CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- He was once broke and broken, working for pennies in Portland while mending a shattered dream, so Brandon Williams can't help but smile at his own story.

"I know, rags-to-riches right?'' the 26-year-old says, sitting in the Carolina Panthers locker room. "But if I wouldn't have gone through what I did, I wouldn't appreciate what I have now the way I do.''

He is in his second year as a reserve tight end with the Panthers, a long shot story that nearly didn't happen, right up to when the doctor standing between him and a contract died of a heart attack.

He always dreamed he would be a professional football player, but doctors at the University of Oregon abruptly ended his career because of what they believed was a dangerous spinal condition.

Instead of a career headed for stardom, as a coach at Oregon forecasted, Williams dabbled in basketball, playing half a season for Portland Bible College, while also pursuing his passion for law enforcement. He applied at Portland Police, who suggested he get experience. So he worked security jobs ranging from $9.50 to $11 an hour.

"He was a very viable candidate for us, but the best thing we ever did was not hire him,'' says George Burke, a commander for the Portland Police Bureau who served as a mentor for Williams. "Because his story is just short of a miracle when you think about it.''

* * *

He says a part of him was ripped out that day in Eugene when Chip Kelly and a line of faceless doctors sat behind a table and ambushed him with the news.

He had a spinal condition, they told Williams, and his football career at the University of Oregon was over.

"Cried like a baby, right there in front of them. And cried for a while,'' Williams says of that June day in 2011. "Then went home and cried some more.''

He was coming off a standout spring with the Oregon Ducks, seemingly primed to be the next in a line of NFL-bound Oregon tight ends. The previous season, when the Ducks made the national title game, Williams was relegated to an anonymous role as a blocking tight end, playing the season with a cast after breaking his right hand in the second game at Tennessee.

Tight ends coach Tom Osborne called him "great" in spring workouts, during which Williams was set to challenge returning all-conference player David Paulson. In fact, Kelly was plotting ways to use two tight ends.

"You could see the potential he had to be a really, really good player,'' Osborne said. "He not only had the talent, but he was starting to really understand what to do, and how to do it."

But his noteworthy spring came with red flags. He had two stingers, or pinched nerves, in his neck. The first, a practice collision with linebacker Josh Kaddu, reverberated through his neck and shoulders. The second came after a catch, when linebacker Kiko Alonso blindsided him, sending electric-like jolts down through his right elbow.

Then in the spring game, he stayed on the turf after a lineman fell on his head. When he finally did stand, his knees buckled and he had to be steadied.

Oregon team doctor Greg Skaggs said concerns were raised within the medical staff. Williams was sent to a neck expert, and then to another consultant. Over the course of the summer, Skaggs said opinions were gathered from other doctors in the field, and the conclusion was he had spinal stenosis, a narrowing of the spinal column.

After spending the summer at home in Chicago, his first day back in Eugene Williams was summoned from the weight room to the meeting where the men behind the table floored him.

"It was brutal; absolutely brutal,'' said Osborne, who was in the room. "It was like cutting his heart into a hundred pieces and throwing it on the ground and stomping on it. It was brutal for all of us. But of course, it hurt Brandon the most. It was like the rug had been pulled out from under him.''

For two weeks, Williams said he hardly left his apartment, and pushed away those close to him. In Chicago, his mother worried if her son was suicidal.

"You could have chopped off two of his limbs and you wouldn't have gotten a more painful reaction from him,'' his mom, Tanya Williams, said. "It was absolute pure devastation.''

He wasn't suicidal, but his girlfriend Allee Lindahl said it was as if Williams was dealing with a death.

"A part of him died that day,'' Lindahl, says.

But not the part that dreamed.

* * *

That meeting wouldn't be the last painful experience at Oregon.

He would stay in Eugene and complete his degree in sociology, honoring a commitment he made to his mom in Chicago. But he still had athletic aspirations, and was religious in keeping his 6-foot-5, 250-pound frame chiseled and taut.

