Love of Football Resurrects Former Quarterback

NASHVILLE, Tenn. —  Eleven teen-agers hang on Joe Gilliam’s every move as he grabs a football and walks to the middle of the field.

Not long ago, parents would have been terrified that the former NFL quarterback might be a role model.

Two decades after his glory with the Pittsburgh Steelers, Gilliam was Nashville’s most famous homeless person and drug addict--a hometown hero turned embarrassment.

But somehow he straightened out his life, and on this day Gilliam shows teens at his football camp how a quarterback runs an option play. He fakes to his left, pivots to run back to his right, a big smile on his face the whole time.

“It’s a reality,” Gilliam said. “It actually happened.”

Not even family and friends could have pictured this scene. It was only four years ago that Gilliam seemingly was headed to an early grave, the result of a drug addiction that started in the mid-1970s.

The 49-year-old Gilliam now wants to warn children and teen-agers about how drugs can ruin their lives. The rules for his camp, posted all around the field, include Nos. 6 and 7: no alcohol and no drugs.

“There are no families that have escaped the evils or the lessons to be learned from alcohol and drug abuse, not in this country,” he said.

Too bad a teen-age Gilliam didn’t get the kind of advice he now gives out. Maybe he wouldn’t have blown his career as a quarterback, the first black one to start an NFL game. Or lost all his money and pawned two Super Bowl rings. Or spent time on the Nashville streets homeless.

Fighting an addiction that started with cocaine and moved to heroin, Gilliam stopped doing drugs repeatedly over the years, making several trips to drug-rehab centers. He even worked as a counselor for a while only to slip again and again.

By all rights, Gilliam should be dead. Twice robbers pointed a gun at him and pulled the trigger. Neither gun went off.

“I’m grateful. I’m blessed or lucky. It depends on your point of view,” Gilliam said. “I’m fortunate to be alive when a lot of the people that I’ve known and dealt with, especially in the negative times, are dead or in the penitentiary.”

His father, also Joe Gilliam, credits his new daughter-in-law, Barbara, with helping the younger Gilliam stay off drugs. They married nearly four years ago, and Gilliam is in his third year of being clean.

“She has been the most instrumental person in that her approach has been, ‘I’m going to give this guy so much to do that he’s going to stay busy,”’ the elder Gilliam said.

His son had his own idea about how to stay busy -- a football camp, an idea he had years ago and resurrected shortly after the Tennessee Titans went to the Super Bowl in January.

No one who knows Gilliam doubts he can run a camp. The question always has been whether he could avoid drugs long enough.

He set up the details--use of a field at his alma mater, Tennessee State University, sponsors for T-shirts and lunches, and lined up most of the staff--and then went to his father.

The elder Gilliam spent 40 years coaching football, a career that ended at Tennessee State. He had watched his son go from an A-student and a promising athlete to someone he repeatedly picked up off the street in the middle of the night but never quit trying to help.

His son pitched his idea for the camp and asked Dad to be co-director. The father agreed but didn’t believe the camp would actually happen.

“I learned a lot of things with Joe, and one of those is don’t look forward to tomorrow,” he said.

But now friends have hope that the younger Gilliam can keep his streak going because it’s lasted so long already.

“He’s gone through this before and taken a step back,” said friend Woody Widenhofer, a former Steelers assistant and current Vanderbilt University coach. “But I don’t know if he’s ever gone this long with this kind of commitment and been this public.”

On the first day of the June camp, 50 teen-agers showed up. And there was Gilliam, clean for another day and showing off the strong arm that won two black college national titles and could have given him a long NFL career.

His father roams around the camp, but he can’t keep the proud grin off his face as he watches his son do everything from tell a boy to pull up his shorts to arrange a food delivery.

The younger Gilliam attracted nearly 80 teen-agers to his first camp and he is already busy with ideas for next year. Expanding from one week to two, attracting younger children, setting up a nonprofit foundation to handle the work.

He also is interested in coaching and has talked to people about job openings. He spent a year on his brother’s staff at Lane College in 1993, and Widenhofer thinks he would make a fine coach with his knowledge of quarterbacks and defenses.

Getting that first job will be the problem.

“It’s hard to go out and hire a guy who’s been through what he’s been through when you’re dealing with all these young kids,” Widenhofer said. “If he proves he can stay straight, he’d be a tremendous asset because what he’s been through is right there in front of you.”

No matter what happens, Gilliam will always be an addict, working daily to stay in recovery. His family remains ready to help in any way.

“He’s out there today, so I thank the Almighty that he’s out there today,” his father said. “I’ll deal with tomorrow when tomorrow comes.”

Gilliam plans to keep working hard, believing in himself.

“With all those things working, there’s absolutely nothing that you can’t do or accomplish,” he said.