….reprinted from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch March 13, 1997
VIOLENT DEATHS: North St. Louis County: Antonio Wadlington, 21, was found stabbed to death about 4 a.m. Wednesday in his home in the 9600 block of Jacobi Avenue in the Castlepoint area of North County. Wadlington's body was found by his girlfriend as she returned home from work. Robbery did not appear to be the prime motive.--Copyright 1997 St. Louis Post-Dispatch
“That’s my boy, that’s my boy,” an excited Antonio “Tony” Wadlington said to me while catching a glimpse of an ESPN Thursday Night football game.
The University of Tennessee was making one of their many national television appearances that 1995 season and Tony was stoked about the plays his friend and former Coffeyville Community College teammate, Leonard Little, was making for the Volunteers. “Look at him. That nigga’s a beast, I’m telling you.”
Seems Tony and old Leonard were buddies at the two-year school in Kansas prior to their stints at traditional four-year educational posts. Tony enrolled to play football at Coffeyville in the fall of 1994. He had just finished his senior year at Berkeley High School, where the St. Louis Suburban Journals named him their athlete of the year for his exploits in football, basketball and track during the 1993-94 school campaign. His plan was to attend Coffeyville for one year before he enrolled at Central Missouri State the following year.
Football coaches at CMSU had recruited Tony tough throughout his senior year at Berkeley. They liked his athleticism and toughness. The trash talking left a little to be desired. When it was time for Tony to take his recruiting trip to Warrensburg, the top brass at CMSU made me his recruiting host. My job was to make sure he had a good time and sell the university and its football program as a place to be.
CMSU wasn’t a bad place to be in the early nineties if partying and bullshitting were the focal point. In terms of the football program, the Mules had fallen slightly off the top perch of the Mid-America (then Mid-Missouri) Athletic Association despite winning or sharing three MIAA championships from 1987-89. Still, the Mule Mystique reigned, so I figured the best way to get a an athlete the caliber of Tony Wadlington to sign with the Mules was to show him a good time in the humble city of Warrensburg.
To be honest, much of Tony’s recruiting trip is a blur to me. I mean, I know we were prohibited by laws, rules and morals, but we—meaning—me, a few teammates, a couple of my roommates and a host of recruits—got pissy drunk, super high and chased a few skirts at an on-campus party. Tony excused himself once to go hurl, but other than that, a good time was had by all. CMSU had their man as Tony pledged his non-binding verbal agreement the day after the boozed-out, drug-fueled party crashing ordeal.
By the time I ran into Tony again--some six months later--things had changed. For starters, I had gotten expelled from CMSU because of bad grades and behavior issues and Tony was headed to Coffeyville for an abbreviated stop to work on his grades for NCAA eligibility before heading off to Warrensburg.
“Tony!” I screamed thru the thunderous beat of loud, angst-filled hip-hop music at The Palace Skating Rink, circa August 1994. “What’s up, dawg? What’s up with you?”
“Who that?” a sly looking Tony said, filtering through the well-wishes, glad-hands and back-pats reserved for athletes of his stature. “Who that?”
“Tory, nigga,” I deadpanned. “Tory Porter from Central Missouri State. I was your recruiting host.”
“Ahh, what’s up, T.” he shot back, laughing at the obvious mention of CMSU and his infamous up-chuck incident. “What’s good with it, homeboy?”
“Nothing, chilling,” I coolly countered. “What’s up with you?”
“Man, nothing--just chilling with a couple of my homeboys.”
“So, what’s up, you still going to Central?”
“Yeah, I’m going. I gotta go to juco first, but I’m still going.”
“Aw yeah? What juco you going to.”
“Coffeyville. It’s in Kansas.”
“Nigga, I know where Coffeyville at. They be sending hella cats D-I, though.
“Yeah, man, I know, but I’m still coming up there.”
“You know, I ain’t going back to Central either this year.”
“Oh yeah? Why not.”
