- Messages
- 78,654
- Reaction score
- 43,000
LINK
By BRAD TOWNSEND / The Dallas Morning News
btownsend@***BANNED-URL***
After four back surgeries, Charles Haley walks with a slight stoop. At 45, he has hair flecked with gray. Most striking, though, is what's missing.
The infamous scowl.
Patiently, the former Dallas Cowboy and San Francisco 49er who terrorized quarterbacks and sportswriters alike spills forth a raw testimonial. Occasionally, he winces at his words.
"I left a road of destruction when I played," he says.
Haley isn't referring to the linemen he annihilated en route to 100 ½ sacks and more Super Bowl victories, five, than any player.
He's talking about the other carnage. The teammates and coaches he "wronged." Some of the writers he cursed. And, most regrettably, the 19-year marriage he wrecked.
"I hurt people," he says. "What transpired in the past can't be changed. The only thing that can change now is: What can I do? How can I live?
"What do I want them to see when they see me? Am I going to be the same guy, or are they going to see a different Charles?"
Why speak publicly now, 10 years after his retirement as a player? Well, his family and former teammates encouraged him to do so and are themselves speaking out.
They note that after years of struggling with bipolar disorder, Haley now manages the dramatic mood swings through therapy, medicine and personal resolve.
They say they have been heartened by his spiritual growth and atonements, especially during the past year. Now they want to help him repair two decades of collateral damage.
Not coincidentally, Haley is a Pro Football Hall of Fame semifinalist for the fifth time in his six years of eligibility. That means he's once again made the final-25 cut.
But he has never advanced to the final 15, leading some to wonder if his off-the-field image is impeding him. The Class of 2010 finalists will be announced Friday. Four to seven enshrinees will be elected during Super Bowl week in February.
Haley's most passionate supporter doesn't get a vote, but her identity might surprise some of the Hall's 44 selectors. She's Karen Haley, the woman who divorced Charles three years ago.
"I know that if you mention the name Charles Haley, a lot of people immediately are going to say something negative," she says. "It will be based on something they've heard, read, or it could be based off of a personal experience."
She admits his playing-days persona was "abrasive" but regrets that so few know the Charles Haley who wrote her poetry when they were at James Madison University.
She still sees him as the strong and caring father of their four children – including Brianna, who at 3 was stricken with a dire form of leukemia.
Karen reasons that an emotionally troubled football player from working-class Lynchburg, Va., could not have grown into the man Charles recently became if the qualities weren't there all along.
"I'm very proud to witness his transformation," she says. "I don't use that word often, but I really feel it has been a transformation.
"One thing I think is unfair is that once people have a mental image of a person, it generally doesn't change. I'm worried the negativity will prevent Charles from being in the Hall of Fame – and he is so deserving."
Winning numbers
In Hall of Fame terms, image isn't supposed to matter. Bylaws stipulate that selectors focus solely on players' on-the-field performance. What is supposed to matter is that Haley retired with five Pro Bowl selections and the 10th-most sacks since that became an official category in 1982.
Hall voters typically value winning. Haley played in seven NFC title games during an eight-season span (1988-95) with San Francisco and Dallas. He won two Super Bowls with the 49ers, three more after his trade to the Cowboys.
"I'm not a big Hall of Fame person, because I think it's a team sport," says Jimmy Johnson, who coached Haley during his first two seasons in Dallas, both ending in Super Bowl wins. "But without question, I think Charles Haley's a Hall of Famer.
"He helped two teams get to the Super Bowl. He was a missing piece of the puzzle when I traded for him. Obviously, we had great players, but he gave us a tremendous pass rush that we needed."
That is the black-and-white synopsis of Haley's career. But many Hall selectors recall Haley's volatile moments.
The September 2008 release of Jeff Pearlman's Boys Will Be Boys: The Glory Days and Party Nights of the Dallas Cowboys Dynasty didn't help Haley's image.
The book described how Haley allegedly took a swing at San Francisco head coach George Seifert, urinated on 49ers teammate Tim Harris' BMW and habitually made lewd gestures and comments in the 49ers and Cowboys locker rooms.
