A Tragic Loss

Lawrence Phillips had a world of talent and a universe of issues. He besmirched his brilliant college football days, wrecked his NFL career and ultimately destroyed his tortured life before he ended it.

Phillips, 40, a star running back at Nebraska on two national championship teams and a first-round NFL draft pick, apparently took his own life on Wednesday morning in a California prison. Already serving a 31-year sentence for a pair of incidents – an assault on a former girlfriend and driving his car into a group of teenagers – he was also facing murder charges and possibly the death penalty relating to the death of his cellmate last September.

Phillips could never control his aggression, his recklessness, his outbursts. He assaulted a girlfriend while in college and got a six-game suspension that was panned as way too light. He already had assault and vandalism charges in his jacket.

Brilliant on the field in the aspects of the game he enjoyed, he sabotaged his pro tenure with lame blocking, inconsistent effort and a general failure to conform to standards. Teams fired him. Agents fired him.

The St. Louis Rams, who traded future Hall of Famer Jerome Bettis to herald the Lawrence Phillips Era, got little for their trouble. But their coach at the time, Rich Brooks, understood (perhaps too late) exactly what he had and what Phillips wasted – in football and in life.

“It’s really sad, because he had a world of talent, but he just had a troubled life from the get-go,” Brooks told Fox Sports. “It was like he couldn’t exorcise his own demons. He had a great opportunity to change his life coming out of college and playing for the Rams, but he just went into an even further downward spiral.”

Not fame, not glory and certainly not fortune changed Phillips. He could not outrun whatever it was in his mind or his heart that forced him to chase the end, rather than new beginnings.
 
 
Post By: Larry Weisman, a longtime sportswriter for USA TODAY, blogs for Twistity.com. Follow him on Twitter @MrLarryWeisman