Engagement Insider
HOUSTON, TX Sept. 9, 2013 – We have all met people whose life story sounds so incredible that it should become a book, but rarely does that become a reality.
Yet former NFL player Vernon Turner has bucked those odds to author his autobiography entitled "The Next Level: A Game I Had To Play!", just like the long shot he was to forge his unlikely career as a wide receiver/kick returner/running back for the Buffalo Bills, Los Angeles Rams, Detroit Lions and Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
“I had no business playing pro football,” exclaimed Turner, who was 5’6” and 97 pounds in high school, “but it was the only way that I could keep my family together.”
That family included four younger siblings and his mother, who told 11-year-old Vernon that he was conceived through a gang-rape on an apartment building roof in New York City’s infamous Bedford Stuyvesant when she was only 18.
“I entered this world under horrific circumstances, but will leave with a legacy for which I can be proud,” said Turner, now 46 and living near Houston.
That jarring conversation occurred after Turner ran home from school only to find his mother in the bathroom with a needle in her arm.
“My mom went through hell, and I resented her as a boy, but I regretted that later since she was an incredible lady,” recalled Turner of his mother, who died in 1983.
Impressive enough to get her family out of Bed-Stuy and over to the Sunnyside section, where young Vernon found football as his savior.
“I put myself through an extreme regimen,” remembered Turner, “and I used to train in tears, but I completed every exercise, and today I can’t even fathom what I went through. It’s amazing what we can do when our backs are against the wall.”
But the self-imposed boot camp-style training paid off when Turner went to Carson-NewmanUniversity in Tennessee, but his home life still lingered.
“I was the disciplinarian from my college dorm room for my four younger siblings,” stated Turner, who still managed to excel enough on the field to get a chance at the NFL.
“I knew if I didn’t make the NFL, my family would be gone, so I cried when I made the Bills and saved the family, which I was able to do by sending my NFL paychecks back to them,” recounted Turner.
His five-year NFL career culminated in 1994 when he returned a punt 80 yards for a Tampa Bay touchdown, becoming the first Buccaneer ever to take a punt to the house in a regular season game.
But it still took time for Turner to tell the story of his journey.
“In 2011, I started to watch movies based on true stories, like Rudy, Blindside, and Invincible,” said Turner, “and that just opened the flood gates for me to write my story, which basically serves as both an apology and an appreciation letter to my mom and step-dad.”
For Turner, this proved therapeutic.
“I was hesitant and scared at first, but my story needed no embellishment and I was brutally honest as my way to pay it forward,” noted Turner, who self-published his book. “A miracle happened for me, and I want to share it.”