Although Haley says he hasn't read the book, he says some of the episodes may have been embellished by teammates and reporters with whom he'd been confrontational.
"I thought that what you do on the field would govern whether you get in the Hall," he says. "But, you know, I can understand how some of these things are hard to forget. I was very abrasive."
'A kinder person'
Rarely a week passes that Haley doesn't call or see 49ers teammate and Dallas native Michael Carter. Carter and fellow 49ers veterans Keena Turner and Ronnie Lott befriended fourth-round draft pick Haley in 1986.
"Beneath the hard exterior, there's a kinder person," Carter says. "We saw that. With other people, he gave the crazy Charles Haley. But we saw the difference."
Many NFL players, Carter says, have extreme playing personalities, but most don't continue them off the field. Haley often did.
One day he might degrade a teammate for falling short of expectations. The next day, he'd try to hug or kiss that teammate. Or he would sit silently at his locker.
The National Library of Medicine describes bipolar disorder as a serious mental illness. "People who have it experience dramatic mood swings," the library says. "They may go from overly energetic, 'high' and/or irritable, to sad and hopeless, and then back again."
The Pearlman book cites a 12-6 49ers road loss to the Los Angeles Raiders in the fifth game of the 1991 season as the day Haley erupted in the locker room, took a swing at Seifert and yelled offensive remarks at quarterback Steve Young.
Carter doesn't specifically mention those incidents, but he does recall that Haley interrupted Seifert's postgame talk, "yelling and fussing and saying things that didn't make sense."
Carter says Haley then punched the security glass in a door, cutting his hand in the wire mesh. "Then he started bawling like a baby. We knew something was wrong then. He kind of went off the deep end."
Karen says Charles sometimes would refuse to go to team functions and social settings. On the other extreme, she says, he was a shopaholic, in particular reveling in buying nice things for his mother, Virginia, and Harley Davidsons for himself.
During the 1990 season, Karen went to a library and copied literature about manic depression.
"I just suspected," she says. Charles says he "dismissed it."
Not until seven or eight years ago was Charles formally diagnosed with bipolar disorder. Karen accompanied him to that therapy session. He said little on the ride home.
"He was still processing, but I could tell, he was ready," she says. "He was willing to accept it."
Jimmy Johnson's take
When Haley was traded to Dallas on Aug. 26, 1992, all Johnson knew was that he was getting a dominant 28-year-old, and his baggage, from the rival 49ers.
"I had talked to the 49ers," Johnson says. "They told me about his antics and rebellion, peeing on the car, etc.
"But everyone said he was intelligent, had a great passion for the game and was a hard worker. What else could I ask for? I had plenty of Charles Haleys in my days of coaching the University of Miami."
Haley recalls Cowboys owner Jerry Jones picking him up at the airport. He says Jones talked the entire car ride and made him feel welcome.
"The next day, I met Coach Johnson," Haley says, laughing. "He didn't even say 'Hi.' He was playing a mental game."
Johnson recalls three run-ins with Haley. The biggest was after a 1993 win at Minnesota. Haley arrived late to the locker room as Johnson addressed the team. Johnson cursed and ordered Haley to the front of the huddle.
"In an act of defiance, he came 5 inches from my face," Johnson says. "But that was Charles. I accepted that. He was his own guy, but by the same token, I had to make sure he fell in line with the rest of the team."
Haley says that he and Johnson were Alpha males and that he respected Johnson "because he made the weak stronger."
Last year, at an autograph-signing session in New York, Haley says, he and Johnson "put the hatchet down." But Johnson says Haley owed no apologies. "As a person, I liked Charles. He was a great competitor. That's what got him into a bit of trouble."
Taking stock
Haley says that in recent years, therapy has allowed him to take painful but needed stock of his life, which began in segregated Lynchburg.
"In the streets, a lot of things get instilled in you. Hatred, pain. It's a driving force. It's hard to change those things. My mom tried to instill God into my life. It was around me but not in me."
When daughter Brianna was diagnosed with leukemia in 1997, Charles and Karen worked to raise marrow-donor awareness while praying they would find Brianna's match.
The prayers were answered with the birth of their fourth child, Madison, a perfect marrow match. Madison, 10, is a standout soccer player. Brianna is 15 and still in remission.
