Wheeler catches on after slow start

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By Craig DeVrieze | Thursday, June 19, 2008 9:30 PM CDT | () comments

There is no Danny, Tom or Ronny on the Quad-City Steamwheelers roster, but receiver Deontrae Johnson gets a daily practice push from one of each.

Danny is a sports-crazed paraplegic. Tom is a movie lover with Downs Syndrome. Ronny is a bookish, non-sports fan who cannot see.

The three are disabled roommates in Sioux City, Iowa, all of whom Johnson assisted last winter as a home healthcare assistant.

“Basically, they were my buddies,’’ Johnson said of friendships he forged after following his girlfriend’s advice to join her and try on that offseason job for size. “It was good to do that.’’

Johnson said work that included helping Danny bathe and shopping for food for the trio of physically challenged roomates opened his eyes to hardships he hadn’t known.

It taught him that a bad day of practice or a dropped touchdown pass doesn’t amount to real heartache.

It also reminded him that pushing through tired legs on the football field isn’t life’s most daunting challenge.

“It just motivated me,’’ Johnson said. “No matter how hard football can be, it will never be harder than the lives they live.’’

Johnson has stayed in touch with his new pals since joining the Steamwheelers in March but conceded it has been a few weeks since he called them.

He really should pick up the phone.

That way, the former standout from Sioux City’s Morningside College can let his chums know how he has picked up his game for the Steamwheelers in recent weeks.

Johnson has amassed almost two-thirds of his season’s statistics for the 6-5 Steamwheelers in their past five games, culminating with a 10-catch, 130-yard, three-touchdown Saturday star turn in Peoria.

With 73 catches and 742 yards, Johnson is well on his way to joining fellow receivers Jesse Schmidt and Kris Peters in the 1,000-yard club.

That would make them the fourth straight Steamwheelers receiving trio to achieve a feat only three other af2 crews — Peters’ 2003 Oklahoma City catching corps and trios in Albany and Florida last year — can claim.

“Steamwheelers head coach Troy Biladeau said Johnson came out of the gate slowly because he came to training camp a bit rusty. But second-year Q-C quarterback J.J. Raterink said his 6-foot-2, 180-pound backside receiver suffered a bit early because Peters and Schmidt were more familiar targets.

Johnson truly arrived as an option midway through the third quarter of a 54-27 home blowout of Peoria on May 17 when offensive coordinator Shon King made him the pre-snap motion receiver from the backside and an easy-does-it 30-yard touchdown pass-and-catch resulted.

“I told Shon King, ‘Keep running that play,’’’ Biladeau said.

Steamwheelers defensive back Jordan Davis, once a Johnson teammate at South Dakota University, said some of the lanky receiver’s essential gifts are deceptive speed and good sense of how to get to the football.

Raterink said Johnson is a standout route runner, who is even more dangerous on the move pre-snap.

“He does some things in motion to set people up that not only makes it easier for him to get open but also makes it easier for the quarterback,’’ Raterink said. “A lot of time, I see him go in motion, and the defense has to adjust and then I can see the coverage they are going to be in. So it makes the read a little bit quicker for me.’’

Johnson said stats are less important than wins, but it might be no coincidence that the Wheelers are 4-1 since his game kicked into gear.

Any success he enjoys, he said, Johnson must share with his buddies, Danny, Tom and Ronny.

“It gave me another spark of life,’’ Johnson said of a lesson that encouraged him to keep playing football. “I said, ‘You can do this. Take every day like it is your last day of playing football.’ Those guys never had the opportunity.’’

Craig DeVrieze can be contacted at (563) 333-2610 or cdevrieze@qctimes.com. Comment on this story at qctimes.com