The 29-year-old linebacker knows how quickly a promising career can unravel and how it can be resurrected through rededication and unfailing support from others.
BEREA, Ohio – Inside of Quentin Groves’ locker hangs a thick steel chain and lock that looks like something belonging to the ghost of Jacob Marley.
Unlike the Dickens character, the Browns outside linebacker is not condemned to carry it through eternity. Groves bought his at Home Depot in 2012 as he attempted to revive a football career that had been compromised in part by his inability to resist temptation.
The chain links represent family members and people who rely on him. He is the lock, the one who binds them. Groves takes it with him wherever he goes.
“I was getting depressed about not getting picked up by a team (in the spring of 2012) and it was like, ‘When you get back in, what’s going to make you work harder day in and day out?’ ” Groves said. “I started thinking about all the people in my family who look up to me and depend on me. Who is going to hold this family together? It’s a heavy chain and it’s kind of symbolic of the weight I have to bear for everybody.”
![GROVES.JPG]()
Quentin Groves earned respect from Browns' peers for starting the fourth preseason game, one that veterans rarely play in.John Kuntz, The Plain Dealer Since purchasing it, the 6-foot-3, 265-pounder has demonstrated stretches of great strength and moments of human weakness.
He enjoyed a career year last season with the Arizona Cardinals, enabling him to sign a two-year, $2.8 million contract with the Browns.
In April, he was arrested for soliciting an undercover police officer for prostitution. After apologizing to his wife and family, the sixth-year pro rejoined the Browns and exhibited enough leadership for his new teammates to elect him special teams captain.
Groves is a dreadlocked cautionary tale for the league’s second-youngest team. He is a one-man NFL Rookie Symposium, a former second-round draft pick who knows how quickly a promising career can unravel and how it can be resurrected through rededication and the unfailing support from others.
“I told our players there is a country song from Bonnie Raitt, ‘Nick of Time,’ ” said Browns defensive coordinator Ray Horton, a major influence in Groves’ turnaround a season ago in Arizona. “When there is less of something, it becomes more precious to you. By him being out of football, it became very precious and important to him.”
The lifestyle
Pro sports locker rooms are rife with athletes forced to reinvent themselves. The 29-year-old Groves embodies that mutation.
He arrived in the NFL looking to continue the pass-rushing dominance he showed at Auburn, where he had 26 career sacks. Groves recorded 2.5 sacks in his rookie season of 2008 in Jacksonville, then went the next four years without registering one.
Traded to Oakland in 2010 for a fifth-round pick, Groves started 12 games but was told the following year by new coach Hue Jackson his role would be reduced.
The linebacker knows his lifestyle away from the field contributed to his performance.
“As a high pick it’s easy to get caught up in the life, which is party, women, money,” Groves said. “And you tend to lose sight of what got you to be a second-round pick. It’s easy to get caught up into that life.”
During the 2011 season, his final one in Oakland, it was a conversation with veteran defensive lineman Richard Seymour that convinced him to place a greater emphasis on his special-teams play.
Seymour was blunt in his assessment: Groves was on his second team in four years and on the verge of becoming a journeyman with a bad reputation.
“He sat me down and said, ‘Q, you can take it one of two ways: You can stick in this league for 10 years and support your family forever; or you can get cut and possibly not get picked up,’ ” Groves recalled.
“They call (special teams) the throwaway bunch. People see you as good at some things but not great at most things. But I came to believe we change ball games, we impact ball games.”
‘Way of life’
Groves was undergoing another change, one that had nothing to do with his desire to cover punts and kickoffs. Three years ago, he became a Rastafarian.
The Rastafari Movement is a spiritual ideology with roots in Jamaica. His beliefs do not stray far from his Christian upbringing in Greenville, Miss., Groves said, in that he worships one God, who he calls Jah. He considers it more “a way of life” than a religion.
“Rasta teaches us the importance of inner peace,” Groves said. “To each his own. God is inside of you. People don’t realize the power is not in the religion, the power is in the belief.”
Groves said he’s doesn’t partake in all aspects associated with Rasta life. He does eat meat to maintain his strength for football, and he doesn’t smoke marijuana, which would put him in violation of the NFL’s substance-abuse policy.
His locker is festooned with pictures of reggae sensation Bob Marley and Rasta spiritual icon Haile Selassie I, the late emperor of Ethiopia. Groves has engaged more than few teammates in conversations about the Rasta way.
