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Ask Shuler why so many football stars -- J.C. Watts, Steve Largent, Lynn Swann, Tom Osborne -- go into politics, and he says he's never really thought about it.

Deitz believes that a football player innately understands the art of politics. "When you get in a football huddle," he says, "10 other fellows look you eye to eye to tell them what to do. You call the play and 11 different people are doing 11 different things to accomplish one play, one goal. Politics is a whole lot the same."

When Deitz hears that Shuler called him the best coach he's ever had, Deitz jokingly says, "He's already started lying and he ain't even to Washington yet."

The Next Road

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To understand where Heath Shuler comes from, go to Bryson City and meet his father, Joe Benny Shuler.

Bryson City is a touristy spot with a historic train that carries leaf voyeurs into the nearby mountains. At the Everett Street Diner, Joe Benny orders oatmeal and coffee. He's wearing a green jacket, a golf shirt, khakis. He dips a little Skoal now and then.

Joe Benny never went to college. He carried mail for 35 years, then retired. He and his first wife, Margie, ran the town's youth football program for years. Today he runs a pawn shop. If anything, Joe Benny is even more engaging than Heath. Same smile, same green eyes, same rustic speech pattern. "Heath and Benjie was raised on a ball field," he says.

He drives up Everett Street, which becomes Fontana Road. It's also known by another name: the Road to Nowhere. When the Tennessee Valley Authority dammed the Little Tennessee River and created Fontana Lake in the 1940s, several small communities were flooded. More than two dozen cemeteries ended up in a remote area that became the Great Smoky Mountain National Park. Promises were made that when World War II ended, a road would be built from Bryson City to the graveyards. Along the way, the project ran out of steam or money or confidence that it was a sound ecological idea and the road was never completed. It has become a key election issue. Charles Taylor wants to finish the construction. Heath Shuler doesn't. He thinks the money could be put to better use. Ironically, Heath Shuler grew up looking out on the road from his house.

Joe Benny Shuler eases his truck past Heath's high school, past Boyce Deitz Football Field, where the state champion banners hang, past Heath's childhood home on Toot Hollow Road were Joe Benny still lives and where his second wife, Susie, has a hair salon, past Victory Baptist Church, "where I was saved," he says, and past the house he grew up in.

He talks about his son's ill-fated stint in pro football. "Heath didn't get a good shake in Washington," he says. He thought that Norv Turner would be a good coach for Heath. It didn't turn out that way. "One week Norv told him he was the best in the NFL. The next week he'd bench him." Shuler's record as a starter in Washington was 4-13. His confidence was shaken.

"I think this fills the void," Joe Benny says of the election. "He didn't get to finish what he set out to do in Washington."

Joe Benny passes a wooden sign: Welcome to the Road to Nowhere: A Broken Promise, 1943-?

People in Swain County are split over the issue. Building the road would create jobs and bring tens of millions of dollars to the community. But it would also change the nature of the place. Roads and bridges would have to be widened to accommodate heavy machinery. Population would grow and so would traffic.

There is no traffic today. Joe Benny stops at the Fontana Lake overlook where Heath contemplated running for Congress. It's easy to imagine Heath making his decision, then turning around. To the left, the Road to Nowhere. To the right, a road that might lead him to Washington and points beyond.

Heath Shuler turned right.