Evans Pays His Respects To a Long-Lost Friend

By Jason La Canfora
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, November 25, 2007

Demetric Evans was 12 years old in March 1992, spending a lazy Saturday with his best friend Edward Crittenden, playing basketball at a classmate's home in their Haynesville, La., neighborhood.

The classmate said his father owned a gun and offered to show it to Evans and Crittenden. There was no one else home at the time.

"When we went in the house and he got the gun, I thought it was actually a BB gun," Evans said. But the classmate told Evans that it was no BB gun. It was a 9mm handgun. Evans said he immediately became unsettled.

"When he was like, 'No, it's a real gun,' I was like, 'Okay, guys, well I'm fixin' to go home,' " he said.

Evans had scurried only a few paces from the classmate's home when he heard the gun go off. None of the children had known it was loaded. Crittenden was killed, the incident later ruled an accidental homicide.

Evans, now a versatile defensive lineman with the Washington Redskins, commemorates his friend each time he steps on the field, wearing the jersey No. 92 to acknowledge what happened that year.

"Edward was a guy I used to play with everyday, someone my family enjoyed being around," Evans said. "When you grow up with someone and know their passion about sports you try to make the most of things, because he never had the opportunity to play in high school or college, and you try to do your best for him and you definitely think about people who are not as fortunate.

"Coming here was the chance of a lifetime for me, and he didn't even get a chance to finish middle school. When he was killed it affected the whole community, really, and it's something I'll never forget. It made me understand that life is short, and you have to be careful, because it's not always your mistake that will cost you."

Small Beginnings

Haynesville is a speck of a blue-collar town (population about 2,600), where no one grieves in anonymity. It's tucked 60 miles northeast of Shreveport, and is steeped in the twin staples of the rural South: "Sports and church, that's all we had," said Evans, who grew up idolizing his older cousin, Doug Evans, a former NFL defensive back and Super Bowl winner.

Demetric Evans, his brother Justin, 16, and sister Jessica, 21, were raised by their mother, Mary Evans, though he had some contact with his father. "We don't have the relationship that a father and son should," Evans said. She was a nurse, working almost exclusively the 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. shift, leaving Evans in charge overnight.

"To this day my mom never complained about having to work that schedule and not being able to be home with us," Evans said. "And she never had any trouble out of us as far as us disrespecting her, because we knew what was expected of us and we knew that's what it took for us to have the lights on, the heat on, the bills paid. That's one thing I always admired about my mom: She never made excuses."

Free time was spent playing basketball or tossing around a football, and the Saturday when Crittenden died was like most others until it suddenly turned deadly. Evans raced home after hearing the gunshot, the neighborhood rattled by the sounds of an ambulance siren, and explained what had occurred after family members confronted him about the situation.

At the trial, Mary Evans declined to invoke the Fifth Amendment to protect her son, a minor, from testifying.

"I was just trying to do what was right and tell Demetric to tell them what he knew," Mary Evans said, "because if I lost a child I would want the same thing. I know Demetric was afraid to talk about it, and maybe he didn't know what people might do to him, but I'm glad he did."

On the witness stand he answered a litany of questions about how the day unfolded, if he believed there had been any malicious intent involved.

"The hardest thing of the whole situation was of course losing a friend, but also having to testify against another friend," Evans said.

That testimony marked one of the few times Evans has gone into detail about the incident. Even now, he rarely speaks to his wife or closest friends about it. He rejected counseling, and internalized his emotions. "I really felt like I didn't need it," Evans said. "I felt like that would make things worse by continuing to talk about it. I just wanted to put it behind me, and I think my decision benefited me."

Said Mary Evans: "As far as getting over it, Demetric never really opened up with me about it, and I didn't really push him too hard. But I do think after his friend got shot it changed him to where he hung around different people. One thing about Demetric, he always handled things his own way."

Still, the lust for gossip about the shooting was nonstop. Evans said he never experienced nightmares, but the persistent whispers and taunts at school were troubling.

"That was the rumor at school: 'Oh, he's gonna kill you next, man. You're next Demetric,' " Evans said. "And you're so young at the time and in the back of your mind you're like, 'What if this is for real?' It starts to mess with your mind and it's hard to get through."

All three families still reside in the same neighborhood. Evans sees the shooter occasionally when home -- he dropped out of school but still lives nearby -- and hugs Crittenden's parents when he runs into them, but they do not speak of the past ("I don't want to continue to bring up pain," he said). Mary Evans has normal social contact with the other parents.

"They're my neighbors and we all get along," Mary Evans said. "I don't think they have any problems with us, just at the time it was really hard for everyone. But they know Demetric told the truth and he didn't have anything to do with it. Other than that, he never really did talk about it much, and I didn't either."

A Role Player

At 17, Evans decided to go away to college and chose the University of Georgia, where he reveled in his newfound obscurity, but wore No. 92 to honor Crittenden. On the field, he endured a series of coaching departures, was not a regular starter and had no set position. "I got lost in the shuffle," Evans said, overshadowed by the three first-round picks on that dominant defensive line -- Richard Seymour (sixth overall in 2001), Marcus Stroud (13th overall in 2001) and Charles Grant (25th overall in 2002).

"He was like our ace in the hole," said Seymour, a star with the New England Patriots and one of Evans's closest friends. "Wherever we needed him to play, he could come in and get the job done, and he never got flustered or frustrated with his role. He always had a resilience to him. You can stack the odds against Demetric and you would never know what he may be dealing with, because he's always the same guy all the time, whether in good times or bad."

