The Curious Case of Rolando McClain

TUSCALOOSA, Alabama — He was perfectly content, back when his life was so quiet last autumn.

Most mornings, Rolando McClain, then a retired NFL player at the age of 24, would rise from the bed in his mansion on Lake Tuscaloosa and drive 20 minutes to work out and attend classes at the University of Alabama, where the two-time dean's list student was finishing his degree in family financial planning. Other mornings, he'd run up a hill on his four-acre property, over and over, trying to stay in shape in case the pull of playing football ever returned.

But the real peace for McClain last fall came when he was alone on the lake, fishing rod in hand, his thoughts free to wander wherever they pleased, from pondering the nature of God to trying to understand why he sometimes felt a torrent of anger rising inside him. Out on the water, alone on his boat, he was unburdened and absorbed fully in the moment, not running from the ghosts of the past or concerned with the future. It was, in retrospect, his therapy.

"Rolando is happiest when he's fishing," said Caleb Thomas, one of McClain's closest friends. "He could fish all day and never want for anything else. It's something he'd do every day for the rest of his life if he could. Rolando needs the quiet, especially after all he's been through."

"You give Rolando a fishing pole and a lake, and that's all he really needs," said Jere Adcock, McClain's high school coach at Decatur (Alabama) High. "He's had a tough life, and I think fishing brings him peace. He's so smart, and he takes his time to process and analyze things. Fishing allows him to do that. "

To understand Dallas Cowboys linebacker Rolando McClain today—and he is perhaps the most enigmatic figure in the NFL, a 6'4", 259-pound force of nature who ranks second on the Cowboys in tackles despite missing two games with injury—you need to go back to last fall. That's when McClain, a leading candidate for NFL Comeback Player of the Year, was at a live-or-die crossroads in his life.

Why was he in Tuscaloosa? Why did th