Iowa. At that time, Ron Johnson was the only Michigan player who had rushed for more yards in a game. Downward spiral and substance abuse On January 4, 1972, just a few days after Taylor's final game as a Wolverine, his mother died. "After my mother died I didn't want to play anymore" says Taylor. He played in a post-season game at Coach Schembechler's encouragement. O. J. Simpson, who was broadcasting the game, told Taylor to call home. When Taylor called home he discovered that his uncle had killed his aunt and then himself. Late that same summer, his girlfriend, Valerie, was stabbed to death outside a roller rink in Detroit. Taylor wrote in his autobiography that football injuries and deaths of close family members sent him on "a long downward spiral of depression, drinking, drugs and encounters with the law." Taylor was selected by the Atlanta Falcons in the fifth round of the 1971 NFL Draft, but he had a poor training camp with the Falcons. He was traded to the St. Louis Cardinals, put on injured reserve, and finally cut. Taylor played the 1972 season with the Calgary Stampeders in the Canadian Football League, getting into two games and totaling 62 yards rushing on seven carries, three receptions for 27 yards and three kickoff returns for 59 yards. After brief trials in 1974 with Chicago and Memphis of the World Football League (getting into one game, rushing once for two yards), Taylor's football career was over. Taylor went into a downward spiral ("I self-medicated" he later said) that lasted 25 years. He managed to get his master's degree in education, get married and have three children, but the ex-football star suffered from depression, divorced his wife, became isolated from his children, and eventually became homeless. Taylor hit a low when he was convicted for having knowledge of a bank robbery and spent 2½ years in a federal penitentiary; after his release, he became an addict living on the streets of Detroit, cut off from friends and family. Rehabilitation In August 1997, Taylor reports he had an experience with God. "It was August 17, 1997. It was 5 a.m. I was sitting in front of an abandoned apartment building at the corner of Lakewood and Jefferson. I was drinking vodka and Black Label beer. I heard a voice. The voice said, 'William Taylor, come forth.' I heard it as