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“They didn’t warn me at all,” the Packers defensive end said of his new teammates with a chuckle. “I wish they would have.”
But they didn’t, so Pettway, who’d been signed last Tuesday to replace an injured Cullen Jenkins on the roster, found himself in a religious discussion late last week with veteran pass-rushing defensive end Kabeer Gbaja-Biamila, whose passion about his Christian faith is a fact of conversational life at that end of the
locker room.
“I’m always talking about God, so I don’t know how it came up,” Gbaja-Biamila confessed. “To me, everything’s about God. Some people talk about cars, some people talk about girls, some people talk about their money. I like to talk about God.”
“Kabeer’s heart is in the right place,” said halfback Ryan Grant, who joined in the discussion. “But ...”
But Pettway wasn’t in need of conversion. Raised in the church by his mother and a frequent chapel- and Bible study-goer during his time with the Jacksonville Jaguars, Pettway’s didn’t need his new pal to tell him how blessed he is.
“I know,” Pettway said.
In the early-morning hours of Sept. 2, Pettway and his former Jaguars teammate, Richard Collier, were sitting in Collier’s burgundy Cadillac Escalade in an apartment complex parking lot, waiting for two women they had met that evening at a club.
With Pettway, who’d been released by the Jaguars on the final roster reduction, in the driver’s seat and Collier in the passenger seat, shots rang out, and Collier was struck by 14 bullets. He spent two weeks on a ventilator in the intensive care unit of Shands Medical Center in Jacksonville, and last week, his surgeon, Dr. Andrew Kerwin, said at a news conference Collier was paralyzed below the waist and had to have his left leg amputated because of a life-threatening blood clot that had developed.
Pettway, meanwhile, miraculously escaped without injury.
The grace of God’
“For him to get hit 14 times, and me not get a scratch, not have anything happen to me, it’s the grace of God,” said Pettway, who was hoping to fly to Jacksonville during the team’s day off Tuesday but expected to have to wait until the Oct. 26 bye week.
“I couldn’t get out of the car. My door was locked, so I couldn’t get out. I was in the car the whole time it was happening. For not one bullet to hit me, not be harmed, not be touched there’s no other explanation. It’s not good luck or anything like that. Someone up above was watching over me.”
No arrests have been made in the shooting, and police have offered no description of the shooter or shooters. Although police previously described Collier as the target of the attack, no further information has been released.
“If I was in that situation, and that was me, I probably wouldn’t even be here right now. I’d be dead,” Pettway said. “But he’s a strong guy. The way he came through that, I’m going to be there for him any way I can. We’re always going to be friends.”
Pettway struggled with his grief in the aftermath of the incident, and while his fiancee, Victoria, recommended he seek counseling, he chose to confide in her, his mother and his brothers. While the days that immediately followed the shooting were the worst for him, Collier’s improved condition has helped him with his grief.
“Man, that first week? Tough. I couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t eat. I was just worried about him. Day by day, trying to take a step forward, it was hard,” said Pettway, who then had to go home to his native Houston to clean up damage from Hurricane Ike.
“I’ve talked to some people, and we talked about that. The first week, I didn’t want to do anything. I just wanted to know how he was doing. I didn’t care about anything else. I just wanted him to get better.”
He did everything right’
What bothered Pettway was the way the story was portrayed.
Although Collier wasn’t perfect he was suspended by the team for two games last season after a drunk-driving arrest last November, to which he pleaded no-contest and received six months of probation Pettway was shocked when news reports grouped the incident not only with the high-profile shooting deaths of Denver cornerback Darrent Williams and Washington safety Sean Taylor, but with several other run-ins Jaguars players had had with the law in recent months.
“I was like, Wait a minute, he wasn’t doing anything wrong,’ ” said Pettway, who was serving as Collier’s designated driver that night. “The first day or two, people were asking, Why is he out that late? What’s he doing there?’
“He did everything right, by the book. I’m going to be (drinking), I’ll get somebody to drive for me, make sure I make it home safely.’ I mean, there was no trouble at the place we were. It wasn’t like he was doing something wrong. He did everything he was supposed to do and he was asked to do by the team. It’s just a terrible outcome to the night.”
The Packers, for their part, had decided Pettway was the No. 1 defensive end available at the time and had no reservations about his character.
“We researched the thing. The bottom line was, everything we heard about the kid, he’s a great kid. That was never an issue,” Packers co-director of football operations Reggie McKenzie said Tuesday.
