Krieger: Cutler making point to make difference

By Dave Krieger, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Thursday, April 12, 2007

Jay Cutler, the Broncos' second-year quarterback, won't turn 24 until later this month. He has already had two teammates get shot to death.

Welcome to 21st century sports, where going out to a club can be more hazardous than anything that happens on a football field.

Two years before Broncos cornerback Darrent Williams died in the back of a limousine at age 24, Vanderbilt running back Kwane Doster was shot and killed while sitting in a car in Tampa, Fla., his hometown, at age 21. Cutler was Vanderbilt's quarterback at the time.

"It was weird because Kwane got shot kind of outside of a club, too; same deal, got into an argument," Cutler said this week. "It was kind of like déjà vu, like I was reliving it all over again. So it was tough, to have to go through that twice and have guys that were so big on the team and just great guys overall. It impacted me a lot and it's definitely something that I kind of want to get involved with."

When professional athletes form charitable foundations, they tend to choose causes familiar to them, perhaps a disease that touched a family member. Cutler didn't have one of those, but he was part of a program in college called Backfield In Motion, which brought together athletes and kids in local after-school programs.

In the wake of Williams' death, finding a worthy cause in his new hometown didn't take long.

"I got to give the guy props," said the Rev. Leon Kelly of Open Door Youth Gang Alternatives in northeast Denver. "Here it is all minority kids - half Hispanics, half blacks, and for somebody of his stature to say, 'OK, I want to do what I can to try to make a difference. How can I make this work? How can I make them believe I can relate to them?' It was just his presence, outside of him being on the football field."

Cutler visited Wyatt-Edison Charter School, which hosts Open Door's after-school program, shortly after launching the Jay Cutler Foundation in February.

"Like I tell all my kids, whether a person is white, black, green, blue, it's what's in their heart that's going to make a difference," Kelly said. "He's stepping out and getting into an environment that he never had to deal with growing up, and yet he's willing to do what he can do to make a difference in some of these kids' lives."

Cutler's plan is to focus on four schools each semester. This semester's roster is Wyatt-Edison, Columbine Elementary, Lake Middle and Rishel Middle School.

"So far, the reception's been good," he said. "I haven't had any problems with color. I think in the inner city, I think in the elementary schools in general, if you bring in anybody of professional status, a celebrity they see on TV, they're going to listen - black, white, orange, I don't think it really matters. They just want somebody to look up to and somebody they can talk to."

Cutler's foundation will support the Lights On After School program and Cameron Ebel Teens Against Violence. Cutler connects the dots from youthful bullying to the violence that took the lives of his teammates.

"CETAV deals with bullying and fighting and tries to cut it off before it escalates into shooting, as it did with D-Will and Kwane," he said.

Santa Claus, Ind., where Cutler grew up, is miles from any inner city in more ways than one, but the deaths of his teammates brought him face to face with the cycle of urban violence.

"There's no explanation," he said. "It could have been anybody; it could have been no one. It's one of those things that shouldn't happen. It should never happen. A 21-year-old, a 24-year-old shot like that with a lifetime left to live. It's just something that you can't explain and you hope never happens again.

"Trying to get into the elementary schools and trying to teach them that there's a different route you can take, there's something else you could be doing, that's kind of what we're trying to achieve."

Although Kelly is grateful for Cutler's help and that of Nuggets forward Kenyon Martin, who also visited Wyatt-Edison recently, he notes many more pro athletes came out in previous generations, among them Claudie Minor, Barney Chavous, Larron Jackson, Randy Gradi- shar, Vance Johnson and Mark Jackson of the Broncos, and Alex English, Wayne Cooper and Fat Lever of the Nuggets.

So I asked Cutler if he hoped to enlist the support of teammates in his new initiative.

"Definitely," he said. "I mean, some of the guys that I came in with, I've talked with them some, and, hopefully, this summer I'll be able to get them out with me and go visit some schools and stuff. But it's hard. It's definitely an uphill battle with some guys."

Two months before Williams' death, 22 months after Doster's, Tampa prosecutors dropped charges against the leading suspect in the Doster shooting. Both cases remain unsolved.

kriegerd@RockyMountainNews.com