Tenacity and smart thinking on the football field led Johnston County's Curtis Whitley to an NFL career that took him to the Super Bowl and earned him a starting position on the inaugural Carolina Panthers team.

But problems with substance abuse overshadowed his success on the football field.

Whitley was found dead Sunday afternoon in the home where he lived in Fort Stockton, Texas. He turned 39 on Saturday.

A farmboy from Smithfield, he starred on the offensive line at Smithfield-Selma High School. He was 6 feet 1 and weighed close to 300 pounds at the time, but he had good speed and a work ethic on the field that was unmatched, former coach Dean Manges said.

"Once you designed a play or told him to do a technique, he's gonna do it," Manges said. "That's the way he was in high school. They went 12-2 in 1985 and were second in the East. He was one of the leaders on that team."

Watching the Spartans play was the thing to do back then, said Aldostin Byrd, who played with Whitley at Smithfield-Selma.

"Friday night, that was the place to be," said Byrd, who went on to play football at N.C. State. "[Whitley] was just one of those guys who was tough ... and a great athlete."

His athleticism brought personal highs. His drinking, personal lows.

After a successful collegiate career at Clemson, Whitley was chosen in the fifth round of the 1992 NFL draft by the San Diego Chargers. In 1994, Whitley, driving drunk, plowed into another car, sending the other driver to the hospital. Whitley spent 28 days at the Betty Ford Clinic in Rancho Mirage, Calif., after the incident. After rejoining the Chargers, he went to the Super Bowl with them in 1994. They lost to the San Francisco 49ers.

Whitley was made eligible for the NFL expansion draft just after that season and was picked up by the Carolina Panthers. Again, he stood out on the field, playing in every game of the inaugural season.

"Watching him play [in the pros], he was smart, making calls on the line like most centers do. He would get up under a guy and stay with him. He'd block until the whistle would stop."

But halfway through the 1996 season, old demons resurfaced. He was suspended for four games for violating the NFL's substance abuse policy.

He landed with the Oakland Raiders in 1997 but again was suspended before the 1998 season. He never played again.

His career ended, he packed up his family, which consisted of wife Tracy and two small children, and settled into a home on the family farm in Smithfield. But he and his wife separated sometime after 2001, Norman Whitley said, and Tracy took the children back to California.

Norman Whitley Jr., Curtis Whitley's older sibling, said his brother had always been a horse lover, but horses became his passion once football no longer was in the picture. Sometimes, there were as many as 20 horses on the family farm, Norman Whitley said, and his brother knew each intimately.

"It was like they were his buddies," Norman Whitley said. "There was a horse that impaled itself on a fence. The vet said it was going to die, and to put it down, and [Curtis] wouldn't do it. He nursed that horse back to health. He wouldn't even sleep in the house. He slept out there right beside that horse."

About eight months ago, Curtis Whitley told his family he needed a new start. So he packed up a few things and relocated to Fort Stockton. He soon found a job working on an oil rig.

"He was just looking for a change," Norman Whitley said. "He liked to move around."

An autopsy was performed to determine a cause of death, but the results were not available Tuesday. Chief Deputy Thomas Perkins of the Pecos County Sheriff's Department said friends who had been with Whitley early Sunday came to the home around 6 p.m. and found him slumped over in the bathroom.

Family members were notified Monday that Whitley had died.

Norman Whitley said family members were in shock over the sudden death but had decided they would concentrate on their fond memories of his good times during their time of grief.

"He was a very thoughtful, tender-hearted person," Whitley. "He'd pick up a homeless person and take him home with him. Just like nursing a bird with a broken wing, he'd get them well and wouldn't let them go before they were back on their feet."

Besides his brother, Curtis Whitley is survived by his mother, Betty Whitley of Selma; his father, Norman Whitley Sr. of Rocky Mount; and two children, Hannah Whitley and Curtis Whitley Jr. of California.