BEREA, Ohio – Browns rookie Charles Gaines learned many valuable lessons about life walking among the dead.
In the back room of a Miami funeral home, the charismatic cornerback who says he's fast enough to "run with animals" realized he could not outrun trouble on the streets of his hometown.
It was here a teenage Gaines and other high school teammates – the ones coaches feared were straying off course -- came for what's been dubbed "The Walk" or "The Reality Check." They witnessed the remains of kids their age, sometimes classmates and friends, victims of gun- and drug-related violence in their Liberty City neighborhoods.