Rodney Rogers is severely injured

Rogers' ex-coach says he is paralyzed

Rodney Rogers, a former Durham high school sports star with a legendary physique, could do just about anything on a basketball court or football field.

Friends and family members are wondering now whether he'll ever walk again after an accident last week involving an all-terrain vehicle. The N.C. Highway Patrol said Rogers was four-wheeling in the woods in rural Vance County north of Raleigh when he fell off the vehicle.

Dave Odom, Rogers' coach when Rogers was an All-America basketball player at Wake Forest University, said Wednesday that his former star is paralyzed from the shoulders down. Rogers, 37, was recently transferred from Duke Hospital to the Shepherd Center in Atlanta. The center's mission is to help people who have experienced a catastrophic injury.

"Say a prayer for Rodney and his family,'' Odom said.

The injury has felled, at least for the moment, a man who is more than a famous former athlete. Rogers is an ambassador for Durham. He worked with his own hands to repair his hometown's streets. He used his fame to polish its reputation. He provided computers for its poor children, and at the time of the accident he was a volunteer girls' basketball coach at Rogers-Herr Middle School.

"He is a Durham boy through and through," said Rogers' agent, James "Butch" Williams, a Durham lawyer.

Rogers starred in high school at Durham Hillside and played for Wake Forest from 1990 to 1993. In the 1993 NBA draft, he was the Denver Nuggets' first pick and the ninth player chosen overall. That began a 12-season pro career with seven different teams.

When the muscular, 6-foot-7 Rogers was creating his legend on the football fields and basketball courts of Durham as a teenager, he was known as "the Durham Bull."

Bullish also describes his attitude toward life, and toward his hometown.

Williams, Rogers' agent and lawyer for 15 years, said the former power forward enjoyed the woods, off-road sports and trucks.

"He is an outdoorsman, plain and simple," Williams said. "He hunts, motorcycles, rides horses. He loves big trucks."

That love of big trucks led to his present job as a heavy equipment operator for the city of Durham's Public Works Department. Rogers "is financially set," Williams said, but he wanted demanding daily work.

"Rodney isn't the type to sit around twiddling his thumbs. There aren't any jobs he considers too small for him," Williams said. "He started his own trucking company and was usually the lead driver. He'd be out there driving to the quarry at 3:30 in the morning."

Recent promotion

Rogers' supervisor at his city job, Michael Balzarano, said Rogers was no prima donna playing with the city's big trucks until he got bored.

"I didn't even know he had lots of money. He is very friendly, very concerned, very conscientious," Balzarano said, "We chose him because of his ethics and his attitude. He was highly motivated. He was promoted to supervisor six months ago."

Rogers was highly motivated on the basketball court, too. He was ACC Player of the Year in 1993 while at Wake Forest and won the NBA's Sixth Man Award -- for top substitute.

Rogers, with Don Jones and Williams, co-founded the Durham Eagles youth football team.

"The seed money came from him," Williams said. "I got involved because he forced me to."

He said Rogers also helped children and families at a public housing complex in Durham:

"He set up a computer lab at McDougald Terrace. He had the Internet set up so the kids had an interactive link with him. They'd write him and he'd write them right back. ... The mothers were allowed to use the computers during the day" to look for jobs.

Balzarano called Rogers "an asset to the city and to the residents. He's been involved with the city across the spectrum."