FRIENDS RECALL SALAAM; CU WILL RETIRE NO. 19
1994 Heisman Trophy winner will be honored Saturday
Greg Morrissey interned with the Chicago Bears in the summer of 1995 when the NFL team’s firstround draft pick approached him on the practice field. Rashaan Salaam was a 20-year-old rookie with a big smile in need of his wisdom teeth pulled. And Morrissey? Well, he had a car.
“Do you mind taking me to the dentist?” Salaam asked. “I need someone to drive me back. I just got here and don’t know anyone.”
More than two decades later, Salaam’s humble nature still makes Morrissey chuckle — “What Heisman Trophy winner does that?” — but not without profound sadness.
That ride gave start to an enduring friendship. Morrissey grew close to Salaam’s mother and brother while on visits to their home in San Diego, and when Morrissey’s sister died, Salaam attended her wake. As recently as October 2016, they sat together in Denver with mutual friends to watch the World Series on television. It would be the last time Morrissey saw the man he called “one of my dearest, best friends.” Salaam took his own life two months later in a Boulder park.
“We were just talking like friends,” Morrissey said. “I had no idea, no clue what was going on.”
The University of Colorado will retire Salaam’s No. 19 black-andgold jersey with a ceremony between the first and second quarter of Saturday’s game against California at Folsom Field. When CU announced the plan in August, Morrissey contacted former Bears teammates of Salaam’s to organize a trip to Boulder in his honor. Morrissey will be joined in the stands at Folsom Field by former Bears defensive end John Thierry (1994-98), defensive tackle Carl Simpson (1993-97) and fullback Tony Carter (1994-97).
“He’d do it for me, so I’m there for him, 100 percent,” Morrissey said.
It’s a somber reminder that Salaam’s impact far outreached the confines of Colorado. Drafted No. 21 overall in 1995, he became an instant locker room favorite in Chicago. Salaam rushed for at
least 100 yards in five games that season. He finished with 1,074 yards rushing and 10 touchdowns, earning NFL rookie of the year honors.
“It was the same thing that backs are doing today that everybody is ooh-ing and awe-ing about it,” Thierry said. “Well, he’s doing it back then — and he was (6-foot-1 and 225 pounds). He was such a physical presence and he was outrunning people.”
Even then, Salaam’s early accolades didn’t change his personal outlook.
“He was a real good guy,” Simpson said, “real laid back like me.”
But Salaam would miss four games the next year with knee and hamstring injuries, and three games into his 1997 season, Salaam broke his leg in a loss at New England and his best days on the football field were over. Teammates say he was never quite the same again on the football field, and the mental toll was equally significant.
“It really bothered him when he got hurt, and he was in his prime,” Thierry said. “But that’s the side of the game that doesn’t get seen, the injuries that guys go through and the emotion. You’ve been doing this pretty much your whole life and it can get cut short.”
Several of Salaam’s former Chicago teammates stayed in touch through the years that followed as Salaam made football stops in Cleveland, Green Bay, the XFL and CFL. And it continued when Salaam once again called Boulder home. One night each year for the past five or six, Morrissey had invited Salaam to a concert at Red Rocks Amphitheatre with backstage passes.
The demons Salaam wrestled with during the months leading up to his suicide, though, never were mentioned among his fraternity of former Bears. Not even with Morrissey, who said he texted or spoke with Salaam at least three times a week. Small talk, mostly. Cracking jokes. Like friends do.
“I just keep envisioning him by himself that evening, and it just tears me up,” Thierry said. “Especially someone you’ve been around. There are a lot of bad people in this world. He’s not one of them.
“I just wish I could have done a little more … maybe I could have seen him a little more.”
Honoring Salaam’s legacy Saturday will help heal those wounds. Morrissey, Thierry, Simpson and Carter have done their best to prepare for a wide range of emotions. Sadness. Anger. Regret. But paying respect to Salaam and his family on CU’s homecoming weekend was something they wouldn’t miss.
And Morrissey remains thankful that he was picked to help a Heisman Trophy winner with a toothache.
“Every day I think about him,” Morrissey said. “That was my best friend.”