More Gridiron Grief FRED LANE, 1976-2000

One image outside Colts running back Fred Lane's home in
southeast Charlotte told the story last week: A large pink wooden
stork, which had been placed in the front yard to announce the
June 29 arrival of Lane's daughter, Pilarr, had been wrapped in
yellow police tape, cordoning off the house as a crime scene.

Charlotte-Mecklenburg police say Lane, 24, who had been traded to
Indianapolis by the Carolina Panthers in April, was shot and
killed in the doorway of his home last Thursday. His wife,
Deidra, 25, who had filed a domestic violence complaint against
her husband in April, was questioned by investigators for several
hours with Pilarr sitting on her lap. As of Monday she had not
been charged in the death of her husband.

It was a violent end for a player whose life had become
increasingly turbulent over the past few years. An undrafted free
agent out of Lane College in Jackson, Tenn., Lane first grabbed
the Panthers' attention during training camp in 1997 with his
wild bursts of speed and his reckless running style. "He's the
underdog, and everybody loves the underdog," said Dom Capers,
Carolina's coach at the time. "If you look at our team and ask
who is the biggest success story, it's Fred Lane."

He earned the starting job midway through his rookie year, but by
the following season things began going sour for Lane. In October
1998 he was benched for a game after he misread the Panthers'
itinerary and arrived at the airport late for the team's charter
flight. Lane, dressed in a suit, chased the plane as it taxied
down the tarmac, his teammates watching from inside and chanting,
"Fred-dee! Fred-dee!" Said Lane: "I guess I wasn't fast enough."

That incident could serve as a metaphor not only for Lane's brief
and troubled NFL career, one characterized by his dogged
determination (he's Carolina's alltime leading rusher, with 2,001
yards) but also by naivete and immaturity. The day before his
death, Lane was indicted by a Tennessee grand jury for
misdemeanor possession of marijuana stemming from a Feb. 3
arrest.

"Fred was not a malicious kid," says Lane's close friend Tim
Harkness, who was his offensive coordinator at Lane College. "He
just didn't know how to deal with everything that was pushed on
him all at once. He was still growing up, and each situation was
new to him. Only he wasn't able to make his mistakes and learn
from them in peace."

--David Fleming

COLOR PHOTO: NELL REDMOND/AP