Charles Jordan: Not Afraid of the Past

His story is a familiar one to the many who live in south central Los Angeles. It has been written and rewritten over and over again. There rarely seems to be a happy ending, but the beginning is always the same.

Growing up in that part of the country, there are two paths: either join the Bloods or join the Crips, the notorious rival gangs, whose reach is felt all over the United States. Jordan was no exception and he chose to join the the Bloods. He had fallen into the trap, and he has the scars to prove it.

Three bullet wounds and three stab wounds are easily visible on his body. He still has nerve damage to his right thumb from a knifing. The first time he was shot, he didn't realize it for several minutes until, dizzy from the loss of blood, he looked down to see the wound to his stomach.

Jordan's mother, Roxie, hated that lifestyle. She would lay awake at night waiting for her only son to come home. She would hear the crackle of gun fire and the whining sound of ambulances and pray that Charles wasn't in one of those ambulances.

At age 11, Jordan was a churchgoing youngster. By age 19, his life hit rock bottom.

It was a hot summer day in Los Angeles when Kenny Jones was gunned-down. Crips wear blue and Bloods wear red, and anyone wearing those colors is a potential target. Jones wasn't a gang member. He wasn't even from Los Angeles, but he was wearing a blue shirt and it cost him his life.

The Los Angeles police detectives investigating the case believed Jordan knew more about the case than he was telling the police.

"The detective knew I knew who did it, but I wasn't going to tell him," Jordan said. "I couldn't because I knew what would happen if I told. They'd just come after my family. That's the code. That's what you have to live with when you are part of that. I couldn't back out of it just because I was in trouble and somebody else did it."

He was now wanted in connection for the murder of Jones, but was able to avoid the police for two months by hiding out at a cousin's house. It was there his life would be changed forever. He met Kymberly, who he would eventually marry. At the time, he had no idea of the effect she would ultimately have on him.

The two spent most of those two months together. They took day trips together to Tijuana and Palm Springs for shopping sprees. The ate at nice restaurants and went to movies nearly every day. Little did Jordan know, but Kymberly was having a positive effect on him.

"She was showing me the other sides to life," Jordan said. "It was stuff I wasn't used to doing. The only thing I was used to doing was going to the neighborhood, smoking and drinking beer. That's what I was exposed to daily. That was my daily program.

"When she started showing me other things to do in life," Jordan added, "I started to really understand that there's a better life outside of this neighborhood."

Kymberly eventually convinced Jordan to turn himself in. Jordan pleaded not guilty and was bound over for trial. It would be six months before Jordan would see the outside world again. It gave him time to reflect on the first 19 years of his life. For the first time in his life, he felt remorse.

"While I was sitting in jail I was basically portraying a role that wasn't even me," Jordan said. "My so-called enemies, I didn't feel like they were my enemies. I used to call my mom and say, 'Mom, I'm losing it. I must be growing up because I don't feel like I hate these guys anymore.'

"That's when I realized what was really causing the problem in my life. I was hating people for the wrong things and the wrong reasons."

Jordan read the Bible in prison, trying to make sense of his out of control life. He prayed often. He prayed for the strength to fight off the Crips who were in prison with him. Jordan was easily identifiable. The shackles around his ankles told everyone he was a gang member, and the three-letter tattoo on his arm told everyone he was a Blood. It wasn't uncommon to be jumped and beaten by 10 to 15 inmates from a rival gang at one time.

Mostly, though, he prayed for the charges to be dropped. His prayers were answered. With evidence against him lacking, the judge dropped the charges against him.

"When he got out he was petrified," Kymberly recalled.

"He was really scared. He was like, 'I don't want to go through that any more. I don't know how people go through it.' It frightened him to see that if he didn't straighten his life out, that was where he was going to be headed."

The process was starting. Slowly, Jordan began to break away from the Bloods. Along with Kymberly, Jordan now had a daughter, Lauren. It was time to regain control of his life.

"I started feeling like, 'Hey it's done. I'm alive. I'm healthy. Just let it go,'" Jordan said. "And I knew I wasn't going to last with my old ways. I started feeling that if I stayed around, kept staying in the streets, I was going to die. "And when I had my daughter, I had to make a choice: Did I want her to have a father or did I want her to go her whole life without me?"

Jordan began to realize he had to find out who he really was. With the blessing of Kymberly, Jordan went to visit his aunt Evangelin and aunt Dorothy in Atlanta to rediscover that 11-year old, churchgoing youngster. His aunts reminded him everyday that he needed to change his ways and instilled in him the values of an education. Jordan listened and for the first time in his life, things began to make sense.

Jordan returned to his family later that year. With him he brought a dream: to play professional football. He knew it was a long shot for most players with four years of college experience, but with only one year of playing experience at Long Beach City College, the odds would be even longer.

"She (Kymberly) was behind me," Jordan said. "She felt like she didn't want me living a life wondering what if."

Jordan enrolled at Long Beach City College, the same college he left three years earlier. His mind was much clearer now. He was hoping to use his new college experience as a springboard to the Canadian Football League. During one of his workouts at Long Beach, he met longtime NFL receiver James Lofton, who was trying to catch on with the Raiders in the twilight of his career.

