The nightmare started 10 years ago and ended last week. He’s now hoping to fulfill a dream. Will the Redskins accommodate him? The Redskins are one of four teams that have expressed interest in Brian Banks, according to his attorney, Justin Brooks. But Brooks said no date has been set for any workout — or whether the Redskins ever will have one for him.
Banks’ first workout is scheduled for June 7 at Seattle — with coach Pete Carroll, who recruited him a decade ago.
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That’s when Banks was a 16-year-old hotshot prep football player in Long Beach, Calif., courted by all the heavyweights. Now he’s an ex-prisoner — one who was wrongly accused of rape. A 15-year-old girl, Wanetta Gibson, said after a reported summer make-out session in a school stairwell that Banks had raped her. The evidence? There wasn’t any. Nor were there any witnesses. But Banks’ attorney prodded him to take a plea deal, fearing his race (black) would lead to a 40-year conviction.
He served 62 months. And for most of the last five he has been on probation, forced to wear an ankle bracelet. His big break occurred last year when Gibson friended him on Facebook. Yes, she did. That led to a secret meeting in which she was taped saying he did not commit the crime. Eventually the California Western School of Law — where Brooks is a professor — took up his case and got his name cleared last week.
“It’s so crazy to go from being labeled a monster to seeing your phone light up with all this support and offers and love,” Banks told ESPN. “It’s really a little hard to get used to.”
Now he wants to recapture his dream of playing in the NFL. According to ESPN, the 6-foot-2, 245-pound Banks runs the 40-yard dash in 4.6 seconds and dead-lifts 545 pounds. That doesn’t mean he will make an NFL roster — 10 years between games is a long time, of course.
“I’ll make ’em happy,” Banks told ESPN. “After all I’ve been through these last 10 years, I can still do some things that will impress you.”
Banks deserves a break. And Gibson deserves something else.
– John Keim