“Grades. Motherfuckas sent me back here on the first thang smokin’. But it’s all good, though, I might go back next year.
“Aww T, you gotta make it happen, dirty. You one of the reasons I even wanna go up there”
“No doubt, no doubt—but, look, I’ma let you get back to yo’ people. I’ma catch you before you leave and grab yo’ number.”
“Aw’ight, dirty. Be peaceful.”
“Aw’ight, be peaceful.”
True to his word, Tony enrolled at CMSU in the fall of 1995, a year after attending Coffeyville. I spent the 1994-95 academic year getting my ship in order at Harris-Stowe State College (now University) in St. Louis and Jefferson Junior College in Hillsboro, Missouri. Neither of those schools had football programs.
I re-enrolled at CMSU the summer of 1995. When two-a-day practices rolled around in August, Tony was there indeed. The bond was forged. The friendship solidified.
“I told ya’ll niggas, my nigga is a beast,” Tony said, continuing his Thursday night pro-Leonard Little tirade. We were on a fifteen minute break from the mandatory study hall implemented by the CMSU football staff and administration. Tony spent at least ten of those minutes big-upping Leonard Little and their Coffeyville days together.
“He going to the league,” Tony proudly stated about the football tackling machine sporting the #1 orange Volunteer jersey. “I’m telling you, my nigga going to the league.” Little, of course, wound up a Pro Bowl defensive end for the St. Louis Rams.
Tony had a pretty decent season for the Mules in ’95. I had to sit out again that season because of transfer issues—essentially red-shirting for the second time in my three-year Mules’ career, which up to that point had spanned several big play practices, outstanding inter-squad scrimmages, grueling off-season workouts, devastating school expulsions, dream smashing athletic ineligibility and dire second chance opportunities. Everything except actual game day competition.
I enjoyed watching Tony’s attempts to become a regular contributor at wide receiver for the Mules. Although he wasn’t a standout gridiron performer, Tony flashed enough big-play potential that Coach Terry Noland and staff entrusted him to handle punt and kick return duties in ’95. He did a somewhat modest job on kickoff returns, but those punt returns were merely adventures. True he had speed to burn, but those hands were a bit unsteady fielding the rock.
Tony was disappointed he didn’t do more on the field for the Mules and his grades suffered. At the end of the 1995-1996 academic year Tony Wadlington was out of a scholarship and back home living with his mother in Berkeley, Missouri.
During the summer of 1996, Tony made several trips to Warrensburg to visit friends and teammates. He usually stayed with me and my roommates in the three-bedroom apartment we shared off-campus. The gatherings consisted mainly of a lot of basketball, booze and bud. From time to time I would coyly slide in the conversations the fact I too lost my MuleBall scholarship in 1992, got sent home in 1994 and came back in 1995.
Tony often talked about going to Flo Valley Community College to get his grades up. He wanted to re-enroll at CMSU for spring semester 1997--go through the rigors of winter workouts and spring ball to earn his scholarship back. He promised he would attend all Mule home games in ’96 to show support for both me and the program. I just so happened to get on a game day college field for the first time in ’96.
A strange thing happened that 1996 season. Our head coach, Coach Noland was told he wasn’t going to be retained after the season—a season that saw the Mules post the second of back to back four win seasons. There were three games left when CMSU athletic director Jerry Hughes broke the news to Coach Noland.
Noland, a coach at CMSU for 14 seasons and owner of three MIAA championship rings, was floored. He abruptly left his position rather than coach the last three games as a ‘lame duck’ coach. Defensive coordinator Jeff Floyd finished the season coaching the Mules.
Coach Noland’s departure created a mini-lull in the Mules’ football program prior to the spring semester of 1997. Although new head coach Willie Fritz was bringing with him to CMSU a proven resume—his previous team at Blinn Junior College in Brenham, Texas had just won back to back national JUCO titles by going a combined 22-0 in 1995 and 1996—he had no clue about Tony Wadlington or his desire to return to CMSU.
