Even Ugliest Break Can't Stop Mike Sherrard

NEW YORK - Mike Sherrard was running a simple route in a standard seven-on-seven passing drill.

It was Aug. 5, 1987, at the Dallas Cowboys' picturesque training camp in Thousand Oaks, Calif. The San Diego Chargers had come three hours north to work out and break the monotony of camp.

With his sprinter's speed and good hands, Sherrard was to become the focal point of the Dallas passing game in his second NFL season, carrying the torch passed from Bob Hayes to Drew Pearson to Tony Hill.

"I was tired. I had run six or seven plays in a row," Sherrard recalled. "They said, `OK, Mike, run another one.' I knew I would get a break after that one."

Break. He laughed at his choice of words. "I remember running and thinking, `My leg feels good, I'm running fast, I may have been fatigued before, but I'm running good,"' he said. "Then, it happened all of a sudden."

Sherrard stumbled after his left heel was clipped by a Charger defensive back. His left foot smacked against the back of his right leg, and the force shattered the leg.

Crack. Snap. The booming sound of Sherrard's compound fracture - he broke the tibia and fibula - nearly shook the practice field.

"It was almost like when you hit a couple of pieces of wood together," said Steve DeOssie, a teammate of Sherrard's then and now. "We didn't know what it was. That was not a sound you hear."

Sherrard lay on the field with the bone protruding out of his skin between the knee and ankle. An utterly gruesome sight. Quarterback Danny White was so shaken he asked out of the last 45 minutes of practice. To illustrate the break, a Dallas TV sportscaster broke a pencil in half.

Six years later, and after breaking his leg a second time, while running on the beach the following March, Mike Sherrard is the Giants' leading receiver after three games. His 17 receptions has him on pace to catch 91, which would surpass Earnest Gray's team-record 78 set 10 years ago. And he may become the first Giants' wide receiver to make the Pro Bowl since Homer Jones in 1968.

All that would do is complete one amazing comeback.

"The whole world told him he was crazy to keep trying," said his attorney, Leigh Steinberg. "There wasn't a single voice of support. He had only himself to rely on. He has the most amazing willpower and determination of any athlete I've ever seen."

Sherrard's personality resume also reads: Great attitude, upbeat, hard worker, always smiling, courageous. "I do speaking engagements and people ask me about my leg and what it was like," he said, adding that he tries to communicate "the emotional ups and downs."

He knows he has become an inspiration. Even in his own locker room.

"(Giants rookie linebacker) Jesse Armstead is from Dallas and he told me he had a bad accident in high school, but that he remembered reading about me and saying, `If he's not going to give up, I won't either,' " Sherrard said.

At 30, Sherrard still runs like a gazelle. When his right leg broke, he never gave up hope that he could play again. Joe Theismann, whose career ended after a Lawrence Taylor hit broke his leg in 1985, called with encouragement.

Sherrard was born with the competitive edge: His mother, Cherie, a year after she gave birth to Mike, made the 1964 U.S. Olympic team as an 80-meter hurdler.

A rare combination of speed and height, Mike was a walk-on at UCLA, and set a school record with 48 catches in 1983.

Now the lean, 6-2, 187-pounder no longer worries if he his leg will hold up. But he has a lump and two scars on his leg as a permanent reminder.

Sherrard's hard luck didn't end there. In his desire to play again in 1988, he went against the advice of team doctors and accelerated his rehabilitation. Working under the care of a doctor in Los Angeles, Sherrard began jogging on the beach in Malibu on Feb. 8. He had spent 20 weeks in a cast, four months with a metal plate in his leg. He wanted to play.

But he was also six months ahead of the schedule the Cowboys preferred. And he was 100 yards from finishing up a workout in early March of '88 when he broke the leg again. "I just sat in the sand," Sherrard said. "I knew it was broken. I heard the crack. I told a friend to call an ambulance."

The word was Sherrard was done, his bones were too brittle for the NFL and there was talk around the Cowboys, he said, that he was sticking around to collect his paychecks. The Cowboys were fed up.

"The second time was the toughest," he said. "The first time, I didn't think it was any big deal. I was upset that I would have to miss the season, but I was only 23 years old and I thought I had nine more years with the Cowboys. The second time, the rehab was no fun. I thought I had it conquered. But I had to start back at square one and my employer was ticked off at me."

Sherrard never played again for the Cowboys. "We thought he was a top player," former Dallas Coach Tom Landry said. "The only problem was his legs wouldn't stand the pressure. He wouldn't work with our doctors. About the time we thought we had him pretty well healed, he went out on the beach and ran, trying to get in shape, and of course broke it again."

The Cowboys made him a Plan B free agent after the '88 season and he signed with San Francisco. He was told to pace himself and be ready for 1990. He spent much time in the pool strengthening his leg, was activated for the '89 playoffs and even caught a pass in the Super Bowl.

The past three seasons, he's been the NFL's best No. 3 receiver, playing behind Jerry Rice and John Taylor.