Myers, a wide receiver who starred at North Rowan and Lenoir-Rhyne College, has had only a bit less luck than the Titanic over the past five years.

Myers suffered a near fatal lacerated kidney in his first training camp with the Miami Dolphins in 1995 and since then has endured a series of injuries to shoulders, fingers, wrists and ankles. Most recently, in December — just as Myers was about to be elevated from the Oakland Raiders’ practice squad to an active role, he went down with a torn ACLin his right knee.

“Maybe,” says Myers, reflecting on the last few years, “I’ve just been too dumb to quit.”

But Myers, 26, has come so close so many times to the NFL that it’s easy to see why he refuses to surrender.

“It’s a short window for playing in the NFL,” says Myers. “It’s an opportunity not many guys are given. I don’t want to look back when I’m 60 and say I could’ve played. I want to be able to tell my kids some day that I kept right on trying.”

Myers nearly did quit football last December. After his latest devastating injury, he was 3,000 miles from home with a shattered right knee and a shattered dream with Christmas closing in.

Myers lashed back verbally at football, saying then that he might have had enough. The sport had consumed his energy, cost him his health and relationships and had returned little more than slaps to the face.

But that was then. This is now. The Myers of March is a different person than he was in December. He’s confident, smiling, ready for one more try.

“Football, after thinking about it, has actually been good to me,” he says. “I’ve met great people. How many guys can say they’ve eaten dinner with Dan Marino, or Hootie and the Blowfish, shaken hands with Al Davis and Tim Brown or become close friends with Zach Thomas?”

It’s helped Myers’ peace of mind that he’s come to grips with the reality that there is life outside of football —and that there will be life after football, as well.

“In December, I was burned out,” he says. “But I’ve starting missing football again. My spirit is back.”

Things actually started to turn around for Myers soon after his injury. Twenty-four hours after the reconstructive operation on Dec. 19, Myers discarded his crutches and ran on a treadmill. His leg brace was gone four days later. Doctors called him a “walking miracle” and told him he was in the top 2 percent of the ACL surgeries they’d performed. On Dec. 23, the Raiders unexpectedly told Myers he could fly home for Christmas.

Myers had already told his family he couldn’t make it for the holidays, but even on short notice he found a miraculously great rate on a flight home via the Internet.

Myers landed in Washington, D.C., on Christmas Eve, only to be informed that he had missed his connecting flight to North Carolina. But that flight, through another small miracle, had been delayed. Myers wound up arriving at his mother’s house at 2 a.m. on Christmas morning.

The Raiders originally told Myers to take a two-week holiday, then return so they could supervise his rehabilitation. But Myers has been able to rehab in his home county at Stewart Physical Therapy, a state-of-the-art facility on Mocksville Avenue.

“The doctors in Oakland realized my philosophy is similar to theirs,” says Stewart’s DanBurks. “They agreed to let Shannon stay home.”

The opportunity to recover among family and friends has done wonders for Myers’ morale and has no doubt speeded his recovery. Between exercise sessions, he renovates an old house he bought with his father and uncle. “And I get to eat at Steve’s Barbecue and work out with the Catawba guys,” says Myers. “(Catawba head coach) David Bennett even gave me a pep talk. He said not to sell myself short.”

“There’s a lot of sports psychology involved in recovery,” says Burks, who agrees that a happy Myers is a healthy Myers. “It’s great to work with someone as motivated as Shannon. I followed his career at North and at L-R. We’ve seen him fight through all the adversity, and we all want to see him succeed.”

At SPT, Burks deals mostly with work-related injuries, what he calls “industrial athletes.” But Burks also has experience with racing pit crew members (mostly shoulder problems) and with Colorado Rockies farmhand Heath Bost, who once pitched at Catawba.

Burks is on the phone with the Raiders constantly, giving them updates on Myers’ progress. The words are positive. Myers is making extraordinary strides.

“It’s actually hard to hold Shannon back,” says therapist Joel Burgess. “As a pro athlete, he’s at a whole different level than most.”

Myers starts each Stewart session on an exercise bike to loosen up. Then he does squats and jumps rope. Next, Myers does an Eric Heiden impression, making lateral skating motions on a portable carpet.

In Myers’ favorite exercise, Burgess tosses balls in his general direction, while Myers struggles against resisting cables to make receptions.

“We’ve individualized Shannon’s program,” says Burks. “This exercise simulates movements he’ll make on a football field. Up, back and side-to-side, with the cables trying to force him in the opposite direction from where he wants to go.

Finally, Myers is ready for what Burks calls “the big black chair.” Myers climbs into an ugly contraption, straps himself down and repeats dozens of painful, old-fashioned knee lifts.

“The goal is to get Shannon’s knee not just where he can pass an NFL physical, but where it won’t be re-injured,” explains Burks.

After escaping the “chair,” Myers ices down and enjoys his No. 1 vice — a hot doughnut.

Unfortunately, the food break gives the crew at Stewart a chance to tell “Myers stories.”

Apparently a house next to SPT caught fire during a recent rehab session. Burgess says Myers spotted the smoke, raced down the stairs and attacked the blaze successfully with the same stick he uses with his squats.

“Shannon put a heck of a head fake on a bush over there,” laughs Burks, pointing to the charred stick as proof of his tale. “We found out Shannon’s been holding back on us.”

Burgess adds the startling news that Myers has a nickname.

“We call him Jerry Maguire,” says Burgess. “‘Cause he’s gonna show us the money.”

Everyone laughs. The bottom line is that the laid-back atmosphere at SPT has been just right for Myers. With therapists like Burks and Burgess, Myers doesn’t dread his exercise sessions. Instead, he eagerly anticipates them.

“Things are going well,” says Myers, who is technically a free agent, but expects to return to Oakland for the 2000 season. “I’ll be ready when training camp starts and Oakland’s still calling. When an organization shows interest even after a full knee reconstruction, it tells you something. I’ve never had that sort of backing. They believe I can play and I believe they’re going to play me.”

A lot of people still believe in Myers.