After Personal Losses, Jets’ Darrin Walls Learns to Appreciate What He Has

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Darrin Walls, center, joined the N.F.L. as an undrafted free agent with the Atlanta Falcons in 2011. Credit Alan Diaz/Associated Press

 

FLORHAM PARK, N.J. — Before the Jets face the Giants in their annual preseason matchup Friday night at MetLife Stadium, the Jets’ Darrin Walls plans to keep to his custom of kneeling in one end zone and praying for four people dear to him who have died in the last 17 months.

Lettie Walls, the grandmother he adored, continually resisted a doctor’s advice by driving six hours from their native Pittsburgh to South Bend, Ind., to watch her grandson play cornerback for Notre Dame before he entered the N.F.L. as an undrafted free agent with the Atlanta Falcons in 2011. She died of cancer in March 2013.

He was driving to the Jets-Giants game last August when he learned that an aunt, Wilma Jean McCoy, had died of lung cancer. He grieved once more when Raeshon McNeil, his best friend from college, lost his mother, Denise Dalton, also to cancer.

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Then, on May 29, he was jarred awake by news that Earnest Williams, his 18-year-old cousin who was set to graduate from University Preparatory School in Pittsburgh a week later, had been shot and killed the night before.

Such a series of events is more than most young men have to bear, and Walls, 26, said the losses had affected him profoundly. As much as he wants to excel at cornerback for a Jets team that is sorely in need because of injuries and a lack of depth, he recognizes that the sport represents only one aspect of him.

“When you have to deal with death, it changes your perspective on life,” Walls said. “I don’t take anything for granted. I’m blessed to be in the position I am in. I appreciate life daily.”

The killing of Williams took a tremendous toll on Walls and his family. Although Walls helped pay for the funeral, he could not bring himself to attend.

“He was definitely on the right path,” Walls said of Williams. “He was one of those kids that you could see, with the right upbringing and the right teaching, he would be a great kid.”

Williams’s killer has not been caught, and no motive is known for the crime. Walls’s stepmother, Kateri, said she feared it would become just another cold case.

“It is senseless, and you see so many families go through it,” she said of the killing. “You do wonder why and if it will ever change. Unfortunately, it is part of what this family has to go through.”

Walls took only one day off from the Jets’ organized team activities to mourn Williams. He said the field was a refuge, providing escape from an awful reality.

“It’s easier to come back to football than to be away from it because you don’t have to think about it too much,” he said.

Walls’s dedication served him well after he was bypassed in the N.F.L. draft. After he broke in with Atlanta, the Jets signed him to their practice squad on Sept. 28, 2012. They promoted him to the active roster two months later. Coach Rex Ryan started him in the final game of the season, in which the Jets finished 6-10. Walls made three starts last year when Dee Milliner, a rookie, was sidelined with a hamstring injury.

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With Milliner uncertain for the season opener because of a high left ankle sprain and another cornerback, Dexter McDougle, lost to a season-ending knee injury, Walls is doing everything he can to assert himself.

“I do feel I can be a starting corner,” he said. “I feel I’ve been improving yearly and daily.”

Ryan offered lukewarm praise of Walls, calling him an “outstanding middle reliever” and adding, “He’s a guy you can put out there and not lose much.”

Walls does not have an interception in his limited time in two seasons with the Jets. The sight of Walls failing to make an interception during practice is all too common for Ryan, who knows how critical turnovers can be if the Jets are to improve on last year’s 8-8 record.

“Darrin has cover skills, he’s smart and he’s a good tackler,” Ryan said. “But his ball skills, he struggles a little bit.”

Although Walls thinks his drops reflect a lack of focus rather than athleticism, he works after every practice to improve his hands by catching 20 to 30 passes from a machine. He never allows himself to grow discouraged, he said.

If death taught him anything, it is the need to carry on.

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