HEFNEY’S DOWNWARD SPIRAL
Ex-CFLer seeking redemption path
He wore No. 23 as a defensive back for the Winnipeg Blue Bombers and Montreal Alouettes. In between, he was No. 1 for the Calgary Stampeders.
Now, Jonathan Hefney is No. 00381531 for the South Carolina Department of Corrections.
Hefney admits he sold illegal drugs and says he doesn’t blame anyone else for ending up where he is, but it’s not hard to wonder how various factors helped lead Hefney downward from a Canadian Football League game in Ottawa to Evans Correctional Institution on Highway 9 West in Bennettsville, S.C., in just four years.
Now, in his first public comments since being incarcerated, Hefney has come forward to explain how he landed in prison, and why his story should be a warning to others as the former CFLer seeks a path to redemption. His case not only illustrates the fragile nature of professional football employment, but has also provided an impetus for the CFL and players’ association to agree on enhanced medical benefits.
Hefney’s life changed in a single moment during the first quarter of a game on Oct. 1, 2015, when the 5-9, 185-pound Alouettes defensive back collided helmet-to-helmet with 6-2, 240-pound Ottawa Redblacks fullback Patrick Lavoie. Lavoie withstood the contact and even pushed ahead with the football for four additional yards before he was tackled by another Alouettes defender, but Hefney remained facedown on the turf for nearly nine minutes before he was taken off the field on a stretcher and transported to hospital.
He was stabilized and released from hospital, but his playing career was over because of three fractured vertebrae in his neck and damaged nerves leading to his right arm.
Muscle atrophy and diminished range of motion followed. Notably, the previously right-handed Hefney signed a one-day contract left-handed so he could officially retire as a Blue Bomber in May 2016.
Just three months before that, he underwent the first in an anticipated series of operations, with its $88,000 cost covered by CFL-provided medical benefits.
However, a single surgery was never expected to restore normal arm function, and it didn’t. According to Hefney, that was why he could not find work back in South Carolina. But state officials rejected his application for disability benefits, believing the University of Tennessee political science grad was indeed employable.
Meanwhile, Hefney was already in arrears on monthly support payments for a daughter in Tennessee even when he was an active athlete. He and his sister, Shan Barber, maintain part of the problem was that authorities mistakenly calculated the amount Hefney owed in child support based on his Canadian-dollar CFL contract, which, when converted to U.S. currency, was significantly reduced. That meant Hefney was expected to pay US$1,100 per month, even though he’d been making substantially less. Hefney fell even further behind after the injury ended his career and was at risk of arrest and incarceration for that misdeed.
“I wasn’t all the way up to date, but I wasn’t as far behind as I am now,” Hefney said in comments relayed through Barber. “Man, in the years since I got hurt, it’s crazy.”
Coincidentally, Hefney successfully petitioned a Tennessee court last summer to reduce his support payments to $400 monthly. By then, however, he was mere weeks from surrendering to the South Carolina Department of Corrections to start a nine-year sentence for trafficking cocaine.
Hefney had a second operation in June 2018 to have a steel plate and screws placed in his right shoulder and latissimus dorsi muscle tissue from his back grafted onto his right tricep, both in the hope of enhancing function, strength and range of motion. None would ever return to pre-injury condition, but each would be better.
This time, though, there was no CFL medical coverage. Those benefits lapsed Oct. 1, 2016, one year from the date of his injury, as stipulated by the collective agreement between the league and the CFL Players’ Association. So, although Hefney eventually received a $200,000 disability insurance payout, its converted value of US$120,000 was consumed by another $88,000 surgery bill and associated fees for physicians and services such as anesthesia.
By then, Hefney was also in deep legal trouble.
“This is how it went,” said Barber, still a resident of their hometown of Rock Hill, S.C., near Charlotte. “He was in a tight situation. He was facing child support, being locked up. He didn’t have any funds. Whatever he had had been depleted. He was still waiting on the CFL to approve the insurance cheque. Someone, because they knew people, because of where he came from and friends prior to football, folks that he grew up with, someone came to him and asked if he knew where they could get some drugs, some cocaine for them.
“He looked at it, not that it was the right choice, but he looked at it as an opportunity to put some money in his pockets to send to child support to get them off his back, to keep from going to jail. But, in turn, this actually ended up landing him still in jail with more time. He basically was set up by somebody who had already been caught with drugs.”
He looked at it as an opportunity to put some money in his pockets to send to child support to get them off his back, to keep from going to jail.
