Penn State Sports Magazine
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/83706
By helping rescue others, Quintus McDonald finds his own salvation MAN ON A MISSION Q | uintus McDonald wasn't ex- pecting the phone call. Or, for that matter, good news. He didn't have a job. He was about to lose his house in Indianapo- lis. He was struggling, again, with the "chemical dependency" – he always uses that phrase – that had prevented him from reaching his full potential at Penn State, in the NFL, in his life. The voice on the other end in early 2008 didn't ask about any of that. It asked if McDonald would attend a meeting of the Christian Businessmen's Connection. McDonald agreed. Once there, he received another re- quest: As McDonald remembered it, the organization's president asked, "Would you be willing to accept a love gift of a pickup truck?" As McDonald explained, the gift was "to help me get moving in the right direction." Again, he agreed. But he wasn't sure what to do with the truck. He didn't even have money for gas. He said he was driving down the street, praying – "OK, Lord, you gave this to me for a reason. You've got to show me what it is you want me to do" – when a man offered him gas money for a ride to the scrap yard. Yet again, McDonald agreed. "And then," he said, "I could see how lucrative recycling could be. And in my conversation with God, it was told to me to create jobs for the hard- to-employ. Which is who, really, I was. Because of my chemical dependen- cy." Four years later, McDonald is proud to say he's clean. He's been clean for nearly two years, since Oct. 26, 2010, which he says is the longest he's stayed away from alcohol and drugs since his sophomore year at Montclair (N.J.) High School. And now he's hoping his experiences will help others with similar problems – or prevent others from developing them. He's part of a prison ministry at Ebenezer Missionary Baptist Church in his new home, Durham, N.C. He's founder of IAmRecycling, an organiza- tion that trains ex-prisoners to break down and separate metals – in dis- carded refrigerators, for example, or other appliances – for recycling. He started a youth sports camp. "Man, he has 1,000 ideas," said his friend, Michael Ball. "He's always going. That's his way of relaxing, not keeping still." Ball laughed. "I don't understand that at all." After what he's been through, Mc- Donald has a compulsion to give back. "It's been a tremendous struggle in my life," he said. "And that's why I talk about recycling souls – because of everything I've been through. If God can recycle my soul and get me to a place where I am sufficient through him – that I am God-sufficient and not self-sufficient – then he can do that for anybody." McDonald arrived at Penn State in 1985 as one of the country's most highly touted recruits. USA Today named him its Defensive Player of the Year. Joe Paterno was so thrilled to have landed him that he showed up when McDonald signed his letter of intent, which turned out to be an NCAA violation. McDonald's college career didn't live up to the advance notices. Not until later did it become widely known that he was abusing alcohol and drugs. "I learned some valuable lessons at Penn State," he said. "I actually didn't learn them while I was at Penn State, but they were lessons that were taught while I was there. I just never passed the test." His athletic ability and occasional flashes of greatness earned McDonald a shot at the NFL. Starting in 1989, he spent three years with the Indianapolis Colts. After two seasons, he told Ball about his "chemical dependency," and he credits his friend with helping him get clean for the first time. "I gave him support," Ball said. "I didn't really stop him from doing it. He had to stop on his own after he got sick and tired of being sick and tired." Before the 1991 season, McDonald spent 30 days in rehab. Throughout the season, he said, he attended Nar- cotics Anonymous meetings. He had the best season of his short career, once playing all four linebacker posi- tions in one game. But yet again, as McDonald put it, "I had some personal issues creeping up on me," and yet again, he found himself binging on cocaine. He said it took away some of the pain he felt from growing up without his father, from the death of his grandmother, from the deaths of five friends within a few months, from his mounting debts. "I was giving myself an opportunity by not using," he said. "But I had no spiritual maintenance at all. It was all willpower. And when the rubber met the road…" The Colts cut him. A borderline pos- itive drug test nixed his chances with another team. And then McDonald