It's easy to take pity on Philip Pierre-Louis. Auburn's diminutive wideout has taken a wandering path to varsity football.
He tore a knee ligament during the first return of his first game in 2008, then suffered another serious knee injury this spring.
Yet this tale, this life, isn't about bad luck.
It's about the 18 months between those two painful experiences when Pierre-Louis teetered on the edge of irrelevance. His behavior off the field nearly accomplished what torn knee ligaments couldn't -- the derailing of a promising football career.
"Everybody says that first impressions are everything, and I truly believe that,"
Pierre-Louis said. "I just believe that the impression that they got from me the first time, that really wasn't me. And I just had to show me the real Philip."
He was in the midst of rehabilitating his first knee injury in December 2008 when head coach Tommy Tuberville resigned. It was a major blow to Pierre-Louis, who signed with the Tigers based primarily on his relationship with two people.
Tuberville was one. The other was Tony Franklin, the offensive coordinator who was fired at mid-season in 2008. Five-foot-7 receivers are a rare species in the Southeastern Conference, and now Pierre-Louis felt like his support system -- the men who valued straight-line speed -- was gone.
When new head coach Gene Chizik and a new coaching staff took command in early 2009, Pierre-Louis felt like an outsider. He acted like one as well.
The south Florida native began missing meetings and, as he said, "not being places I need to be."
That behavior led to an indefinite suspension and a trip home for the summer of 2009.
He was no longer welcome at Auburn.
"It was the worst summer ever. I felt so bored, so lonely,"
Pierre-Louis said. "All my friends were up here. Everybody was getting better while I was at home, sitting down, trying to get a job, trying to work."
He eventually took a job painting houses. Working for a paycheck gave Pierre-Louis a blast of motivation that he'd been lacking. Long-distance conversations with teammates gave him the impression that Auburn was prepared to move on without its smallest scholarship player.
