25 years later, Clark Atlanta football player gets his chance

Chaskin then told Bahhur a story about a man who was trying to turn his life around after 24 years of alcohol and drug addiction that had cost him a college football career and his marriage and put him in jail. Bahhur listened. Now it's the story of Clark Atlanta's backup tight end.

Said Chaskin, 42, of Lawrenceville, "It's crazy, isn't it?"

In February 2008, Chaskin was pulled over by Duluth police. He said he was charged with possession of cocaine, which was a violation of his probation for an earlier cocaine possession conviction.

He was married with eight children. He had a lawn-care business that he started when he moved to metro Atlanta from Michigan in 1995, he said. He had been hooked on alcohol and drugs since 1984. Then, it cost him a spot on the Wayne State University football team in Detroit. Now, it was about to cost him his marriage. He had been arrested several times.

He felt like he was finally trapped, he said. He prayed to God for help.

Chaskin was in jail for the next eight months awaiting trial. He began reading the Bible and doing push-ups. After a few months, he had read the four Gospels and, after first being unable to do more than 10 push-ups, could crank out 500 a day. His case was eventually thrown out because the traffic stop was illegal, he said.

Upon his release, Chaskin said he wanted to stay sober, rebuild his relationships with family and friends and take back the things that drugs had taken from him.

After months of working out at a gym in Suwanee, he decided that one of those things to take back would be college football. That is how he ended up in Bahhur's office this past spring, asking for a chance.

He told Bahhur that playing football would be a way to thank his family for standing by him and believing in him and to show them that "it's never too late to get back off the ground and do the things you want to do in life."

Said Bahhur, "I've seen what he was trying to do for his family. If it wasn't for that, I probably wouldn't have gone with it."

Chaskin, a psychology major, joined the team for summer conditioning and won the respect and admiration of his teammates, who urged Bahhur to keep him on the team. Chaskin wears braces on his arthritic knees that require draining every three weeks and doesn’t have an ACL in his left knee.

"Day in, day out, we were out working, Jeff was out working," said center Melvin Davis. "It just showed he had a lot of heart out here, doing the things he's doing with us young guys."

It has mattered little that Chaskin is a white player at a historically black university.

Said Davis, "I don't think much of it, because we treat everyone the same."

Chaskin's highlight thus far has been getting on the field for two plays on special teams against Lane College. Family members have attended the games, wearing Chaskin's No. 43, not coincidentally the age he will turn Saturday.

Chaskin is not the oldest player to ever play college football. To Chaskin, who said he has remained sober since the 2008 arrest, it is entirely beside the point.

"I just want to make [family and friends] proud one day," he said. "That's all."