Paralyzed Football Player Back On Field - As Coach

HARTSVILLE, S.C. - Randy Wheeler has gone from a once-promising NFL career to a high-school football field, working with Hartsville High's young linemen.

He sees the poor alignments and the clunky, raw technique.

That's when the wheelchair hurts the most.

"I want to get down and show them because I see the things they're doing wrong," said Wheeler, paralyzed last year in a car wreck. "I try and tell them. But they still don't get it because I guess I'm not painting a good enough picture.

"I know if I was up, I could show them."

Wheeler, 24, is back home as a Hartsville assistant coach. He was skinny and frail after his accident but is now closer to 280 pounds, his weight when he played for the South Carolina Gamecocks. He was a 315-pound guard on the Miami Dolphins' practice squad in 1997.

Broken neck, broken dreams

Wheeler was on his way to Dolphins training camp on July 20, 1998, when his sport-utility vehicle slid off a rainy highway and into a tree. Despite wearing his seat belt, he snapped his neck in two places and broke his back.

Doctors feared the accident would leave him a quadriplegic. But after several operations, he has regained much of the feeling in his upper body and some feeling below his waist.

Wheeler could barely shrug his shoulders after the wreck. Now he shakes hands with Red Foxes assistant Bob Hayes. He high-fives younger brother Michael, Hartsville's tailback, linebacker and punter.

"He's feeling good," said Wheeler's fiancee, Kendra, who calls him to the phone by his football nickname, Speedy. "I know when he's not. Sometimes, he keeps it hidden. But that's how he is."

When Wheeler returned to Hartsville, people would call, visit, leave cards and gifts, anything to let him know how much they cared. On a trip to Wal-Mart last fall, so many people surrounded him, he couldn't move.

"I wasn't ready for that then," he said.

So Wheeler stayed inside doing exercises; playing with his 10-month-old son, Randy III, and 6-year-old daughter, Ayana; and getting used to the fact that he is in a wheelchair - for now.

"I haven't given up walking again," he says.

Return to the field

It was the comfort he felt in Hartsville that eventually brought him back out to the field. Through talks with his high-school coach, Lewis Lineberger, Wheeler got a shot to fulfill his goal of coaching.

There was no hesitation about bringing Wheeler onto the team, Hartsville High Principal Kaye McElveen said. Most of the time, Lineberger says, it's Wheeler who counsels others.

"He turns it around on you and makes you feel better about yourself," the coach said. "He's just a tremendous asset to this whole team."

Wheeler said the NFL and its players association took care of medical expenses and outfitting his home with ramps and equipment.

"So I told Kendra she didn't have to work," he said. "Her job was to take care of me and the kids. My job was to get better."

On a cool evening recently, Wheeler, dressed in khakis and a crisp golf shirt with the Red Fox logo, rolls his chair up the ramp at Kellytown Stadium before a game. He listens with the linemen as assistant Emet Reyes gives some final words.

"This is Red Fox terrrrrr-it-torrrrrry," the announcer shouts.

The team enters to the theme from "2001, A Space Odyssey," the same tune Wheeler burst onto the field with at South Carolina's Williams-Brice Stadium.

He sits off to the side as players speed through the noisy corridor formed by cheerleaders and the band.

During the game, though, Wheeler becomes active. He mostly stays at the end of Hartsville's bench, but a few times he has to flick his controller to roll his electric wheelchair away from players heading out of bounds.

Wheeler gives high-fives to defenders, including Michael, after they stop Ridge View on fourth down in the first quarter. Later, Wheeler has words with his brother, who is called for an unsportsmanlike conduct foul.

The Red Foxes, trailing 7-0 much of the way, score with 28.7 seconds left. Lineberger goes for the 2-point conversion instead of the extra point to try to win the game. But quarterback Brandon Miller, who scored the touchdown, is stopped and Hartsville loses 7-6.

Life lessons

There will be more practices and more work, but already Wheeler has helped improve players' skills and taught them about life, sophomore lineman Bear Bryant said.

"It was hard at first to know how to react around him," he said. "But he's cool; he's just like one of the guys."

Wheeler says he'll attend some South Carolina and Miami games this season. He'll go to practice when he feels strong, which is most of the time these days, surrounded by his family and community.

After the game, Wheeler comes out of the coaches' room, a smile on his face. He congratulates some players on the effort and meets Kendra and their children.

"This is a moral victory for us," he says. "We haven't had a lot of those around here lately."