“I was always inquisitive as a child, I asked a lot of questions,” he said. “I grew up as a Christian, but I asked myself, ‘What about the kid who’s been over in the Middle East, who’s been a devout Muslim all his life? You’re telling me he can’t be with his God because he didn’t accept ‘our way’? That never seemed right to me.”
Key to the lock
Groves’ right arm bears a tattoo: “My Inspiration Is My Everything.” Underneath it is his wife’s nickname, Mime (pronounced mee-mee).
Groves met his wife, Treska, while attending Auburn where he earned a degree in criminology. A native of Trinidad, she ran track at the university and married Groves seven years ago. The couple has two children, a 3-year-old son, Que’Mani and a 1-year-old daughter, Que’Jahh. Groves has a picture of his family in his locker.
During the spring of 2012, when no NFL teams were calling and he was mulling a move to the Canadian Football League, it was Treska who convinced him to change his partying lifestyle and recommit to football.
Groves may be the keeper of the family chain, but Treska seems to hold the key to the relationship. The Arizona Cardinals signed him to a one-year, $700,000 deal on May 28, 2012. He enjoyed his best season under Horton, then the team’s defensive coordinator. Groves started seven games, setting career-highs in sacks (four) and tackles (41), and credits part of his success to the coach he calls “Pops.” Horton taught him the nuances of his multi-front defense and counseled him on life.
When Horton agreed to coordinate the Browns defense, he was instrumental in recruiting Groves to join a pass-rushing rotation that includes Paul Kruger, Jabaal Sheard and first-round draft pick Barkevious Mingo.
Just when the lock appeared most secure, Groves succumbed to temptation again.
Orange police arrested him on April 17 as part of a two-day sting operation that netted more than a dozen men. Groves responded to an ad placed by police offering prostitution services and a female officer from Beachwood posed as an escort and set up dates with men willing to pay for sex. Groves arrived at a hotel room and was met by officers, according to police report. He pleaded no contest to disorderly conduct and was found guilty, eventually paying the fine and costs of $365.
“I let a lot of people down,” Groves said. “When you become a pro sports figure or a public figure, the temptations become amplified by 20. You feel like you can’t be touched, you’re invincible, you’re Superman. Meanwhile, God is telling you, ‘Stay away, don’t go in that door, don’t do this.’ But as a football player and an entertainer you feel like you are above it all, like you can do this and get away with it.
“At the end of the day, when all else fails, Jah is going to remind you who’s God.”
Groves issued a public apology, but the toughest task, he said, was explaining the arrest to Treska. He wasn’t sure what to expect.
“When I made the call and told her what happened, she said, ‘Quentin, I can’t believe that.’ ” Groves said. “I owe it all to my wife. To be the standup woman she is and to be as strong as she is it kind of made me realize my own strength . . . To go through something like that publicly, where everyone is shooting arrows at you, she is the one who had my back through the whole thing . . .
“She never blinked, she never batted a tear. She said, ‘I love you in spite of it all. Let’s get this thing on track and get our life back together.’ ”
Buoyed by family support, Groves has attempted to put the episode behind him while not hiding from it. He had productive training camp and helped teammates decode the new defense Horton brought with him from the desert.
In the final preseason game, one in which veterans rarely appear, Groves started at outside linebacker and won praise for his commitment to the team. Defensive lineman Billy Winn said the performance sent a strong message to younger players about never being “too good to go out and get some extra work.”
Groves was humbled to discover his peers named him one of three captains along with Joe Thomas (offense) and D’Qwell Jackson (defense). On Sunday, he delivered a sack in the regular-season opener, getting 16 snaps at outside linebacker in the 23-10 loss to Miami.
“Guys in here have a lot of respect for him because he’s a great player and a great leader,” defensive back Johnson Bademosi said. “Everybody has issues they go through. Nobody is perfect in this life. So when you see somebody who despite those issues comes to work and performs well, that’s something a lot of guys can relate to.”
Groves has made mistakes. People will form opinions and he’s given some reason for doubt.
But it’s the links on the chain most impacted by his actions. They are the ones who ultimately judge his strength as a man.
“When you are gone who is going to pass on your legacy?” Groves said. “I want my son to be able to hold his head high and say, ‘Quentin Groves is my daddy.’ ”
