Sunday, August 01, 1999
Birth of a child, rebirth of a man
Fatherhood forges all-new Dillon
BY PAUL DAUGHERTY
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Corey Dillon
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GEORGETOWN, Ky. — A guy who says he's Corey Dillon smiles and shakes my hand.
“We're cool,” he says to me.
Hey. Great.
“We'll be fine.”
Fine? We'll be ... fine? What is this? April Fool's?
We were lots of things, Dillon and I and my buds in the media. We were never fine.
I had this running joke with Dillon last year. I'd say “Hi, Corey.” He'd say, “No.” As in, “I'd rather run gassers with a Chevy for a helmet than deal with your sorry, pen-toting butt.”
OK by me. A great thing about being a columnist is, if you don't want to talk to jerks, you don't have to. I'd rather have run my toes through a sausage-maker than talk to Dillon. I'd rather have watched soccer.
But Dillon has changed. He is a father now, to a 6-month-old girl named Cameron. He says fatherhood has changed him in ways he can't describe or fully comprehend. It happens.
People who take child-rearing seriously can't help but be changed. (That would be those people who don't simply create kids, pretend the kids don't exist, then flee the country to avoid prosecution for non-support. Take a bow, James Brooks, former Pro Bowl Bengal and current Pro Bowl deadbeat.)
Dillon witnessed the miracle of life. We're watching another miracle, a cordial Corey Dillon.
“I'm maturing a lot faster because of my situation, which is a lovely one,” he said. “I've got somebody depending on me. I just can't be depending on myself anymore.”
In the past, if you wanted to know Dillon, you watched him run. He ran angry. He ran mean. He ran the way hard-headed city kids run. Head high. Shoulders back, chin up, chest out. The whole pose.
He ran right at you. You think you're badder than me? Let's go.
There was no dancing, there was no bull. Leave the ballet to Barry Sanders. The Dillonator's yards came across your back.
He lived his life the same way, at a steady seethe. He'll tell you that now. Dillon stayed mad at the world. He stayed mad at you, if for no other reason than you existed.
“What were you angry at?” I asked him.
“Things,” he said. “But things that used to bother me just aren't important anymore.”
It's called perspective. Kids can give you that.
“Yeah. Exactly,” Dillon said. “I'm much more at peace with myself.”
This is nice and more important than football. But the Bengals don't need Dillon to be at peace. They need him running every play as if the goal is to break a linebacker's world.
“That ain't gonna change,” Dillon said. “That's me. That's all I know. That's what got me here. I can't change my running style, (so) I changed everything else.”
The concern with that is Dillon could age prematurely. He missed parts of games last year with a twisted knee, a hip pointer, a sprained toe and a bruised back. These are the accumulated discomforts of a guy who enjoys inflicting his toughness on others. Backs like that (Earl Campbell), don't often last as long as those who dance (Sanders, Tony Dorsett).
“I'm not out there dancing around that much. I'm out there fighting and clawing. Somebody's in my way, well hey. It's either hit or be tackled,” Dillon said.
He spent the last six months watching his daughter grow, and feeling his own growth spring from that. A self-described “day-to-day guy” be fore Cameron, Dillon said he's a family man now. His mother, Jerline, raised Dillon and his two brothers alone, with the sort of love and conviction he intends to spread to his baby girl.
“I wouldn't be doing justice to my family if I didn't want to be there and take care of my family. That's not my character,” Dillon said.
It was a nice chat we had, the new Dillonator and I. We're cool now.
“It was just time for me to grow up,” Dillon said.
Hey, whistle while you work, big guy.
Enquirer columnist Paul Daugherty welcomes your comments at 768-8454.
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