Packers' Herron turns the page on a harrowing story

GREEN BAY -- As a kid growing up in tiny Mattawan, Mich. (pop. 2,700), near Kalamazoo, Noah Herron always had what his father Ron calls "a vivid imagination."

As a youngster, Noah was always playing out different situations in his head, Ron said, whether it was during a tornado warning or something he saw on the nightly news.

"My parents say I always used to say, 'If this would happen, I would do this,' or, 'If this would happen, I would do that.' Just ridiculous scenarios," Herron said. "But I guess somewhere in the back of my mind, it paid off."

On the night of May 30, when two men broke into his Howard home in an alleged attempted burglary, it certainly did.

Now, almost three months later, Herron is focused on making the Packers' roster, a challenging task after missing all of last season with a knee injury. And the fourth-year running back has regained normalcy since he's been back to work.

"I've told him, 'You can come talk to me anytime you want,' but I don't want him to feel unnatural," Packers coach Mike McCarthy said. "Noah's always been one of the good guys -- one of the guys you really enjoy coaching. I just wanted him to get back to the way he always was. And I feel like he's gotten back to himself since he got back to training camp."

The two Green Bay men charged in the crime, 31-year-old Yeshua Tate and 20-year-old Joel Mullin-Romo, each face two charges of being party to burglary, carrying a maximum penalty of 25 years in prison. Herron had to testify against them at their July 11 preliminary hearing in Brown County Circuit Court, where Herron spoke of fearing for his life as the two men allegedly ransacked his condominium.

What he did not talk about, and what those who joked about the way Herron defended himself -- with a wooden bedpost -- didn't realize, is that Herron spent the aftermath of the incident worrying that Tate might die from his injuries. Until Tate was transferred from a Green Bay-area hospital to one in Madison, Herron would call every day for updates on his status.

According to Herron and statements in the criminal complaint, Herron was in his upstairs bedroom talking on the phone with his girlfriend about 11:30 p.m. when the doorbell rang twice. He ignored it and then heard people on his deck, so he called Howard police officer Jim Dagneau, who works on the Packers' security detail on road trips.

When Herron heard breaking glass and realized people were inside and coming up the stairs, he called Dagneau a second time, and while police were on their way to Herron's home, Herron hoped the intruders would simply take whatever they could and leave.

Instead, as Tate approached his bedroom, Herron thought of former Washington Redskins safety Sean Taylor, who was shot during a burglary at his Florida home on Nov. 26 and died a day later.

When Tate entered the room, Herron hit him in the head with the bedpost, then slammed the door and held it shut to keep the other man out. When Tate started to get up, Herron struck hit him again, then left his bedroom after hearing the other intruder leave. Herron then met sheriff's deputies in his garage and told them the man upstairs needed medical help.

In court, Brown County Sheriff's Deputy Bryan Cleven testified he found Tate lying on Herron's bedroom floor with facial injuries, struggling to breathe because of the blood in his mouth and airway. At one point, deputies administered chest compressions when Tate stopped breathing. Deputies found Herron's iPod and cell phone in Tate's pockets.

Brown County Sheriff's Deputy Matt Davis testified he was approaching Herron's condo when he saw a man run from the home. Davis identified him as Mullin-Romo, whom Davis said had $3,850 in his pocket.

Herron retells his story, and how he feared he may have taken Tate's life, in this Milwaukee Talks interview.

OnMilwaukee.com: Knowing you and knowing the seriousness of what you went through, this seems like a silly way to start. But everyone asks me the same thing: Did he think of unscrewing the bedpost on the spot, or had he thought of that one night while lying in bed and ended up doing it?

Noah Herron: Everything happened so fast that, when you look back at it, it seemed like it took an eternity, but really, it was kind of like watching a movie. And I'm the director. I'm watching everything go down. There were a lot of things that went through my head. I'm a movie guy and I like to watch all different types of movies.