Princess Haley, 20, plays soccer at Florida Southern. C.J., 18, is a redshirt freshman defensive back at UT-El Paso.
"God has always been there," Charles says. "He's delivered me and my family from all this stuff. But until recently I never looked at it like that.
"It's a blessing to be able to change and see things for the first time. It's the greatest thing I've ever had, more pleasurable than winning a Super Bowl. Because I don't have to walk around being angry all the time."
Carter says Haley has reached out to former teammates "to try to rectify some of the hurt. But a lot of times, people don't want to go back across that bridge."
Cynics might deduce that Haley's Hall of Fame omission spurred his transformation.
Not so, Carter says. "He turned around and looked, and his wife was no longer there. I think that really hit him."
Karen remained, just not in the married sense. When Charles had four-level back fusion surgery 2 ½ years ago and ballooned to 305 pounds, Karen made sure he got back in shape.
They work out most mornings before Karen heads to Ursuline Academy, where she teaches history. Charles now weighs 252, about 10 pounds more than his playing weight.
"I don't even know why she would talk to me, man, because I was out of control most of my life," Haley says. "But she's been there, directing me, helping me. She's a strong black woman – I mean strong. I've never moved on. She's always been the love of my life, and I feel she'll always be part of my life. I've never been able to care for anybody like I do for her."
Meanwhile, he's keeping therapy appointments, no longer skips medicine doses and belongs to a prayer group, made up mostly of fellow soccer dads.
After his playing days, Haley was a Detroit Lions assistant coach (2001-02) and has helped coach at Episcopal School of Dallas and All Saints in Fort Worth. He says he recently sent résumés to NFL teams.
This year he's visited Valley Ranch, had impromptu sessions with the Cowboys' current No. 94, DeMarcus Ware, and taken Karen and the kids to Cowboys games.
He and other ex-Cowboys sign autographs, but Haley's the only one who has five Super Bowl rings for fans to hold.
"Right now, I have joy," he says. "I meet people from different walks of life that I can have relationships with. I usually kept everybody at arm's distance."
By BRAD TOWNSEND / The Dallas Morning News
btownsend@***BANNED-URL***
After four back surgeries, Charles Haley walks with a slight stoop. At 45, he has hair flecked with gray. Most striking, though, is what's missing.
The infamous scowl.
Patiently, the former Dallas Cowboy and San Francisco 49er who terrorized quarterbacks and sportswriters alike spills forth a raw testimonial. Occasionally, he winces at his words.
"I left a road of destruction when I played," he says.
Haley isn't referring to the linemen he annihilated en route to 100 ½ sacks and more Super Bowl victories, five, than any player.
He's talking about the other carnage. The teammates and coaches he "wronged." Some of the writers he cursed. And, most regrettably, the 19-year marriage he wrecked.
"I hurt people," he says. "What transpired in the past can't be changed. The only thing that can change now is: What can I do? How can I live?
"What do I want them to see when they see me? Am I going to be the same guy, or are they going to see a different Charles?"
Why speak publicly now, 10 years after his retirement as a player? Well, his family and former teammates encouraged him to do so and are themselves speaking out.
They note that after years of struggling with bipolar disorder, Haley now manages the dramatic mood swings through therapy, medicine and personal resolve.
They say they have been heartened by his spiritual growth and atonements, especially during the past year. Now they want to help him repair two decades of collateral damage.
Not coincidentally, Haley is a Pro Football Hall of Fame semifinalist for the fifth time in his six years of eligibility. That means he's once again made the final-25 cut.
But he has never advanced to the final 15, leading some to wonder if his off-the-field image is impeding him. The Class of 2010 finalists will be announced Friday. Four to seven enshrinees will be elected during Super Bowl week in February.
Haley's most passionate supporter doesn't get a vote, but her identity might surprise some of the Hall's 44 selectors. She's Karen Haley, the woman who divorced Charles three years ago.
"I know that if you mention the name Charles Haley, a lot of people immediately are going to say something negative," she says. "It will be based on something they've heard, read, or it could be based off of a personal experience."
