Remembering the Life and Legacy of WVU Quarterback Chris Gray
John Antonik
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – Not all stories in life end happily, which makes Chris Gray's story so sad.
Chris Gray, the person who made everyone's day just a little bit better simply because he existed, saw his life end tragically sometime around 10:30 a.m. on Tuesday, Sept. 11, 2001, when the North Tower of the World Trade Center collapsed as a result of the senseless terrorist attacks that day.
Chris was among the 658 Cantor Fitzgerald employees who perished, somewhere between the 105th and the 30th floor, based on the last known cell call from someone in Chris's group trying to escape the building.
"He's coming out of that tower from the 105th floor," Dwight Wallace, Chris's quarterbacks coach for three seasons at West Virginia University and now an analyst on Mountaineer football radio broadcasts, recalled Thursday morning. "Well, he gets to the 31st floor and he's walking down with a buddy, and his buddy was able to get a call out to his wife.
"He said, 'Chris is with me and we made it to the 31st floor, but it's really slow right now. All of the firemen are running past us with all this equipment, so we've got to sit here and wait.'
Wallace continued, "I've often wondered, what if they don't send the first responders up first and instead try and get as many people as they can out of the building? Chris makes it. If he can get down 70 floors, I guarantee you he gets the rest of the way out. I was at the 9/11 memorial service, and I asked that question and did not get an answer. I've always wrestled with that."
Wallace said he gets text messages each anniversary from some of Gray's Mountaineer teammates, Berwick, Pennsylvania, wide receiver Charlie Fedorco among the most consistent senders. During his time at WVU, Gray became close to the Berwick boys, once sharing an apartment in Morgantown near Milan Puskar Stadium with Tom Robsock and Carbondale, Pennsylvania, native Mark Ulmer.
Whenever Gray, Robsock, Ulmer, Fedorco and the rest of the gang got together, something interesting was always going to happen.
Nobody enjoyed life or made life more enjoyable than Chris Gray did.
He wasn't a great quarterback prospect coming out of Manalapan High in Manalapan, New Jersey, and Wallace admits he wasn't sure what to think when his brother Mike, responsible for recruiting the Garden State for West Virginia at the time, wanted him to go on a recruiting trip to evaluate Gray in person.
One newspaper listing of the top 40 New Jersey high school prospects of 1987 includes WVU fullback Joe Ayuso from Montville, some unknown guys who played at Lafayette, East Stroudsburg, Lehigh, Colgate and Yale, as well as some Division I walk-ons, but made no mention of Chris Gray.
"My brother, Mike, had that area and he said, 'Dwight, I can't evaluate this kid and you're going to have to come and take a look at him in person because they don't throw the ball at all during games,'" Wallace said. "So, we go out to see him play a high school game on Long Island (N.Y.)."
Because his high school team didn't throw much, the Wallaces made sure to be at the field early to watch him perform during pregame warmups. Dwight recalls there being about 10 rows of stands and nobody in them when they arrived to watch Chris play.
"There wasn't much interest at all, and we watched him warm up and he probably throws 50 or so passes, and I bet only 10 of them were caught," he said. "He's throwing perfect spirals and the ball is really spinning, and they don't have a single kid who can catch the ball.
"During the game, we are listening to the fans sitting around us complaining about Chris's coach who won't throw the football. 'What a dumb coach, we've got the best quarterback we've ever had, and he refuses to throw the ball!' I wanted to turn around and tell them, 'You might want to look at the other end of what you're saying and realize that your kid can't catch it,'" he chuckled.
Gray was offered and accepted a scholarship to play at West Virginia University, which at the time was becoming a popular second home to New Jersey residents because of its affordable tuition and reputation for playing great college football under legendary coach Don Nehlen.
Gray loved performing for the Mountaineers, even if he was a traditional pocket passer playing in a program that was transitioning to more mobile, athletic quarterbacks.
Major Harris and Browning Nagle were part of the prior year's recruiting class; prep All-American Greg Jones transferred in from Miami, mobile Darren Studstill was brought in afterward and the trend of adding athletic quarterbacks continued when Notre Dame's Jake Kelchner transferred into the program in 1991.