Details of Hefney’s arrest can be gleaned from documents filed for a forfeiture motion in a South Carolina court in 2019.
They say a confidential informant met York County investigators and an FBI agent on June 1, 2017, and told them he could purchase cocaine “from a guy they know as Hef.” The informant subsequently bought drugs from Hefney, including cocaine, three times in the next 13 days. Five months later, on Nov. 3, York County’s drug enforcement unit arrested Hefney on Interstate 77 near Fort Mill, S.C. A search of his rental vehicle revealed $859 — subject of the forfeiture motion — in a pocket of the driver’s door, 3.5 grams of marijuana in a book bag in the back seat and two dose units of ecstasy in a shoebox in the trunk.
After speaking with a lawyer, Hefney signed a document confirming understanding of his rights and consented to an interview.
“Hefney was then asked about the drug transactions that he was being charged with,” the court document said. “Hefney stated that he never sold cocaine any other time except the three times he was being charged with.”
This past Sept. 5, Hefney appeared before Judge William A. McKinnon and admitted guilt to two charges of cocaine trafficking. Five other charges were withdrawn. Under terms of a plea bargain, McKinnon sentenced Hefney to nine years minus two days’ credit for time served and ordered him to surrender to the Department of Corrections on Sept. 25.
Hefney’s lawyer, Jack Swerling of Columbia, S.C., said parole eligibility would start “from the beginning of the sentence, but, generally, you’re up for parole in three years (of nine). Seven-to-25 trafficking, which is what he was charged with, there’s no parole, so you serve 85 per cent of your sentence … It’s not even parole, it’s a max, and you have to serve 85 per cent. That, obviously, was not something he wanted to do, to take a chance like that.”
Hefney spent his initial weeks in custody at Kirkland Reception and Evaluation Center in Columbia before being reassigned to Evans, about 140 kilometres from Rock Hill, on Dec. 11. Since then, he has fallen further behind on child support, even at the lesser rate of $400 monthly.
His daughter, Tylee, will turn 14 this spring.
“When I got injured, my injury … I couldn’t get disability. I had to wait two and a half, three years to even get some kind of money to be able to help me out, and it was after that I got in trouble,” Hefney said, again through his sister. “I couldn’t get a job because I couldn’t use my arm. So I think pretty much 100 per cent of it was because of (the injury). But I’m not blaming it on the CFL, you know what I mean, but there was a lot that contributed to it because, if I never got hurt, I wouldn’t be in this situation. I would probably still be playing.
“But God has a reason for everything, and he’s teaching me something each and every day, and, if I follow what he wants me to do and just keep my head down and push forward, I’ve got something after I get out of here. I’m going to change a lot of lives … I’m going to change a lot of lives when I get out because I’ve got a story to tell.
“Everybody probably thinks that I’m just a drug dealer that used to play football, but I just had to do what I had to do to survive.”
During Grey Cup week in Calgary in November, two months after Hefney reported to prison, CFL commissioner Randy Ambrosie was asked about Hefney’s situation.
A Winnipeg native, Ambrosie also played in the CFL, between 1985 and 1993 as an offensive linemen with the Stampeders, Toronto Argonauts and Edmonton Eskimos. Following more than two decades in the business world, he re-entered CFL circles as commissioner in 2017.
“I shared a locker-room with a lot of players and, you know, many of whom are friends of mine today, and many I’ve lost contact with,” Ambrosie said during his state of the league media session. “Of course, what you’d want for all of them is a good life. You want them to take all the things that we learn from the game and the benefits we got from learning the lessons of the game into a more successful afterlife. It clearly didn’t happen for Jonathan, and for that I think we can all say that’s a tragedy.
“I think what we learned is what ultimately came out of (the 2019 collective bargaining agreement). We have to think about this issue differently. It was really the first time we were confronted with it. You know, Jonathan Hefney’s situation was essentially a flashpoint for a different kind of discussion. Credit to our team and credit to the players (association) for recognizing that and coming together and finding a solution so now the players — the American players — are now covered for three years, and that’s a big step in the right direction.”
However, while the step-up to two years’ coverage for players injured in 2019 and three years for those hurt in the upcoming campaign has been noteworthy, it is not retroactive, so it does not apply to the cases of Hefney and any other CFLer injured in practices and games through 2018.
Keep in mind, too, that professional athletes in Canada are not governed by provincial worker-injury regulations, nor are American players eligible for the same kind of provincial health system coverage as their Canadian teammates and opponents.