She admits his playing-days persona was "abrasive" but regrets that so few know the Charles Haley who wrote her poetry when they were at James Madison University.
She still sees him as the strong and caring father of their four children – including Brianna, who at 3 was stricken with a dire form of leukemia.
Karen reasons that an emotionally troubled football player from working-class Lynchburg, Va., could not have grown into the man Charles recently became if the qualities weren't there all along.
"I'm very proud to witness his transformation," she says. "I don't use that word often, but I really feel it has been a transformation.
"One thing I think is unfair is that once people have a mental image of a person, it generally doesn't change. I'm worried the negativity will prevent Charles from being in the Hall of Fame – and he is so deserving."
Winning numbers
In Hall of Fame terms, image isn't supposed to matter. Bylaws stipulate that selectors focus solely on players' on-the-field performance. What is supposed to matter is that Haley retired with five Pro Bowl selections and the 10th-most sacks since that became an official category in 1982.
Hall voters typically value winning. Haley played in seven NFC title games during an eight-season span (1988-95) with San Francisco and Dallas. He won two Super Bowls with the 49ers, three more after his trade to the Cowboys.
"I'm not a big Hall of Fame person, because I think it's a team sport," says Jimmy Johnson, who coached Haley during his first two seasons in Dallas, both ending in Super Bowl wins. "But without question, I think Charles Haley's a Hall of Famer.
"He helped two teams get to the Super Bowl. He was a missing piece of the puzzle when I traded for him. Obviously, we had great players, but he gave us a tremendous pass rush that we needed."
That is the black-and-white synopsis of Haley's career. But many Hall selectors recall Haley's volatile moments.
The September 2008 release of Jeff Pearlman's Boys Will Be Boys: The Glory Days and Party Nights of the Dallas Cowboys Dynasty didn't help Haley's image.
The book described how Haley allegedly took a swing at San Francisco head coach George Seifert, urinated on 49ers teammate Tim Harris' BMW and habitually made lewd gestures and comments in the 49ers and Cowboys locker rooms.
Although Haley says he hasn't read the book, he says some of the episodes may have been embellished by teammates and reporters with whom he'd been confrontational.
"I thought that what you do on the field would govern whether you get in the Hall," he says. "But, you know, I can understand how some of these things are hard to forget. I was very abrasive."
'A kinder person'
Rarely a week passes that Haley doesn't call or see 49ers teammate and Dallas native Michael Carter. Carter and fellow 49ers veterans Keena Turner and Ronnie Lott befriended fourth-round draft pick Haley in 1986.
"Beneath the hard exterior, there's a kinder person," Carter says. "We saw that. With other people, he gave the crazy Charles Haley. But we saw the difference."
Many NFL players, Carter says, have extreme playing personalities, but most don't continue them off the field. Haley often did.
One day he might degrade a teammate for falling short of expectations. The next day, he'd try to hug or kiss that teammate. Or he would sit silently at his locker.
The National Library of Medicine describes bipolar disorder as a serious mental illness. "People who have it experience dramatic mood swings," the library says. "They may go from overly energetic, 'high' and/or irritable, to sad and hopeless, and then back again."
The Pearlman book cites a 12-6 49ers road loss to the Los Angeles Raiders in the fifth game of the 1991 season as the day Haley erupted in the locker room, took a swing at Seifert and yelled offensive remarks at quarterback Steve Young.
Carter doesn't specifically mention those incidents, but he does recall that Haley interrupted Seifert's postgame talk, "yelling and fussing and saying things that didn't make sense."
Carter says Haley then punched the security glass in a door, cutting his hand in the wire mesh. "Then he started bawling like a baby. We knew something was wrong then. He kind of went off the deep end."
Karen says Charles sometimes would refuse to go to team functions and social settings. On the other extreme, she says, he was a shopaholic, in particular reveling in buying nice things for his mother, Virginia, and Harley Davidsons for himself.
During the 1990 season, Karen went to a library and copied literature about manic depression.
"I just suspected," she says. Charles says he "dismissed it."
Not until seven or eight years ago was Charles formally diagnosed with bipolar disorder. Karen accompanied him to that therapy session. He said little on the ride home.
