Dolphin Safety Atkins Is Both Nasty And Nice -- Pro Player With The Big Hits Has Big Heart, Too

MIAMI - Gene Atkins makes his living hitting grown men so hard they're intimidated when they come near him. His 4-year-old daughter Santrell doesn't get too close before games because "he puts on that ugly face." Playing free safety for the Dolphins is a guy teammates call "Mean Gene."

So how is it someone who makes his living tearing men down can spend so much time trying to build things? How is it a man who causes pain can dedicate his life to bringing others joy?

"I guess I'm like two different people sometimes," Atkins said. "My job in football gives me one reputation and there are times when I am Mean Gene. But my joy in life is to see other people happy.

"My thing is to put a smile on someone's face and let them know I care about them. I want to be remembered some day as a guy who touched people's lives in a positive way. I want to improve the community, I want to be a positive role model to our kids. I see myself as a person God put on this earth to touch people.

"I want to be a good servant of God."

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Atkins.

On this Tuesday, Gene Atkins is far removed from football. It's the only day Don Shula's players are off during the season, so this is the day Atkins goes to work.

At Atkins Construction Company in North Miami, Gene Atkins is the president and CEO. He trades his helmet for a hard hat, he forgets the playbook and looks over the accounting books.

Atkins sits in a finely appointed leather recliner behind a sleek mahogany desk. A CEO report sits in front of him and pictures of his family are on a table behind him.

It is a fledgling business that shares office space with Strong Safety Security and Investigations Inc., another Atkins holding. On Sept. 12, the construction company will bid its first project - making additions and renovations to Brownsville Middle School.

This is not a money-making venture yet, but already it's a success.

Atkins' companies employ four full-time people, all African-Americans, and plan to add more minority employees when business picks up.

Office manager Patrica Tate and administrative assistant Annette Chandler were unemployed when Atkins hired them. Ed Hayne, who runs Strong Safety Security, was rich with ideas but short on funds when he and Atkins joined forces.

Alfred Simmons owns a degree in architectural engineering from Florida A&M University but had spent most of the past decade lending his creativity to large companies that swallowed him in anonymity. Now he is the mastermind behind Atkins Construction and everyone at the company knows it.

"I want them to be at peace," Atkins said. "When they come to work, I want them to know that they can be happy here and that their futures are safe here."

It works. Chandler, whose job title means she's on the low rung of this corporate ladder, says she's very happy working for Atkins.

"Gene listens to us, everyone here matters," Chandler said. "He's not your average boss who comes in, grunts at you and closes his door. Gene's door is always open and he doesn't let anything slip past him.

"He's paying me nice, too. Of course, you'll have to ask me again next year if he's still paying me nice."

Atkins is mad. He's just put down a newspaper article that has incensed him, partially because it dealt with his salary and partly because it quoted an anonymous teammate talking about him.

So in a team meeting, Atkins demands the anonymous teammate come face him. Man to man. Now.

No one moves.

"We can't have players talking, degrading other players," Atkins said. "We don't need those kind of players. Those are the same type of people who will start to point fingers and lay blame if things don't go right."

Atkins' simmering rage boils over the next day. He couldn't find the teammate whose message he loathed, so he vents his anger on the messenger.

In 45 seconds of fury, Atkins runs over the reporter who wrote the article. When the reporter regains his feet and approaches Atkins, putting a hand on the player as he asks for an explanation, Atkins grabs the overmatched reporter by the throat and backs him away.

That night, the incident circulates on ESPN's SportsCenterand on CNN. USA Today reports the incident nationwide the next day. The accounts portray Atkins as an out-of-control bully, but Atkins has already replaced his wrath with regret.

"I have a temper just like any other person, but I'm disappointed about what happened," Atkins said.

Sandra Atkins, who met her husband in college, was at a neighbor's house when she heard about the incident.

"My heart sank," Sandra said. "I know he probably just saw this guy who wrote the article and all the anger came up on him.

"That night we sat down and talked about how something like this could affect the kids in school. I told him, `You're getting older now, you should know better than this.' But maybe he's not old enough yet."

Anger and intensity are no strangers to Gene Atkins, especially on the football field.

When he was with the New Orleans Saints, Atkins once leveled scout team running back J.J. McCleskey so hard during practice trainers had to help the player off the field.

Coach Jim Mora admonished Atkins for hitting his own teammate too hard. "Save it for Sunday," Mora told Atkins.

An angry McCleskey said he later challenged Atkins to a fight on the field, but was restrained. Thankfully.

"Everybody's going half speed and this guy hit me like a truck," McCleskey said. "Of course I stood up for myself, but nothing happened in the end. He's 6-foot and 200 pounds and I'm 5-7 and 175. I guess I'm glad nothing happened. I wouldn't call it intimidation, but afterward, I always looked to see where he was."

Last year when he sustained a mild leg injury, Atkins got into a shouting match with the Dolphins' training staff.

"They wanted me to do something a certain way and I told them no," Atkins said. "Their job is to know how to get people's body in shape, but I believe I know my body better than they do. It was no big deal, it was just a difference of opinion.

"Football marries you to a lot of people. Sometimes you're going to have a disagreement. But disagreement doesn't mean divorce. I think the trainers do a fine job."

Atkins hit Ed Haynes a couple of times, although it was on a football field, not in the office where Haynes runs Strong Safety Security.

As a receiver in high school, Haynes wanted nothing to do with Atkins, who played linebacker at a rival school.

"When he hit people, it was like he was leaving the ground like a missile," Haynes said. "Gene's the guy who punished quarterbacks and running backs. He had a serious reputation, a reckless reputation. Gene hit me a couple of times coming across the middle. It was in a gang tackle-type situation, not one-on-one. I knew I didn't want to get hit by him one-on-one."

The Tabernacle Missionary Baptist Church on Tuskeegee Street in Tallahassee is filled this humid Sunday afternoon and the congregation is praising and worshiping God because their prayers have been answered . . .

. . . by Gene Atkins.

The church is in serious need of renovation and Atkins has just guaranteed the work will be done by handing the Rev. Stanley L. Walker a check for $100,000.

Atkins says God told him to give the church the tithe. It's not the first time God talks to him. When he was 8 years old, Atkins was picking pecans off an old tree when God told him he was going to play professional football.

Several times when he was with the Saints, Atkins "sinned" and God punished him. Atkins says God even warned him he was going to be punished before it happened.

"If you're a child of God there are certain things you have to do and certain things you have to stay away from," Atkins said. "It's just like my character.

"I'm sometimes forceful and mean and have a temper. All those things are good things on the football field. But I have to let go of that a little bit off the field. I need to be at peace with myself, because when I go home, the best thing in this world is being gentle and loving and getting a hug from my kids and wife."