None of that excuses Hefney’s criminal actions, obviously, but it provides context.
Doug Brown, a retired all-star defensive lineman and Hefney’s Blue Bombers teammate in 201012, said every individual bears ultimate responsibility for his own decisions and actions, but said he would wager “dollars to doughnuts” that Hefney’s choices resulted at least partly from being physically compromised and financially devastated.
“We all give so much of ourselves, our time, and physically and mentally and emotionally,” said Brown, still a Winnipeg resident whose post-football connections to Hefney have been limited to social media posts. “We invest so much in football and the game kind of left him in the lurch a little bit, left him hanging. Right?
“He put it all on the line and football didn’t back him up or give him the same opportunities or advantages that some of us got transitioning out of the game. With his situation, I think it’s very unique, what has happened to him. I think it’s a collusion of very difficult circumstances that all manifested for him, and this is a worst-case scenario, worst-case outcome, what transpired.
“But, unless you’ve walked in Jonathan Hefney’s shoes and been so compromised, been left so compromised from the game, then it’s hard for us.… It should be hard for anyone to pass judgment from that regard. He had a very disadvantageous and unique scenario befall him.”
The Canadian Football League Players’ Association announced during Grey Cup week a partnership with Morneau Shepell to launch LifeWorks for CFL players. It was to use the company’s online LifeWorks platform to offer mental health and wellness services for as long as three years after an athlete’s final “playing contract” lapsed from voluntary retirement, injury or release by a team.
The agreement would add to a CFLPA Academy program already offering career transition aids such as job training and financial literacy. Features of the online platform would include confidential wellness assessments and resources such as videos, live chats and overall wellness support and assistance. Players’ spouses and dependents could also access the program.
I’m not blaming it on the CFL, you know what I mean, but there was a lot that contributed to it because, if I never got hurt, I wouldn’t be in this situation.
“Whole-player health and well-being means providing CFL players the tools they need to address their physical, mental and emotional wellness — while they’re playing and as they transition from the game,” CFLPA executive director Brian Ramsay said.
None of that was in place when Hefney left the sport, or the sport left him, after six CFL seasons in the seven years between 2009 and 2015.
An online update on the South Carolina Department of Corrections website says his projected release date is Feb. 28, 2025. Barring any sort of disciplinary matter, his parole-eligibility date would be Sept. 22, 2022.
His goal is no longer making tackles or intercepting passes, but rather leaving prison by the time Tylee is 16. He said he wants to tell his story to keep youngsters on the right life path: one based on success in academics or sports, not dealing drugs.
“Basically,” Barber said, “what he’s trying to say is you have to have another plan. It has to be another plan because football isn’t forever.”
Hefney muses about returning to Canada to relate his life’s tale here, too, but the twin convictions for cocaine trafficking might thwart those ambitions.
“Admissibility of all travellers is decided on a case-by-case basis and based on the information available at the time of entry,” a Canada Border Services Agency spokeswoman wrote in an email, referring to such cases generally.
“Several factors are used in determining if an individual is admissible to Canada, including involvement in criminal activity, human rights violations, organized crime, security, health or financial reasons,” she wrote, adding information on overcoming criminal convictions was available online.
“I want my story to be that, OK, yeah, I played ball, I got injured and I’m able to come back from it,” Hefney said. “When this is all said and done, man, I’ll make a change in a lot of people’s lives. Just like the outpouring of love that people show for me, that’s me. You hear what I’m saying? That’s me.
“I’ve always been the one to help people. I’ve always been the one to sign autographs for the fans, for the kids that needed it. I was always around. Especially in Canada, in Winnipeg and anywhere I played, they knew me as smiling, doing what I was supposed to do.
“This route that I’m on right now, that is not me, but Jonathan Hefney’s story is nowhere near over. I want to make a change in this world, you hear what I’m saying? I want to be a difference-maker, how I was when I was a player. A lot of people see me playing ball and they follow my lead, being a difference-maker. I want to be a difference-maker on a different level now.”
LIFE INSIDE: UPS & DOWNS
Even after two surgeries, physiotherapy and more than four years, the career-ending collision with Lavoie has continued to affect Hefney in prison.
The South Carolina Department of Corrections classified him as a Level 1B inmate, normally eligible for assignment to a work-release facility with minimum security, but a “medical hold” placed on the former CFL player during assessment at Kirkland (Level 3 high-security) in September followed him to Evans (Level 2 medium-security). His family was told only in late January that Hefney had been assigned to Evans because it was the only institution with a 24-hour medical facility close to his hometown, and a couple more weeks passed before the restriction was removed.