"He was still processing, but I could tell, he was ready," she says. "He was willing to accept it."
Jimmy Johnson's take
When Haley was traded to Dallas on Aug. 26, 1992, all Johnson knew was that he was getting a dominant 28-year-old, and his baggage, from the rival 49ers.
"I had talked to the 49ers," Johnson says. "They told me about his antics and rebellion, peeing on the car, etc.
"But everyone said he was intelligent, had a great passion for the game and was a hard worker. What else could I ask for? I had plenty of Charles Haleys in my days of coaching the University of Miami."
Haley recalls Cowboys owner Jerry Jones picking him up at the airport. He says Jones talked the entire car ride and made him feel welcome.
"The next day, I met Coach Johnson," Haley says, laughing. "He didn't even say 'Hi.' He was playing a mental game."
Johnson recalls three run-ins with Haley. The biggest was after a 1993 win at Minnesota. Haley arrived late to the locker room as Johnson addressed the team. Johnson cursed and ordered Haley to the front of the huddle.
"In an act of defiance, he came 5 inches from my face," Johnson says. "But that was Charles. I accepted that. He was his own guy, but by the same token, I had to make sure he fell in line with the rest of the team."
Haley says that he and Johnson were Alpha males and that he respected Johnson "because he made the weak stronger."
Last year, at an autograph-signing session in New York, Haley says, he and Johnson "put the hatchet down." But Johnson says Haley owed no apologies. "As a person, I liked Charles. He was a great competitor. That's what got him into a bit of trouble."
Taking stock
Haley says that in recent years, therapy has allowed him to take painful but needed stock of his life, which began in segregated Lynchburg.
"In the streets, a lot of things get instilled in you. Hatred, pain. It's a driving force. It's hard to change those things. My mom tried to instill God into my life. It was around me but not in me."
When daughter Brianna was diagnosed with leukemia in 1997, Charles and Karen worked to raise marrow-donor awareness while praying they would find Brianna's match.
The prayers were answered with the birth of their fourth child, Madison, a perfect marrow match. Madison, 10, is a standout soccer player. Brianna is 15 and still in remission.
Princess Haley, 20, plays soccer at Florida Southern. C.J., 18, is a redshirt freshman defensive back at UT-El Paso.
"God has always been there," Charles says. "He's delivered me and my family from all this stuff. But until recently I never looked at it like that.
"It's a blessing to be able to change and see things for the first time. It's the greatest thing I've ever had, more pleasurable than winning a Super Bowl. Because I don't have to walk around being angry all the time."
Carter says Haley has reached out to former teammates "to try to rectify some of the hurt. But a lot of times, people don't want to go back across that bridge."
Cynics might deduce that Haley's Hall of Fame omission spurred his transformation.
Not so, Carter says. "He turned around and looked, and his wife was no longer there. I think that really hit him."
Karen remained, just not in the married sense. When Charles had four-level back fusion surgery 2 ½ years ago and ballooned to 305 pounds, Karen made sure he got back in shape.
They work out most mornings before Karen heads to Ursuline Academy, where she teaches history. Charles now weighs 252, about 10 pounds more than his playing weight.
"I don't even know why she would talk to me, man, because I was out of control most of my life," Haley says. "But she's been there, directing me, helping me. She's a strong black woman – I mean strong. I've never moved on. She's always been the love of my life, and I feel she'll always be part of my life. I've never been able to care for anybody like I do for her."
Meanwhile, he's keeping therapy appointments, no longer skips medicine doses and belongs to a prayer group, made up mostly of fellow soccer dads.
After his playing days, Haley was a Detroit Lions assistant coach (2001-02) and has helped coach at Episcopal School of Dallas and All Saints in Fort Worth. He says he recently sent résumés to NFL teams.
This year he's visited Valley Ranch, had impromptu sessions with the Cowboys' current No. 94, DeMarcus Ware, and taken Karen and the kids to Cowboys games.
He and other ex-Cowboys sign autographs, but Haley's the only one who has five Super Bowl rings for fans to hold.
"Right now, I have joy," he says. "I meet people from different walks of life that I can have relationships with. I usually kept everybody at arm's distance."