Caught in between the pinch, Tony decided to stay in the St. Louis area for the spring ’97 semester as well. Tony’s plan was to re-enroll at Central for summer school after the semester ended and compete for time during summer workouts in Warrensburg.
Things were looking up for the Mules early in 1997. The effervescent Fritz had just got to town with him an impressive array of talented JUCO performers who helped him win those two national championships at Blinn.
For me, I used the opportunity to learn from a coach who had put several players in the NFL. For Tony, it made him wish he was still in the ‘Burg.
All in all, I was Tony’s inside man on the new coach and I was the new coach’s unwitting recruiter, constantly lecturing to Tony about why he needed to return to CMSU to play under Fritz.
I was on my way to another one of Fritz’ invigorating winter workouts prior to spring practice when one of Tony’s former freshmen cohorts at Central, Durand McNutt, ran up to me outside of the football offices. He delivered a crushing bit of news.
“T.P., you heard about the homeboy?” Durand said, barely audible through his grief stricken speech.
“What homeboy?” I fringed, “what’chu talking about?”
“Tony, man,” Durand informed, “they found him last night dead, man. He was all stabbed up and shit.”
“What!” I beckoned, damn near letting the knee buckling news take me down to the ground. “Dawg, don’t tell me that.”
Durand went on to provide the few details he knew of the circumstances behind Tony’s brutal murder. He left me with the telephone number to his good friend Zell, who had attended both Berkeley High and CMSU with Tony. I immediately went to Fritz and his staff with the news. They obliged my request to take the rest of the afternoon off. The gesture meant a lot to me for I never really got a chance to completely sell Fritz on Tony.
Zell basically told me Tony had been the victim of a botched robbery in the one-bedroom apartment Tony shared with his girlfriend in the Castle Point neighborhood of North St. Louis County. The intruders had tied Tony up, Zell informed, stabbed him several times and shot him in the head.
“Look, T.P.,” Zell advised through the long-distance phone call from Warrensburg to St. Louis. “I’ma holla at Tony’s old gal and see when the funeral is and I’ma call you and let you know.”
“Damn dirty, that’s fucked up,” I petitioned to Zell.
“I know, T.P.” Zell countered. “But I’ma find out what’s good and hit you back.”
“Aw’ight. One.”
“One.”
Zell called me back a somber day and a half later with even more distressing news.
“Hey, T.P.,” Zell spilled, “look, man you might as well don’t even come to St. Louis, dawg. Tony’s old gal, she hurting dawg. She ain’t even having a funeral from him, dirty. She just gon’ cremate his body and have a lil’ sumthin’ for him.”
I can’t summon, or for one instant, imagine the pain of burying a son, so I completely understood Tony’s mother’s decision. I just wished I would have gotten a chance to tell her how important her son was to a lot of people. I wanted her to know how his charm, wit and athleticism impacted a diverse amount of people.
I wanted to tell her sorry for being the cohort who entertained those girls with booze and bud in their house in Berkley that weekend in July ‘96 when she went out of town with her husband. Damn, Tony Wad--we had a ball that day man, we had a ball. We ran through a half-ounce of bud, downed a fifth of Hennessey and watched your girlfriend and her cousin on leave from the military fight our two female friends from Central. I’ll never forget that day, dude, and you’ll never be forgotten.
See you when I get there.
…reprinted from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch May 30, 1994…
CHEERS, TEARS MARK DAY OF SUPERLATIVES AND BIT OF SADNESS
By Kevin E. Boone of the Post-Dispatch
…Saturday was a day for track and field superlatives: Most Starry-eyed: Berkeley freshman Terrell Brown ran legs on the triumphant 4x100- and 4x400-meter relay teams… "It was my dream to run on a state-championship team and to run on the same (4x100) relay team with (senior) Tony Wadlington. He's my idol."--Copyright 1994 St. Louis Post-Dispatch
No comments:
Post a Comment