Verser haunted by NFL failure

Friday, April 20, 2001

Verser haunted by NFL failure

Former Bengals' top pick has new struggle: Dealing with 'Uncle Tom' accusations as a Cincinnati cop

David Verser is in his ninth year as a Cincinnati cop.
(Michael E. Keating photo)
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This time of year, many Bengals fans lament how the club's first-round draft misses have contributed to the team's string of misfortune. David Klingler, Ki-Jana Carter and Reinard Wilson didn't meet high expectations in the 1990s. And 20 years ago this month, it was David Verser.

But no one is more disappointed than Verser, a speed receiver from Kansas taken with the 10th selection in 1981. Verser is so down on himself because of his pro football career that he seems to be missing the greater contribution he's making as a black cop in this town.

“I had plenty of goals coming in,” said Verser, now 43, who had 23 receptions in four seasons with the Bengals. “I believe if I had played 8-10 years, I'd be married with a family and working in broadcasting or something.”

Instead, Verser is beginning his ninth year as a Cincinnati Police patrolman. He has to work. All that's left financially from his first-round contract is the NFL pension. He said his former agent stole from him.

On the outside, in the wake of racially charged riots over the relationship between Cincinnati's black community and its police department, Verser's dealing with increasing abuse that he and other African-American police officers are “Uncle Toms” and have sold out their race.

Verser was overshadowed by Cris Collinsworth.
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On the inside, as he often does, Verser is replaying the football career that went so wrong on the city's riverfront.

Verser was the best receiver in the draft. He had 4.4 speed in the 40-yard dash, great hands and could jump to the moon.

The Bengals, wanting to revive an offense that contributed to a 14-34 run the previous three seasons, took another wide receiver in the second round.

Cris Collinsworth signed early. He was impressive on the field and charming off the field during the rookie mini-camp.

Verser held out for more money. By the time he signed, Collinsworth was the darling of Bengals coaches and fans.

Collinsworth caught 67 passes as a rookie. Verser caught six. The Bengals went 12-4 and to their first Super Bowl.

Memories of the title game are another sore spot with Verser. He was blamed for missing a block at the 1-yard line in the third quarter of a 26-21 San Francisco victory.

“Every year, I have to go through the start of the football season and the highlights from the Super Bowl,” Verser said Thursday.

“They're showing the goal-line stand San Francisco had, and David Verser didn't hear the call and missed the block on the end, and Hacksaw Reynolds came untouched and stuck Pete Johnson. It's the same thing over and over. I didn't hear (the play) call. Nobody did.

“But every year, it's the same thing. Then it's, "Weren't you a first-round draft choice?' I have to live it over and over again. Super Bowl, draft. Super Bowl, draft. Super Bowl, draft. It never ends.

“I never really got a chance. They didn't let me do what they drafted me to do.”

Every year, Verser was going to have a breakout season, Bengals coaches said. He nev er did. At the time, coaches said he ran bad routes and didn't have his head in the game. He was traded to Green Bay after the 1985 draft, when Cincinnati took another receiver, Eddie Brown, with its first pick.

Verser went to Tampa Bay and ended his pro career as a strike-replacement player in Cleveland in 1987.

His football struggles were coupled with disappointment in his personal life. His fiancee left him because she couldn't understand why he was upset about his position with the Bengals. Then, he said, his agent ripped him off.

“I was getting married one week and not getting married the next,” he said. “Then I don't see her again. It was all at once.”

The emotional walls went up. Few people outside his 11 living siblings, all of whom are back home in Kansas City, Kan., have been let inside. It's a defense mechanism. Everybody he trusted let him down when he needed them most as a young man.

Out of football and alone, Verser had to find work. With a social work degree from Kansas, he started as a social worker before moving to juvenile court. He wanted to do more to help children and thought he could as a police officer.

Verser is a patrol officer working Northside, Winton Place and part of Clifton. He mainly makes traffic stops and answers domestic calls. The 241-KIDS calls about child abuse and neglect get to him the most.

He has beefed up from his playing weight of 200 pounds to 260. He's still 6-foot-2 and still can run, though he was slowed by a knee injury suffered on the job in January when he slipped on some ice.

The injury kept him at District 5 headquarters on Ludlow Avenue during last week's rioting. He was working station security.

He has unsuccessfully applied for neighborhood policing jobs and positions in a juvenile program. They'd allow more contact with families and troubled teens and youths.

“Now, I see families in emergency situations,” he said. “You can't spend a lot of time in one place, because you're going from call to call.”

Not a day passes without complaints from other African-Americans that he's an “Uncle Tom,” a white man in a black man's skin.

“People perceive you differently than any other normal black man,” he said. “Sometimes, I don't let people know I'm a police officer. They treat me one way (warmly) when they recognize me as the football player. Then when they find out I'm a police officer, it's "You all do this and do that.' But not everybody is like that. A few people make it bad for a lot of us.”

In some ways, Verser says, he's looking for redemption and validation denied him in his football career.

“The worst part about being a cop is knowing some day I'll be in a position where I'm going to have to kill somebody or they're going to kill me or shoot me,” he said. “Too often now we're being put in this situation. I've had my gun out tons of times, but I've never fired. There are people I should have shot and killed, but I didn't. I was justified.

“But sooner or later, one of these times I won't be able to make another decision. And when that day comes, that will be the day I give it up because I don't want to kill someone over something little. That's why people have to put up their hands and do what the officer says so it won't escalate. But people run. If saying that makes me a "Tom,' then I'm a Tom.”

“Some day, I'm going to be able to affect somebody's life and keep some group of young men this age (elementary school children) out of trouble so they're not going to be in the kind of trouble teen-agers are in now.”