“Finally!” Barber said on Feb. 13. “But the bad news is that we found out that he’s not able to come back here to (York County) because the charges are considered violent. We did not know that that made a difference until today, so we are still looking to have him transferred to a lower-level security facility because of his classification.”
At Evans, inmates must remain in cells roughly two-thirds of every day, but on most weekdays can be out of those cells between 8 a.m. and 1 p.m. and again between 2 p.m. and 5:30 p.m. On weekends, though, they’re usually in cells except for meals.
There is also a basketball court for individuals to use one hour per week, but Hefney can’t play because of his arm problems. Instead, in his cell he has been doing pulling exercises with a towel, something he started during physiotherapy, and building up to 100 push-ups daily.
“Just small stuff like that, but I have pretty much use of my arm every day to do usual stuff like open doors, washing my hands, pushing the buttons, which is kind of hard, but I make it happen, though. It has been working.
“I’m seeing big-time improvement. I’m able to brush my teeth with my right arm now.”
Beyond that, Hefney spends time on Bible study and watching television in his cell, although he missed out on seeing his beloved Blue Bombers end a 29-year-old Grey Cup drought with a 33-12 victory against the Hamilton Tiger-Cats on Nov. 24.
He has also applied for jobs as a tutor and mentor, but, as with his medical file review, things have proceeded slowly. There was an initial interview in early February, but he missed a second because of a lockdown in the facility.
“I think I’ve got a good chance to make parole in that first attempt because I ain’t getting in no trouble,” he said. “I will not get in trouble, and I’ve got to get home … I’ve got to get home. My daughter will be 16 if I can make that (2022) parole, and I’ve got to make it while she’s young.”
So far, there have been no “disciplinary sanctions” posted on Hefney’s record on the Department of Corrections website, although there have been disruptions to the routine of prison life. Before he was assigned a second cellmate, the first one required medical attention after what Hefney described as an assault in a written response to a letter sent to him in January. The former CFL player was questioned by prison officials and briefly transferred to another unit before — according to his sister — being cleared of involvement and returned to his original location. A late January family visit was cancelled after the unit was locked down for several days because of a stabbing, and additional lockdowns have occurred since then.
When visits have been permitted, including one on Christmas Eve, those travelling to Bennettsville have included Hefney’s mother, father, Barber and a niece. He expected his daughter would drop by during her next school break and also that other family and friends would register for visitations, the only restriction being that they could not have felony convictions.
In between visits, Hefney uses weekday periods outside of his cell to call family members, and most frequently Barber.
“Weekends are usually dead for us, and what kills me the most is I rarely get to talk to my daughter since (on weekdays) she’s usually at school, then practice or games,” he wrote — still left-handed — in his letter. “That hurts because I’m losing connection. I try and call weekends, if I can.”
As for the emotional impact of imprisonment, Hefney shared with his sister shortly before his 35th birthday on Feb. 27 that prison was starting to become quite depressing. In his letter, he wrote he was “basically trapped with murderers and aggravated assault thugs that will do whatever to you to get what they want.
“I don’t play into anything they do. I’m not in a gang, nor am I associated with what they do. I protect my life and do me. I’m just praying I’m out of here soon.”
As an upside, it appeared there was some payoff from being a former professional athlete. Hefney said other inmates wanted to know about places he had played and travelled, even women he met along the way, but they addressed less glorious post-football events, too.
“They ask about why I sold drugs, why the CFL didn’t help me.”
The CFL did not respond to a telephone message or emails with questions about whether it should have provided even more financial and other support to Hefney, a former player who had suffered a career-ending injury, beyond the contractually required one-year medical benefit coverage and subsequent disability insurance payment.
Some days in prison are harder than others, Hefney summarized in his letter, but that’s when he digs deeper in Bible study and prays for strength.
“You’ve never really met me, so you wouldn’t know how I am, but I smile, I do everything the same each and every day,” Hefney said. “Guys kind of talk to me. I talk to them, I do my thing, I don’t really bother anybody.
“I feel like I’m going to need some therapy when I leave, but, as of now, I’m just trying to make it. I’m trying to get to 2022 and hopefully I can get home.”
This route that I’m on right now, that is not me, but Jonathan Hefney’s story is nowhere near over. I want to make a change in this world.