By Dave Birkett | Detroit Free Press Sports
BEREA, OHIO — The room was silent, and it stayed that way for as long as Chris Herren had the microphone.
For the second straight year, Herren, a former NBA player whose basketball career was nearly destroyed by drug addiction, was a feature speaker at the NFL’s rookie symposium in Aurora, Ohio, and the message he imparted on all eight members of the Detroit Lions’ 2014 draft class was a powerful one.
Heroin. Cocaine. Pills. Herren detailed the demons he faced while playing college basketball, in the NBA and professionally overseas for a class of NFC rookies — AFC rookies will take part in the symposium today-Saturday — who might one day be tempted by the same things.
He nearly squandered his family. He lost his sense of being. And he’s sober now, trying to keep others from following his path.
“Everyone thinks I’m not going to be that guy, that’s not going to be me,” Lions sixth-round pick TJ Jones said. “And you take all these meetings and seminars for granted and he was like us. That could have been any one of us — that could be any one of us in the future. Hopefully not, but that makes it a reality that even if you think it’s not you, you never know what your future holds.”
Jones and the rest of the Lions’ drafted rookies spent the last three days in central Ohio wading through workshops, listening to guest speakers and talking in small groups about everything that comes attached to their new lives in the NFL.
Former Lions defensive end Luther Elliss, whose tale of financial woe has been well documented over the years, served as a transition coach at the event, which players took a brief break from Tuesday to host a Play 60 clinic for area youth.
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