opener I got a call telling me I was cut. Sean Jones signed a contract and they needed to make room for him.

“Just like that, you find out you’re expendable. They smile in your face and then they tell you to leave. The next thing I know, I’m with the Rams, it’s the Utley thing and everything is Mike Utley, Mike Utley, Mike Utley.

“Everything was so good in college and I expected that in the pros. But then everything was beginning to crumble. I walked away from one punch only to take another. The Utley thing . . . It was like someone takes a picture of a bank robbery and you’re standing right there in the background. Just by you being in that picture, people want to know everything. Who wants that on their head?

“After all I had been through that year, now I was labeled as the guy in that situation. I don’t know, you have a ton of weight on your back, then someone adds a pound and you can’t tell the difference. It just loads you down.

“After what I went through in Houston, I didn’t want to get close to anyone. So when I came to the Rams I didn’t want to have any friends. I stayed very much to myself, but then I would go home at night and I would have no one to talk with. It was terrible.”

The 1991 season ended.

“And emotionally, David was really a wreck,” Erica said.

She and David began spending more time together. They were not married yet, and Erica spent her Wednesdays and Fridays at Bible study.

“I wanted to go to the movies, she wanted to go to Bible study,” Rocker said. “You got to be crazy--me, go to Bible study?

“Two years ago, I’m not an alcoholic but I’m the type of guy who’s out with the fellas, having a few beers, hitting the clubs and hoping I can sleep off whatever happened the next day.”

Said Erica: “He’s got the six-pack--make that two six-packs--a night and he’s staying out late and the women are coming his way. But he’s also going through a lot of bad experiences, and he’s frustrated with his career.”

It was time for a change, Rocker said. He knew it. He accepted an invitation to attend Bible study.

“Erica saw a person, who, deep down, had something wrong,” Rocker said. “I had brushed off her attempts to help me before, but I had so many trials and tribulations. It was time to listen.

“I could no longer put my faith in Man after what I had gone through. I learned the only thing that doesn’t change is God and the word of God. That’s my foundation now. That year changed my whole life.”

His problems, however, did not go away. He returned to the Rams in 1992--after he and Erica had married--suffered a knee injury in the second game of the season, and then became a prisoner of insecurity.

“Getting hurt was the last blow,” Erica said. “His knee got better, he was ready to come back on October 18, and the next week he thought he would be activated, and the next week, and the next week. It was just terrible. After a while we stopped going to the games.

“You have to understand his family, how he grew up and how much he loved football. The smell of the October air--he knew he should be out there playing and he wasn’t.

“We were also a young couple, we were expecting twins, and we were reading the sports pages each week about how the Rams were bringing in another new defensive lineman. Each time he thought he was going to go in and get a pink slip. I know he didn’t want to confide in me because I was pregnant, so he tried to shoulder everything.”

The 1992 season ended.

“It was a feeling like, thank God it’s over,” Rocker said.

Two years of NFL football, two years of hell.

“He’s had to endure through so many hardships early on in his career,” Erica said. “I know he can handle anything that comes his way now.”

A week ago, the Rams moved Rocker ahead of highly regarded defensive tackle Marc Boutte and into the starting lineup. It’s only the exhibition season, but his time has come.

“I’m not looking at anything but trying to be consistent,” Rocker said. “I could sit here, tally up the votes and try to figure out where I fit in, but I’m not concerned by politics. If I want people to know anything about me now, it’s that I can be an aggressive player and also be a solid Christian.

“When you’ve been up and you’ve been down like I have the past two years, it’s nice to start, like I did last week against Phoenix. But it’s nothing that I can raise my pompons and cheer about. The way I look at it, I’m still in the starting blocks.”

In a few weeks, he will have to deal with past misery. The Rams will play in Houston on Sept. 26, where it all began to go sour. Then on Oct. 24, the Rams will play Detroit, and although that game will not be in the Silverdome, certainly there will be reminders.

“I have not talked with Mike Utley,” Rocker said. “One time last year I thought about calling. I think it was around the anniversary. I don’t want to get into the details, but I was advised that wouldn’t be a good thing to do.

“Why don’t I call? Why haven’t I called? I can’t really explain it. It’s just not on the top of my list, and I know people might not understand that with something like that being so serious. But so many things have happened in my life, mentally, emotionally, job security-wise.

“I don’t know, it’s one of those things you’re constantly working up to do.”

It took more than a month before he talked about the incident to his wife-to-be, and nearly two years to discuss publicly his feelings about the play.

“Mentally speaking and the flashbacks of that play that he had when he was playing--he’s over that,” Erica said. “I’m certain he’s gotten by that. Not to cast it away like it doesn’t matter, but he’s not bearing the weight anymore mentally.

“We know it will still follow him wherever he goes. And I know David is genuinely concerned about Mr. Utley, but for whatever reason I don’t think he’s ready to contact him.

“We pray and we hope the best for Mike Utley, but I don’t know what the future holds for their relationship.”