Jordan had followed Lofton's career and valued his opinion. He asked Lofton if he should stay in school or attend one of the free agent tryout camps where he could get noticed by a professional team. Lofton took a liking to Jordan, but told him something he did not want to hear: Stay in school.

Jordan sought a second opinion. When Chicago's Mark Carrier showed up at the college for a workout, Jordan asked him the same question he had asked Lofton.

"Mark was saying that I had to go off my own instincts," Jordan said. "He said, 'James don't know the type of skills that you have. Only you know that.'"

With that advice in hand, Jordan attended tryout camps in Houston, Atlanta and Los Angeles. At the final camp at El Camino College in Los Angeles, Jordan excelled, running three consecutive 40-yard dashes under 4.32 seconds.

"I was talking to Canadian scouts and all of a sudden this man walks over in all this silver and black," Jordan recalls. "All the Canadian teams just walked away all of a sudden. I was wondering why they were walking away from this character right here.

"The man said, 'How would you like to come work out for the Raiders?' I said, 'Man, I would love to.' But I told him that I had talked to (Raiders Pro Scouting Director) George Karras, and he told me that they didn't need any receivers at this time. 'Well,' he said, 'I am George Karras.'"

Jordan was a typical Raiders wide receiver prospect. He was unpolished as a pass catcher, but had blazing speed. When he showed up at the Raiders camp, he wasn't the only free agent receiver on hand. James Jett was there as well. Jordan recalls his performance at the camp with a big smile on his face.

"I went into camp and I went berserk," Jordan said. "I can't recall dropping a pass. I don't recall nobody getting within five yards of me whenever I ran a long route. Al Davis came up to me personally and said, 'How would you like to be a Raider?' I couldn't believe what I was hearing."

The next day, Jordan signed his first professional contract. He had come a long way in two years.

When he arrived for the opening of training camp with the Raiders, Lofton immediately took him under his wing. It wasn't long before Tim Brown, Rocket Ismail and Vince Evans were doing the same thing. It was hard for Jordan to comprehend how players he was competing against for a job could be so nice to him.

"I said to myself that I was going to step into this camp with the same mentality I took in the streets when I was gang-banging," Jordan said. "I was going in there thinking everybody was my enemy. I didn't have anything to say to anybody. All I want to do is learn this and I'm out to beat all of you guys. And when I went in and saw how nice these fellas were, I couldn't believe it."

Jordan's tenure with the Raiders lasted just one uneventful season. He was inactive for the first six weeks of the season and was placed on injured reserve with an abdominal injury and missed the rest of his rookie year. Just before the start of his second season, Jordan was traded to Green Bay. He began to wonder in what direction his life was going.

When he arrived in Green Bay, he found his teammates were still looking out for him. The first time he walked into the Packers locker room, Reggie White pulled him aside and told him that he had talked to Tim Brown and was told to keep an eye on Jordan. That is exactly what White did.

"Daily, he would check on me and make sure that I was focused on what I needed to do to stay clean and away from the street life," Jordan said.

Jordan spent the 1994 season playing on the Packers special teams and in 1995, Jordan found himself playing wide receiver in the NFL. He caught seven passes for 117 yards and two touchdowns. He also returned 21 punts for an average of 10.1 yards. He had come a long way since his days as a gang member in Los Angeles.

His speed was intoxicating. It drew attention to him, and when he became a restricted free agent, it helped peak the interest of Dolphins head coach Jimmy Johnson.

Jordan was the first free agent signee by Johnson as head coach of the Dolphins. With that, though, came the pressure of performing knowing he is one of the pieces Johnson feels he needs to bring a Super Bowl title to Miami. The pressure seemed to get to Jordan.

Jordan impressed the Dolphins coaches during Miami's mini camps, but an injured ankle limited his practice and playing time during the preseason.

"I came here and got hurt on the first day of training camp," Jordan said. "They expected me to be right back on the field practicing in a couple of days, and I ended up sitting out six, seven, eight weeks, not performing to people's expectations.

"It made me frustrated, and I didn't handle it in a professional manner," Jordan added. "Then I started doing things to aggravate the coaches like being late for meetings. I didn't care for myself. The things I did off the field weren't good."

Not being able to play through injuries frustrated the Dolphins coaching staff as well. In Miami's 38-10 win at Arizona last season, Jordan hauled in a 43-yard reception, but when he landed on the Sun Devil Stadium turf, he reinjured his ankle and missed the next game against the Jets. He played sparingly the next six weeks and then was inactive for the last seven weeks of the '96 season.

Johnson came close to cutting Jordan, but instead gave the receiver a second chance. Since that time, Jordan was a regular participant at the Dolphins off season conditioning program, and his attitude toward his profession has been in a more business-like fashion.

"Charles has really been much more professional in the way he has handled himself," Dolphins receiver O.J. McDuffie said. "The fact that he didn't play college ball is part of it. I went to Penn State, and when you go to a program like that or the University of Miami, you learn the regimen and you learn the toughness it takes to compete every day. You learn what it's like to play through the injuries."

"I want to be mistake-free and work on the things that Dan Marino needs to see to feel comfortable with me so he'll throw me the ball," Jordan said. "I want him to have confidence in me, and I want to feel comfortable with the offense. I need to come off the ball and pick up the coverages faster. I don't want to wait until the last minute to pick it up." Now with his professional life in order, Charles is once again in charge.

Article courtesy of offthefield.com

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