Gray was never going to beat out those guys for a starting job, but that doesn't mean he wasn't a valuable performer for the Mountaineers. Great teams also need great teammates, and Chris Gray was the best there ever was in that category.
Wallace used to have for-fun awards that he would present to the quarterbacks based on their performances in games. One of those was called the "laundry award" for an errant pass that left their wide receiver vulnerable to a big hit.
In football vernacular, that means being "hung out to dry," hence the laundry award.
Sitting in the back of the room while they watched tape, Chris was usually the first one to jump up and give out a "laundry award," sometimes even taking the marker out of Wallace's hands and writing the offending player's name on the grease board himself.
Once, Wallace recalled going into the meeting room a little early to prepare for that day's film session and sitting in the back of the room were his two backups, Chris Gray and Jed Drenning. While he was putting things on the board and organizing his thoughts for the meeting, he could hear them talking and came to realize that Chris was having some relationship difficulties, so he stopped what he was doing for an impromptu counseling session.
"Everybody who met Chris liked him," Wallace said.
Gray could have transferred down a level to play, as Drenning did by going to Glenville State, but he loved being a West Virginia Mountaineer too much to leave. Wallace believes players today who transfer from school to school often lose out on the lifelong, lasting friendships and memories that they get from being at one place for five years of their life, as Gray did at WVU.
Even though Chris didn't live long enough to fully appreciate the true meaning of those relationships when you reach your late 50s and early 60s, as his teammates now are, they certainly appreciate what knowing Chris Gray has meant to them.
Fedorco believes he could have easily been a well-known comedian or talk show host if he chose to do so because he was quick-witted and those things came so naturally to him.
Drenning, now a sideline reporter and analyst on Mountaineer Sports Network radio broadcasts, recalled going fishing with Gray and teammate Glen McNew one summer evening when they were together in college. All three were in summer school at a time when players didn't want to be in summer school, so a night out on the Mon River was one way for somebody back in the early 1990s to decompress and unwind.
McNew was the avid angler among the group, while Drenning and Gray were more interested in sipping the cheap beer that they had purchased at the Sunnyside Superette and telling some stories.
No sooner had Drenning put his pole in the water when he got a big hit, requiring him to frantically grab the pole to haul in the monstrosity that was hanging on the other end. It ended up being a carp, which is by no means a trophy fish, but Gray provided a play-by-play description that could have easily been included in the Herman Melville novel, Moby Dick.
"It was like listening to Marlin Perkins on Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom," Drenning laughed. "I just couldn't stop laughing. Here were these two idiots sitting there with sticks in the river drinking stale beer and having the time of our lives."
Every day was a good day with Chris Gray. If he were alive, I think Chris would appreciate how that rhymes.
Blue & Gold News owner Greg Hunter befriended Gray while seeking a few ringers for his summer league softball team, their friendship growing and blossoming with each passing year. And while Gray was never considered a great college quarterback, Hunter correctly points out that the Miami Dolphins thought enough of the handful of college games the 6-foot-4, 207-pounder played at WVU to offer him a free-agent contract to attend minicamp one summer.
Of course, the phone call Gray received notifying him of this comes with another good story.
Prank calls were popular back in those days. Quarterback Major Harris and fullback Rico Tyler were known to disguise their voices and sometimes call into Nehlen's weekly radio show using fictious names and asking such ridiculous questions as whether or not the game would be played if it rained, or if the third-string fullback was ever going to get any carries since Nehlen loved to run the ball up the middle so much.
It was said that defensive back Lawrence Drumgoole was so adept at mimicking Bill Cosby that he sounded just like him – a funny story for another day and time.
Well, Gray, who was no stranger to pranks, thought his buddies were jacking him when they told him the Dolphins called and wanted a return call immediately. He eventually did, and after about five awkward minutes going back and forth, Gray finally realized the Dolphins were actually interested in bringing him in for a tryout.