Evans left school after the fall 2000 semester to focus on the NFL draft -- he is attempting to complete his five remaining classes online -- but went unselected. George Edwards, one of Evans's coaches as a freshman, was on Dallas's staff, so Evans signed a free agent deal there, and appeared in all 16 games as a rookie in 2001. Evans was injured and inactive for all but four games in 2002. In 2003, Bill Parcells took over as Cowboys coach and switched to a 3-4 defense, with less emphasis on linemen. Evans was released Sept. 1 and two weeks later his life took another dramatic turn.

Evans was working out in Houston, hoping for a return to the NFL, when he went to a popular sports bar to watch his former Dallas teammates play the New York Giants on "Monday Night Football." The valet lot was already full, so Evans parked his truck several blocks away. Walking to his car after the game, he heard someone yell to him that he had dropped his keys. A few seconds later, the voice called out again from behind him, so Evans spun around and five feet away he saw a man pumping a sawed-off shotgun.

"I just threw my keys and said, 'Hey man, you can have my truck,' " Evans said. As one assailant grabbed the keys and jumped in Evans's truck, the other told him to drop to the ground, and pointed the weapon at the back of his head.

"I was like, 'God, please cover me with the blood of Jesus,' " Evans said. "I remember that like it was yesterday."

Evans was told not to move, and when he finally looked up the gunman had fled in a red Lincoln Continental. Evans awoke the next morning to a news report that two people were murdered the previous night by carjackers. "It had to be the same guys," he said. He now won't put garish rims and accessories on his automobiles -- a rite of passage in the NFL -- because he's hesitant to draw extra attention.

"That's something else that I really don't talk much about, because talking about it don't do no good," Evans said of the carjacking. "That's just a situation that I don't wish on no one. I wish that on nobody."

Refusing to Quit

Evans continued to focus on his NFL dream, working out daily in Houston after overcoming a knee ailment through months of rest and rehab.

Seymour, a multimillionaire, urged Evans to move into his Boston home, but he refused. "I knew he was going through a lot with the carjacking and the injury and getting cut," said Seymour, who chose Evans as his best man, just as Evans chose Seymour. "I just wanted to be there for him." Instead, Evans remained in Houston and opted to enter NFL Europe in the spring of 2004 as an unallocated player -- with no NFL ties -- hoping scouts would be tempted by his play there.

He signed with Washington on July 15, just before training camp and long after new coach Joe Gibbs had recast the roster. Most everyone else already had participated in months of offseason practices and minicamps. Evans, though undaunted, presumed this was his last shot at pro football. "I always felt like I belonged," he said, "but if I didn't make that team in Washington it was going to be a situation where I had to decide what's next."

Evans took Gibbs's word that he would get a chance to make the team, and entered camp a virtual unknown at the bottom of the defensive depth chart. "I didn't know as much about Demetric as I needed to know to be quite truthful," said Gregg Williams, assistant head coach-defense.

Veteran end Renaldo Wynn, now with New Orleans, noticed Evans's pudgy face at their introduction that July, and immediately felt sorry for the kid who had arrived so late. Evans was a body, mere training camp gristle, Wynn surmised. He had no shot.

But within a month Evans had mastered the nuances of playing end in Williams's complex system -- being asked to drop back in coverage, read offenses and stuff the run, difficult chores even for accomplished players. He played with gusto on special teams and ultimately beat out Regan Upshaw for a roster spot. Upshaw had played all 16 games for Washington in 2003 and was one year into a five-year, $7.5 million contract.

"Demetric always made sure he never let the coaches forget who he was no matter what," said Wynn, who became fast friends with Evans. "With all the stuff that happened to him with the carjacking and the shooting, a lot of guys would have been like, 'I can't do it.' But making that team was nothing for him.

"He was just out of football for a whole year watching guys play, that's tough man. And with the things he saw at 12, man, a lot of guys go to a life of crime or violence and could have easily retaliated or went the wrong way. But he didn't. The adversity he went through in football is nothing like what he went through in life, and that was his motivation."

Evans started eight games in 2004 for Washington's third-ranked defense and played all 16 games in 2005, shining at all four line positions. That offseason, New Orleans, Houston and San Francisco pursued him in free agency -- rebuilding teams dangling the chance to start -- but he prized security, choosing Washington's three-year deal with a $500,000 signing bonus and veteran minimum base salaries ($600,000-$700,000).

"We had guys on this team I enjoyed playing with and the coaching staff knew what they were going to get out of me," Evans said. "All I asked for in life is an opportunity, and they gave me that shot in '04, and I was thankful to come back to where I knew what to expect."

This season, Evans is again thriving at tackle and end. Last week, he made an outstanding play for a nine-yard loss on a screen pass against the Cowboys. A week prior he had six tackles and a critical forced fumble, and his sack in Week 5 contributed to a win over Detroit. Evans, who has taken NFL-sponsored business courses at Harvard and Northwestern, hopes to eventually sign a contract extension with Washington and assist his wife, Aungel Latchley Evans, an OB/GYN resident, to establish a private practice while he wants to open a car dealership after football.

"I don't live in the past; you don't forget it, but I don't want to live in it," Evans said. "In life, man, everyone has something they can continue to go back to and make a crutch for why this is not happening, or why I'm not successful. I grew up without a dad and everybody's got a sad story and all of that, but you know what, it's all about you as an individual standing up and knowing what you are capable of and having confidence in yourself and really believing that you can do what you want to do, because this life, you can't appreciate it enough."