Taking The Long Way Home -- Football Recruit Gets Career Back On Track, Says He'll Attend UW

Jerline Dillon had only one request for her youngest child before he entered Dixie College in St. George, Utah, last fall.

He didn't have to be chosen the national junior-college player of the year, the equivalent to the Heisman Trophy. He didn't have to break O.J. Simpson's junior-college record of 2,110 all-purpose yards in a season. He didn't even have to be a great football player or choose his hometown Washington Huskies.

All she wanted her baby - 6-foot-1, 220-pound Corey - to do was finish school and become the first in the family to graduate from college.

He is on track to earn an associate of arts degree in August. That is important to know about Dillon, who said yesterday he will accept a scholarship offer from the UW.

But despite recruiting pressures from some of nation's most prominent programs, Dillon did not forget his mother's wish.

"That was important to my mom. We talked about that a lot and it's going to happen," Dillon said. "I'm not doing all of this for her, but she helped me a lot."

Yesterday, the Seattle native ended a two-year journey that led him to Kansas and Utah and said he would return home. He said he intends to sign with Washington on Wednesday, the first day of a national signing period. He will have two years of eligibility with the Huskies.

Dillon, 21, is tall, lean and muscular. He has speed, power and athletic skills that may land him in the National Football League. But for someone who makes all the right moves on field, he can't seem to dodge the label of troublemaker that has followed him from Seattle to Kansas to Utah.

A graduate of Seattle's Franklin High School, his goal was to be the best football player to leave the school since Terry Metcalf, the two-time Pro Bowl player with St. Louis in the mid-1970s. Pittsburgh, USC, California and Washington had vied for his talents. He was a blue-chip selection on The Seattle Times' 1993 prep recruiting list. His future seemed secured. Recruiting experts labeled him "can't miss."

But eight months after his high-school graduation, he was out of football and working as a janitor. A brief baseball career with the San Diego Padres had soured quickly. He enrolled in Edmonds Community College, but dropped out after three weeks.

He returned home to Jerline, who wouldn't let him "sit on the couch and watch game shows."

"He was just moping around, hanging out with his friends. You know, kid stuff," she said. "I told him, `What are you doing? When are you going back to school?'

"I told him to get a job and see how that feels. He tried it, working janitorial service, and after a few weeks he said, `Mom, this is not for me, I'm going back to school.' "

Two years later, Dillon realized the goal he set as a prep senior.

In back-to-back seasons at Garden City Junior College in Kansas and Dixie, he amassed more than 3,500 rushing yards and 30 touchdowns. Dillon chose the UW over offers from Washington State, Texas Christian, Brigham Young and Tennessee.

"It came down to where I might want to live for the rest of my life," Dillon said, "where I might have a family, playing in front of your people. From that standpoint, this was the best choice for me."

Mother knows best

That's what Jerline Dillon had predicted. Her joy goes beyond the obvious. One of nine children growing up in rural Louisiana, she graduated from high school despite helping raise five younger siblings and working part-time cleaning houses and picking strawberries.

So when she talks to her son about finishing school, she knows she got through to him. When she talks about putting his past behind him and overcoming all the odds in front of him, she knows it wasn't just idle chatter.

"He would tell me he wasn't sure if he would ever be that good of a player," Jerline said. "I told him he would. I knew he would, if he believed in himself and cleaned up his act."

Dillon has had to deal with adversity all of his life.

The youngest of three children, he received the brunt of his brothers' ire. The family lived in a one-story house on 23rd Avenue for 19 years. His father, James Watson, and mother never married. Though he lives in Seattle and they visit frequently, Watson and Corey are not close.

Dillon's brother Charley, 28, became the man of the house when he was 15 years old. Jerline worked 10, sometimes 12, hours as a housekeeper at Swedish Hospital. The boys had plenty of time to get into mischief.

"When we were kids we got into trouble like other kids," Charley said. "When Corey got bigger and people started knowing him, he may have gotten in some trouble and everybody would know about it and it would get blown out of proportion."

One story is at the heart of the innuendo, which Dillon cannot dodge.

Accounts of the incident vary widely. It began on a fall Friday night in 1993 at Seattle's Memorial Stadium where most of the city's high schools play football. On the field, Dillon was running through the Ingraham Rams for 216 yards and two touchdowns.

Charley and Curtis, his older brothers who never missed a game, were in the stands. Jerline was there, too, wearing a pin with Corey's picture on it. Also in attendance were several scouts and players from the University of Washington, including ex-Husky running back Beno Bryant. The Huskies had been strongly recruiting Dillon to replace Bryant.

Here the story gets murky. Sometime during the game, Bryant and friends of Charley and Curtis got into an argument. They scuffled. No one was arrested, but all involved were escorted out of the stadium by security officers. The two parties reportedly renewed their disagreement after the game and some say Dillon was in the middle of it all - which he denies. No punches were thrown, but security personnel again intervened.

A few days later, then-Washington Coach Don James called Franklin High School and spoke with several administrators. Shortly after, the Huskies lost interest in Dillon.

The incident left Dillon bitter toward the UW.

"All I hear is Corey beat up Beno Bryant, that's crazy. I wasn't even there," Dillon said. "It's crazy how people will believe something like that . . . for a long time that turned me off them (the Huskies) and they lost interest, too."

Bryant could not be reached for comment.

Stops at two junior colleges

Dillon admitted that he was involved in a few altercations as a teenager. "If somebody jumped in my face, I wouldn't back down," he said. He was twice suspended from high school, but said he cleaned up his act in college.

However, former Garden City Coach Jeff Leiker asked Dillon to leave the team weeks before the 1995 season after his star running back reportedly was involved in a fight on campus. The previous season, Dillon gained 1,468 yards and led the Broncobusters to an 11-1 record.

"The fight had nothing to do with it. I don't even know if he was in the fight," Leiker said. "Corey and I had an agreement. We talked a lot about identifying bad situations and walking away.

"He has a habit of turning up in the wrong place at the wrong time. I wanted him to change that. We talked at length about that . . . and we finally decided that he should leave."

That's the past, Dillon said.

"I've changed," he said a few weeks ago, just days before he made a recruiting trip to Washington. "I've got too much to lose."

Dillon is trouble-free at Dixie. He carries a 2.4 grade average and coaches say he is on track to graduate on time.

But there's a wrinkle. He wants to play for Dixie's baseball team this spring and hopes to re-enter the amateur draft.

Balancing a full course load with baseball may make it difficult to graduate. If Dillon receives less than a C in his remaining classes, he will not graduate from Dixie this summer.

However, high ambition is a problem many coaches can live with. It didn't scare off the Huskies, who are holding one of their remaining four scholarships for him.

Dillon wants to play running back - a position occupied by Rashaan Shehee, who has two years of eligibility left and is one of the Pac-10's top returning running backs. The Huskies also have received oral commitments from two highly recruited California prep running backs.

Washington projects Dillon as a strong safety, a spot vacated by All-American Lawyer Milloy, or one of the two open cornerback positions, but Dillon is adamant about playing running back.

"There will be no free safety for me," he said. "I was granted offense at the time, so offense it is. I'm not too worried about the situation."

Seattle Times staff reporter Hugo Kugiya contributed to this report.