As I'm starting to internalize what's happening, I did some small things. Obviously, I unscrewed my bedpost. I muted my TV. I turned the fan off so I could hear. Put my phone on vibrate. You always see in the movies, somebody's hiding, and then their phone rings. And it gives them away. So I didn't want that to happen. It was like a multiple of scenarios going through my head. I made sure the lights outside my room were on, but the ones in my room were off so I could see what was going on but they couldn't see me.

All these things were going through my head. I guess when I was a little kid, my parents say I always used to say, "If this would happen, I would do this." Or, 'If this would happen, I would do that.' Ridiculous scenarios. But I guess somewhere in the back of my mind, it paid off. You never know what you're going to do in that situation. Now I know I have the wherewithal to do what's necessary to stay alive. Because really, that's what it came down to.

OMC: Charles Woodson told me the other day that he was amazed by your presence of mind, the fact that you didn't panic.

NH: I don't know. I've just been blessed with the ability to stay poised under pressure. And that's the most pressure I've ever been under in my whole life. The whole Sean Taylor thing is going through my head, 'What kind of weapons do they have? Are they just trying to rob me, or do they want to kill me?' You just don't know. You kind of prepare for the worst, I guess. I remember telling myself, 'No matter what, just get out of this house alive.' And one thing led to another, and I did. I guess at that point your human nature to survive, the self-preservation, takes over. Everything happened so fast, I can recall it, but the next thing I knew, I was outside talking to the police.

OMC: So the first thing you did was call police?

NH: At first, I thought I was just being paranoid. You don't want to be the guy calling the police and then having to say, 'Uh, false alarm.' So I called them. I called Jim Dagneau, he works security for us when we travel, he's a Howard police officer.

OMC: So you didn't call 911?

NH: No, I didn't, I just called him, to see if he was on duty. He wasn't on duty, but he's like, 'I'll call the guys and have them send a couple units over.' And that was fine. And then, once I really understood that they were actually breaking into my house, I called him again. 'You need to get some people here -- now.'

OMC: Does anyone else from the team live around you?

NH: Dave (Rayner, the former Packers kicker now with Detroit) still lives there. But he wasn't in town. He was in Miami (with the Dolphins). I've got some friends, normal people who live in the neighborhood. I couldn't really call anybody, because by the time I understood what was happening, I'd already heard the glass break, and I'd called the police again. I'm like, 'I just need to get myself together.'

OMC: So you're just waiting in your room, waiting to see what happens next?

NH: The first guy just comes up the stairs and starts going through my desk, took my computer, started taking my TV, unplugging all the wires, all that stuff. The way my room is set up, my room is on the loft. The loft looks over the living room, but in the loft, that's where my desk and my filing cabinet (are), kind of like an office. I just watched him do that, and really, at some point, I'm like, 'At least they're getting stuff and they're going to go outside.' Because the police, they got there, but the guys were already in the house, so it's not like I could yell to them.

Then the second guy comes upstairs, and he goes over there too and starts grabbing stuff, and I actually think they're going to leave, so I'm kind of having a sigh of relief, like, 'All right, they got a handful of stuff, they'll just get out.' I guess they went in the bedroom looking for jewelry, so I went from the almost relief of them getting ready to leave to now, they're coming towards my room. And all of a sudden, it was this huge rush. My heart was beating, and it felt like it was in my throat. he walked in, and I felt like I had to protect myself.

OMC: And as guilty as you might've felt afterward, you know that you didn't do anything wrong, right?

NH: After the fact, yeah, but you've got a guy lying there, sounding like he's dying. He was in critical condition for two nights, and they're saying, 'It's a 50-50 chance' to survive. ... My intention was not to take anybody's life. I know they're in the wrong, but at the same time, no matter what, you don't really try to take somebody's life. Now, had they tried to take mine, yeah. But I didn't have to cross that line. And so, that stuck with me awhile. Every day after, I'd call, 'What's his status? What's his status?' I heard from 'he's not going to make it' to '50-50.' That's where it stood until he transferred hospitals. For awhile, it was tough.

