Tyrone Wheatley

He ranks among the Wolverines' all-time rushing leaders in numerous categories, and his name appears in several places in the Big Ten football record book.

[1] When he was in high school, he would take his younger siblings to basketball games, mapping out emergency plans for shooting outbreaks or brawls.

While playing in the NFL, he realized that leaving Mongo—the youngest of his siblings—in Inkster and merely providing financial support was not a solution because Mongo was still exposed to gang shootings.

Mongo later earned outstanding freshman athlete honors during the Bergen County, New Jersey outdoor track championships while living with Wheatley, who was playing for the Giants at the time.

[2] In 2004, with his graduation from high school imminent, Mongo signed a letter of intent with Utah State as a defensive back.

[6][7] In the 1990 MHSAA Championship game against upper peninsula powerhouse Kingsford High School at the Pontiac Silverdome, Wheatley ran for 165 yards and a touchdown in a 21–7 victory.

[11] However, at one point Wheatley had quit the track team because the coach refused to let him run four individual events as a sprinter, jumper and hurdler.

[15] In addition, through the 2007 track season his hurdle time continued to be a MHSAA lower peninsula Class B state record.

[21] Wheatley had amassed the most touchdowns by a running back in Michigan history by the end of his junior year and was a professional prospect.

[34] Most who finished ahead of him in the Heisman voting either were seniors (Ward, Glenn Foley, Johnson) or gave up their amateur eligibility and declared early for the draft (Heath Shuler, David Palmer, Marshall Faulk), which made Wheatley one of the favorites for the award if he stayed in college for one more year.

His senior season return to the 1994 Wolverines had been a surprise, but injuries allowed Tshimanga Biakabutuka and Ed Davis to get some playing time.

[48] In 1995 and 1996, under Dan Reeves the Giants had losing seasons and relied heavily on Rodney Hampton who received the bulk of the carries on rushing plays.

[60][61] By 1998, Wheatley was the only four-year veteran in the Giants backfield and although he developed another good relationship with an offensive coordinator, he was becoming accustomed to being described as an enigma.

In situations where he was not the only Giant who was overweight or stuck in traffic, he was punished while others were not and those with worse problems such as showing up at practice drunk or being cited for D.U.I.

[66] Wheatley had the responsibility of driving his brother, Leslie Mongo, to his school that opened at 8:15 and thought he was the victim of New Jersey traffic in relation to occasionally being late for 9:00 a.m. team meetings.

"[56] Thus, his off-season workout pattern of sloughing the weights for discussion of politics and current affairs was troubling, but not challenged because he could outlift most.

[55] The Dolphins hoped that Wheatley would compete for the starting tailback position with Abdul-Karim al-Jabbar,[4] who had rushed for a league-leading 15 touchdowns in 1997 but whose production had fallen off to only 6 in 1998.

[73] How well Wheatley complemented Napoleon Kaufman in Oakland was quickly evident to the New York media, and his newfound success was noticed when the Giants had an impotent running game in his absence.

[53] On the field, Wheatley became an important part of a surprisingly efficient West Coast offense run by Jon Gruden.

Wheatley had the best season of his career in the 2000 as the Raiders went 12–4 and reached the American Football Conference championship game of the 2000–01 NFL playoffs.

[58] The team went 10–6 and returned to the 2001–02 NFL playoffs, but Wheatley only had 88 carries during the regular season despite tying Zack Crockett for the running back leadership with 6 touchdowns.

Wheatley became the sixth person to lead the Raiders franchise in rushing yards three times (Clem Daniels, Marv Hubbard, Mark van Eeghen, Marcus Allen, Napoleon Kaufman).

[58][95] Wheatley's name and those of several of his teammates were found on the list of clients of the Bay Area Laboratory Co-operative (BALCO) that had given performance-enhancing drugs to Marion Jones and others.

[98] The 2004 Raiders used a platoon of five runners (Wheatley, Crockett, Justin Fargas, J. R. Redmond and Amos Zereoué) who all rushed for between 100 and 500 yards and caught between 10 and 40 passes.

[99] Wheatley compiled his final 100-yard rushing game on September 26 in week 3 of the season at home against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers with 102 yards on 18 carries.

[58] Wheatley's career ended in week 12 of the season on November 28, 2004, in a 25–24 win over the Denver Broncos with an injury that was first described as an injured hamstring.

[104][105] As football coach in 2007, Wheatley started with a 6–1 record before facing the team's rival, the undefeated Inkster High School.

[122] On February 4, 2015, Tyrone Jr. (known as TJ)[123] signed the National Letter of Intent to play football for his father's alma mater, Michigan.

[124] Prior to Michigan's hiring of Jim Harbaugh as coach and Wheatley on his staff, TJ had been deciding between UCLA, USC, Alabama, and Oregon.

[123] On December 11, 2016, Tyrone's son, Terius committed to play football for the Virginia Tech Hokies, joining the 2017 signing class, after spending a year at Fork Union Military Academy.