Friends have their theories about what's eating at Vince Young
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Quarterback Vince Young threw two interceptions in the Titans' opener agains the Jaguars, and his frustration showed.
On Day 3 of the Vince Young saga, a 78-year-old man showed up on Young's doorstep with a suitcase, unannounced. The Spirit sent him.
Pastor Samuel Smith does not question these messages; he just goes where they take him. He is Young's spiritual advisor. In the early days of 2006, after Young led Texas to the national championship, the pastor had a dream in which he saw men trying to catch a rainbow trout and make it their trophy. "Man," he said, "that trout is not meant to be on nobody's mantelpiece. Let him go free and let him do alone what he can do."
Smith used that dream to advise Young to leave Texas after his junior year and become an NFL quarterback. And now, 2? years later, football followers wonder whether Young was truly ready.
And they wonder whether Vince Young is OK.
He has been the NFL's biggest mystery since Sept. 8, when Nashville police were called to help track down the Tennessee Titans quarterback. Young was described as being "emotionally down," disenchanted with football and possibly suicidal. His inner circle went underground. Young shrugged it all off at the time, saying people were overreacting. His mother, Felicia Young, told The Tennessean that her son "needs love and support," then said she wasn't talking about it anymore.
What's eating at Vince Young? A handful of his friends and former coaches have been asked about his past, and what it might say about his future. They share stories, and theories. But the truth lies with Young, who hasn't spoken publicly in a couple of weeks.
In Houston, the man Young calls "Pops" tries, best he can, to explain what is going on in Young's head. Smith sits in an empty blue pew at the Mount Horeb Missionary Baptist Church, a dozen or so rows up from where Young parked as a kid. It's 90 degrees, but the air conditioning is off. Outside Mount Horeb's door is the steel skyline of downtown Houston; around it is the destruction of the hurricane. Ike was merciful to the church, Smith says, "He walked around us."
Before Ike hit, and hours after Young's own personal storm, the pastor says he flew to Nashville and spent four days with Young. They rested, ate well and, Smith says, "chilled out." He was called there, he says, because of Young's aching knee, not his heart.
"We all go through these things," he says, "in our youth and in our age. That's life. How much does he love football?"
Smith puts his hand on his chest.
"That's his life."
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