OMC: Regardless of being in the right, that had to be hard.

NH: It's just not something that's easy to do -- even when you're not at fault. But as each day goes on and you get more perspective, I understand that I had to do what I had to do. Because if it were them, I'm sure they'd have done the same thing.

OMC: And you don't know what he might've done had you not struck first.

NH: That was what stuck with me for a while. As it goes on, it's easier to deal with.

OMC: Where did you grow up? Somewhere with a lot of crime?

NH: Michigan. A small town called Mattawan. There's about 2,700 people there.

OMC: You went to Northwestern, so you're familiar with Chicago and crime there, even though there's not much in Evanston.

NH: Yeah, and there was crime on certain sides of Evanston. There's the rich side, and then there's the poor side. And really train tracks separate it. It's kind of funny, actually.

OMC: The wrong side of the tracks, so to speak. I've had my wallet stolen at a nightclub, petty stuff that everybody deals with at some point, but nothing ever to this degree.

NH: So where did you go after it happened?

OMC: My girlfriend lives in Miami, so the following weekend I left town. I stayed in Aaron Kampman's house for a night or two, and then I stayed in a hotel. I stayed there for about a week.

I feel like God brings you to things, and if he brings you to things, he'll bring you through things. So this was a big challenge in my life, and I'm not mad at anybody. You lose your faith, kind of, in your fellow man. Because you don't know what people are capable of doing. You want to believe in the good in people, but you kind of lose faith in man in general. It's just sad. But at the same time, it's over now, the season's here, so it takes away from a lot of distractions you might have.

OMC: Aaron Rodgers, who's obviously one of your best friends, said the guys kind of gave you your space, then he he realized that that's exactly what you didn't need. Did it help to get back to football during OTAs in May and June?

NH: It helped me get my mind off it a little bit, but at the same time, it was always in the back of my head. Once I knew the guy was going to be OK, and guys started making little jokes about it -- 'Don't mess with Noah,' stupid little stuff that stays in the locker room -- that helped. It's just one of those things where, the space is necessary, but you want people to be there for you, and yet you also don't want to tell the story over and over and over again. And what do people say? 'What happened?' It's just human curiosity. Even to this day, people are like, 'So ... what happened?'

OMC: So you go through all this stuff, and then there are some threats against you and the other Packers players, right?

NH: I think there was some stuff towards me, and then players in general, that the police were looking into. A lot of it was hearsay, but that can't be taken lightly -- not after what happened. I was pretty nervous about that, actually. Because you never know.

It's not like I went out of my way to hurt somebody. They came into my house, my safe haven and violated that. It's all happened for a reason. What that reason is, I don't know. At some point, it's going to come up and I'll be like, 'Oh, that's why.' It may not be for 20 more years from now. But it's stored away.

OMC: Camp is all football all the time, is that the best therapy, especially after not playing last year?

NH: There were a lot of anxious feelings just to get back on the field. I just felt like I had a lot to prove -- to the staff, and more importantly to myself. Even though I knew my injury wasn't that serious, whenever you have to go under the knife, something has changed. You want to get that peace of mind that, hey, I'm back. ... I think I've had a great camp.

OMC: So how have you changed because of this?

NH: I have a lot more perspective. I don't want to take anything away from football and how important it is to me, but somebody tried to kill me. You just have a different perspective. It's kind of a refresher. First, I miss all of last year, so I know football can be taken away at any time, and then my life is threatened, so I'm shown that that can be taken away at any time, which takes away from the football. It was like this whole revamping of my perspective on life.

It's like, you know, you're really not in control like you thought. And I understand that. But the thing I can control is how I play football. I feel like I've had a great camp -- I've done everything that I can do to show I'm back to where I was last year.

I've been blessed to be brought through this. What is there to complain about? I'm playing football again, and I'm alive. What more can you ask for?