Columnist Dean Juipe: Denton sits and waits for pardon

Dean Juipe

Wednesday, Nov. 15, 2000 | 10:09 a.m.

Dean Juipe's column appears Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday. His boxing notebook appears Thursday. Reach him at juipe@lasvegassun.com or 259-4084.

It's a curious story, absolutely defying logic.

And it's sad in a way, too.

But Jon Denton, who should have been a rookie in the National Football League this season had everything gone according to plan, remains unemployed even with the opening of the Las Vegas Outlaws' training camp Tuesday.

Without having committed a single crime against humanity -- aside from being arrested for shoplifting as a 15-year-old -- Denton has been ostracized from football in spite of remarkable talents and physical gifts that would make any of his peers envious. He's a 23-year-old quarterback without a team, a potential star reduced to working the phones for pocket change for his father's Wick Communications business firm.

Given the way he excelled for UNLV as a freshman in 1996, Denton should have been a No. 1 choice in the 2000 NFL draft. Yet without ever having been injured, his stock appears to have fallen off the chart.

It simply does not make sense, especially with the XFL's Outlaws badly in need of a promising local player who might bring some people to their games and who could, in theory, develop into the best player in the league.

If someone out there can answer why Denton is not a desirable commodity, please speak up. Because he and I just don't get it.

"Ever since I came out of school I've had an 'X' on my forehead and it still hasn't been erased," he said Tuesday after completing a two-mile run, which he does daily with fingers crossed that some team in some league will yet come calling. "It's hard on me, mentally.

"Sometimes people get railroaded," he continued. "And I was railroaded. I picked up the label that I wasn't worth the trouble."

Good grief, look at all the athletes who have been involved in murders, rapes, brawls, domestic violence and serious drug use. In most cases, the athlete pays a small price for absolution and is welcomed back.

Denton's offenses -- allegedly marijuana use at UNLV and curfew trouble after he transferred to Eastern Kentucky for the 1998 season -- wouldn't even make a blip on the transgressions scale.

Yet here he sits in his Green Valley home, a girlfriend and a 6-month-old daughter for company, and the football world seems content to pass him by.

This in spite of the fact that as a freshman with the Rebels he threw for a staggering 3,591 yards (which ranked fifth in the nation, behind four seniors) and that he came back with 2,586 passing yards the following year. He also threw for a combined total of 43 touchdowns and was touted in the 1997 UNLV football media guide as "arguably the best freshman quarterback in NCAA history."

At 6-foot-3, 210 pounds, terrific instincts, an arm of steel and a leader's mentality, Denton was the complete package. Maybe he still is.

"The only thing I can do is stay ready mentally and physically, in case someone gives me a call," he said. "I still feel someone will, even though it's been a year and a half since I've been in a game."

Both this season and last he spent time in the Canadian Football League, albeit in a "practice-only role" that, predictably, left him discouraged. He abandoned the Edmonton Eskimos early in the 2000 season, expecting to wind up in the XFL.

"I definitely thought it would be a great opportunity for me," he said of the new league. "I contacted the Outlaws and I had some solid workouts for them. I thought they'd give me a shot.

"Because I'm always being asked about it, I know people in town still want to see me play. I wouldn't say I could sell out the stadium by myself, but I could add something to the team and maybe it would be a good atmosphere for everyone involved."

The Outlaws -- now there's a misnomer of a nickname if they won't even bring Denton to camp -- have opened training at the same Green Valley High School where Denton once excelled. On hand are dozens of players -- including four anonymous quarterbacks -- no one has ever heard of or will ever give a flying leap about, while just down the street a potential focal point (or savior) jogs in silence.

A second XFL team, Birmingham, has exchanged memos with the agent-less Denton, yet it didn't draft him and hasn't extended an invitation to camp either.

Maybe no one will.

"I'd like to think that too," he said when told by a sympathizer that some team will give him a serious look someday. "But it doesn't always work out like you think it will.

"I sit around and see guys get all kinds of extra shots and I wonder why I'm not getting another chance.

"I admit there've been times when I took a back seat when it came to training or that I was lacking in similar areas, but that was some time ago.

"Are people always going to reflect on me as a 19-year-old knucklehead?"

If the answer to that is "yes" then life will turn out to be very unfair for this particular young man, who has languished in purgatory for minor offenses that should have long since been forgiven.