For 90 days, Jeff Chase sat in solitary confinement at the Lompoc, Calif., federal prison. He had gotten into an argument while serving a one-year sentence for selling cocaine.

Jeff Chase's eight tattoos include his name written in Olde English on his back. | ZOOM |

The tattoo on his left shoulder and arm details his vision of his future: a woman, stacks of money, a football, poker chips and a royal flush. (David Adame photos) | ZOOM |

        He was stripped to his boxer shorts and sandals. The dark concrete room was cold enough to make his teeth chatter at night, hot enough to make him sweat during the day. All he had to eat was mush or dog food.

        But Chase, now 25, didn't crack in the Lompoc “hole.” He became stronger. He decided he wouldn't blame his upbringing, even though he had been homeless, for his troubles. So what if he was only 2 when his dad ran out? No more excuses.

        He made a plan: He'd do his time, get out and run down his dream of playing in the NFL.

        Jeff Chase is one of the newest Bengals. An offensive lineman who played at Texas A&M-Kingsville, Chase signed a two-year contract Tuesday as an undrafted college free agent and will report for next weekend's minicamp.

        “I really don't want to talk about my past,” Chase said Thursday by phone from Tempe, Ariz., where he moved two weeks ago to live with his brother, Johnny, who owns a health club. “I'm going to talk about where I am today and the future.

        “I'm going there, and I'm going to stick. And it may take a year or two, but I'm going to play. I'm raw. I don't have a lot of technique, but I'm a fast learner.”

        Chase, 6-foot-3 1/2 and 305 pounds, chose the Bengals over Detroit and Baltimore. He had been invited to the NFL scouting combine in Indianapolis in February but strained a hamstring.

        The Bengals, in the person of offensive line coach Paul Alexander, later went to Texas to watch Chase work out.

        “I had the advantage of watching him on film before I knew his background,” Alexander said. “My gut feeling is, he's determined to make something out of his life. In a lot of fields, these type of people are successful.”

        In the end, the Bengals showed the most interest in Chase.

        “I'll love him for the simple fact he fought for me,” Chase said of Alexander. “I'm going to give everything I have for him. You'll never meet a more loyal guy than me.”

        The loyalty Chase shows as an adult belies the lack of loyalty he was shown as a child.

        “When someone believes in you, after you didn't have it your whole life, you can't explain what it means,” Chase said.

        After his dad left, his mom moved her family from Los Angeles to the suburbs and worked two jobs — waitress and barmaid — until Chase was 9. Then she slipped on some ice one night after leaving work, breaking her arm and injuring her back. Her employer let her go. She sued but lost and had to go on welfare.

        Chase and his brother, sister and mother were evicted from their rental house when he was in grade school. They were homeless, off and on. They would live in homes without electricity. Chase moved in with a friend and the friend's mother in public housing. Sometimes, he and his brother would break into a house just to take a shower.

        Chase was kicked out of high school for smoking pot and went to work at a 24-hour fitness center near Pomona, Calif. He eventually was allowed back into school and graduated.

        He entered junior college at Mount San Antonio near Pomona to play football. He had no money and no scholarship and was doing his best to make it to class.

        He described himself as a “mule” who drove cocaine from California to New Mexico. That's how he was caught and sentenced to one year in prison and three years of probation. He doesn't try to justify his decision and actions but says he was working to buy food.

        Chase got out of prison in 1997 and entered Long Beach City College, where he starred as an offensive and defensive lineman. His coaches saw star potential and began looking for a four-year school for him.

        They found a taker at Texas A&M-Kingsville. It was a good fit, Chase thought. The school would take him from trouble in Los Angeles and make him part of a football program that had produced NFL stars Gene Upshaw, Darrell Green and John Randle.

        He grew in his time at Kingsville. But after becoming a starter during his sophomore season, Chase left school the following year because of academic ineligibility. He went home to California and sat out a year, doing little except lifting weights. Again, his life was at a crossroads.

        Then, new head coach Richard Cundiff invited him back to Kingsville. Chase got serious about school. He said later he owed the program for giving him another chance. He became a team leader and one of the first to volunteer for community work.

        Chase has an outside chance to stick with the Bengals, who are thin at guard after starters Matt O'Dwyer and Mike Goff. If Chase makes the team and settles in Cincinnati, he will give even more. Count on it, he said Thursday. He'll talk to at-risk youths about the consequences of poor decisions. He'll try to help them learn what he learned in prison so they won't bottom out as he did.

        And he'll put his words into action. He'll donate a large chunk of his NFL earnings to existing youth centers, or build his own.

        “I want to give kids who have too much free time something to do — painting, basketball courts, classes,” he said.

        That vision of his future is detailed in one of his eight tattoos. It starts on his left shoulder and winds downs his arm. It shows a beautiful woman surrounded by stacks of money, a football and poker chips in front of a royal flush. It was Chase's design and is his reminder to keep pushing hard to make his dream come true.

        Until last week, a tattoo on his lower back depicted his previous life. He won't say what it was. He had a new tattoo put over the old one in Tempe. It's a smiling clown wearing a hat.

        “Took me 7 1/2 hours to have it covered — most excruciating pain of my life. I had to put on headphones with music so I couldn't hear the needle,” he said. “I'm leaving all that stuff behind and starting a new life.

        “The pain was worth it.”

New Bengal overcame prison, homelessness

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