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Posted on Mon, Aug. 23, 2004

Similar paths but different outcomes

Once a potential top pro football prospect himself, Renford Reese has learned a lot through friendship with Charlie Wysocki.

Wilkes Barre (PA) Times Leader News

By JOE PETRUCCI

jpetrucci@leader.net

Renford Reese saw his mirror image on television in April 1990.

Waiting to hear his name called on a broadcast of the NFL Draft, Reese, one of the country's best safeties out of Vanderbilt University, watched an ESPN feature story on Charlie Wysocki, who was shunned in the '82 draft and subsequently diagnosed with manic depression, or bipolar disorder.

"It was so riveting and powerful," said Reese.

After the second day of the draft, Reese still wasn't selected, just like Charlie.

"I just sat there, and I was devastated," said Reese.

He turned to Charlie for some therapy. Reese, a native of rural McDonough, Ga., set out to travel north and learn about Charlie's story as part of research for a book.

But Reese got more than he bargained for: A lifelong friend and a close-up look at how two similar situations produced opposite outcomes.

Reese went on to earn his graduate degree, then his doctorate at the University of Southern California. He's now an author, expert on diversity and a political science professor at the California State Polytechnic Institute-Ponoma.

Wysocki, meanwhile, has battled bipolar for more than two decades, has spent the better part of 20 years in mental institutions and has been arrested several times.

Charlie and Reese were at the top of their games in college. What led to such different results?

Reese had a stable, two-parent family. The son of a pioneering black sports writer and a high school principal, Reese was already close to his graduate degree come draft day.

Charlie was the product of a poor, broken family before moving in with the Wysocki family of Wilkes-Barre when he was 16. Football was his only ticket to success.

"It's horrible for me, but I can only imagine what it would be for people who don't have anything to fall back on," said Reese.

Still, Reese's early years were not without pressure.

"Being in a small town, everyone looked up to me," said Reese. "They couldn't care less about me going to graduate school or academia. They wanted to say their boy played for the Raiders or Chargers."

Starting in June 1990, Reese spent about eight months in continuous contact with Charlie, visiting his biological family at a reunion in Winston-Salem, N.C., his adoptive family in Wilkes-Barre and doctors and therapists from Clarks Summit State Hospital.

"I got in the car with (Charlie) and I didn't know his medical history," said Reese. "He had just been out of a mental institution for about 10 days."

The two instantly bonded. They spent time in Philadelphia and Atlantic City. Although Reese had all the elements for a book on Charlie, he got caught up in "surviving" as a recent college graduate and put the project on the shelf.

Reese has since established himself as a respected educator and advocate of multiculturalism and diversity. His recently published book, "American Paradox: Young Black Men" (Carolina Academic Press, 2004), addresses how young black males have unwittingly accepted a "tough-guy" model of masculinity and its detrimental effects.

One chapter deals solely with black sports figures, and although Charlie is not mentioned, much of what Reese writes could be commentary on Charlie's situation.

"I think the pressures on being an icon in this sports-obsessed country, they make individuals like Charlie into icons," said Reese, who maintains contact with Charlie. "The question is what happens when you put them on a pedestal and you take all of this away when the fat lady sings.

"There were no coping mechanisms when everything was over. He became traumatized because he didn't know how to deal with the fame of being a football star."

Reese also feels Charlie's childhood environment - leaving his biological black family and entering a white world with the Wysockis - contributed to Charlie's downfall.

"He was caught between two families and two totally different cultures," said Reese. "He couldn't find his way."