Fedorco can't confirm this, but the Chris Gray minicamp story his WVU teammates and friends loved to circulate was the time he reportedly went up to Hall of Fame quarterback Dan Marino and told him that he threw a "tighter spiral" than Marino did.
This coming from a one-week free agent rookie quarterback who appeared in just eight football games during his college career!
"I don't know whether or not that's true, but that sure as hell sounds like Chris to me," Fedorco laughed.
Gray loved to reenact his fumbled snap near the goal line late in the game that cost West Virginia an opportunity for a memorable comeback victory over Virginia Tech in 1991. The way Chris told the story, you were almost glad that it happened, if only it was South Carolina or Miami instead.
The Chris Gray story that never fails to produce a laugh happened in 1990 following West Virginia's 28-3 victory over Rutgers before 11,117 rain-soaked fans at cavernous Giants Stadium.
Because Gray was a New Jersey native, the coaching staff brought him along as the team's emergency No. 3 quarterback. When the outcome was decided and one snap was required to run out the clock, Nehlen sent in Gray to do the chore.
Afterward, Gray celebrated right along with all of his victorious teammates and coaches in the community shower that was provided for everyone to use back then. Today, coaches have their own locker rooms and showers, of course.
During the ride to the airport, Gray grabbed the microphone on the bus transporting Nehlen, the offensive coaches and players to the terminal and began to recreate Lou Gehrig's rendition of "I am the luckiest man on the face of the Earth" speech, describing in great detail his role in the unforgettable triumph. He told them of the difficult task he had of handling the center snap, going backwards a couple of steps, and taking a knee to end the game. Then, to top things off, he said to thunderous laughter, "And I got to take a shower with coach Nehlen!"
It was then when Nehlen, sensing things were going sideways in a hurry, jumped up, grabbed the microphone out of his hands and ordered his wise-cracking, third-string quarterback to return to his seat.
Guys like that are never forgotten.
"I wasn't even sure then that I knew Chris worked in the North Tower, and I tried calling him on the day of the attacks when I found out what happened in New York City," Fedorco recalled. "My call went immediately to voicemail.
"I didn't really think much about it, but a day later I called his mom's house to ask how Chris was doing and there was nothing but silence on the other end," he said. "That's when I found out something terrible had happened to Chris."
For years, Hunter kept the voicemail Chris had left on his phone wanting to meet up for dinner before West Virginia's road game at Maryland to be played on Saturday, Sept. 15 - four days after the terrorist attacks. Hunter was busy putting the final touches on the Blue & Gold News for that week and was unable to return the call.
They kept in touch frequently and Hunter could sense that Gray wasn't happy with his job working in New York City nor the commute from nearby Hoboken, New Jersey, and longed to return to Morgantown, marry his fiancé Kelly Gangwer, and raise a family.
"There is absolutely no doubt in anyone's mind who knew Chris, especially his family, that they would have moved back to Morgantown, and Chris would have been a teacher and a coach," Hunter said.
His outgoing personality and his compassion and empathy for others would have made him a great coach and teacher.
The family created an endowed football scholarship bearing his name that still exists today, which Tim Bolling, senior vice president for the WVU Foundation, says remains in "very good shape." The family used to travel to Morgantown each summer to put on a golf tournament to benefit the sacred scholarship.
Drenning said he refuses to be sad whenever the subject of Chris Gray comes up because Chris was always so uplifting and positive around others.
Some people are to be endured; others to be enjoyed. Chris Gray always made life so enjoyable for everyone who knew him.
Because Gray was such big Bruce Springsteen fan, Drenning said he always puts on some Springsteen during 9/11 anniversaries to remember his old friend.
There are many popular songs from which to choose, but perhaps the one most fitting for Chris is the positive, uplifting "Rosalita (Come Out Tonight)." Toward the end of the second verse, Springsteen sings, "Ah, I ain't here on business, baby, I'm only here for fun."
Every day was a good day with Chris Gray.
He was only 32 when he died 25 years ago today on that fateful September morning in 2001.
"Man, do I miss him," Fedorco said.
Everyone does.