He found himself playing pickup games with Oregon basketball players, who encouraged him to join the team. But after a long process of paperwork and appeals, the NCAA said he could play only if he forfeited his football scholarship and walked on to the basketball team.

"Not only could I not play football, I couldn't play basketball, and I had done nothing wrong,'' Williams said. "That hurt.''

He geared toward the Eugene Pro Day in March, when NFL scouts visit universities to test and evaluate players with pro aspirations. Between the tears and shock of that June meeting, he held onto a sentence uttered by Dr. Skaggs: You could be re-evaluated after a year.

But when he arrived at Pro Day, he heard name after name called off. No Brandon Williams. He asked why he wasn't called.

"They said they were told I had retired,'' Williams said. "It was a slap in the face.''

They let him compete, and Williams said he tested well. But he said he could tell he might as well have been invisible to the NFL scouts.

"When I tested well in Pro Day and didn't even get talked to, I had in my mind that I wasn't going to play anymore,'' Williams said.

He moved to Portland with Allee to get on with his life, and became determined to become a police officer. He completed the tests at the Portland Police Bureau, and worked graveyard as a security guard on a bike. All the while, Lindahl could sense something was eating at Williams.

She knew it was football.

"He said it over and over: 'I just don't believe it's over,' '' Lindahl said. "He knew in his heart it wasn't over.''

* * *

Afraid of water, and heights, Williams lasted two months as a bike security guard. Part of his route required him to venture to the east side of Portland, which meant he had to cross many of the city's 10 bridges.

"Up and down Portland in the middle of the night, crossing bridges ... making nothing. Like pennies,'' Williams said. "It was horrible; stressful.''

Commander Burke directed him to Portland Patrol Inc., a security company with armed and unarmed officers whose CEO is Cliff Madison, a Portland Police veteran of more than 26 years.

Burke said officers at PPI provide an important, but thankless job.

"It's the low-level maintenance order that most cops don't want to do and the community expects to have done,'' Burke said. "Dealing with the peeing, drinking, crapping on the sidewalk, sleeping in doorways. It's a very dirty and thankless job.''

And Williams loved it.

"It was great. I was working with former police officers and they were training me how to be an officer,'' Williams said. "And you actually attended to real things -- people doing drugs, homeless people sleeping in doorways causing problems ... it was stuff where you felt like you were helping.''

But at $11 an hour, it was tough to make ends meet. He was too broke to put gas in his car, and often asked co-workers for a ride. Many times he relied on Lindahl's parents to buy him groceries.

Inside PPI, Madison said Williams was immensely popular with the staff. He was a gentle giant, humble and courteous. And they perked up when he casually talked about his football past.

So it was with a sense of excitement from the staff late in March when they heard Williams showed up to work with a request.

"He said 'Would you be willing to let me take time off?' '' said Madison, the CEO of PPI. "He wanted to go to a tryout.

"I said, 'It's your dream, buddy. We'll do just fine here without you.' ''

* * *

On March 23, 2013, the NFL held a Regional Combine in Seattle. It's where long-shots go to give it their final shot, and that's exactly what Williams thought he was doing when he and Allee embarked at dawn for the drive north.

"I had it in my mind that I needed to give it one more shot. Maybe it was for closure,'' Williams said. "But I thought I needed it so I could say I did everything I could.''

If players test well at the regional combine, they are invited to the Super Combine in Dallas, and maybe, just maybe, get a look from an NFL team.

Agent Angelo Wright, who has 15 clients in the NFL, consulted Williams before the combine at the request of former client and NFL lineman Sam Adams, who was Allee's boss at an athletic club.

Wright was vaguely familiar with Williams' case at Oregon, and began brushing up on the details of his medical condition. Still, in his 22 years as an agent, Wright knew not to get his hopes up.

"Out of each of these combines, maybe a handful go on, but it's a rarity,'' Wright said. "But everybody in the NFL needs tight ends, centers and guards, and they are looking for diamonds in the rough.''

As Allee waited in the car for nine hours, Williams ran, leaped and caught passes. He ran through cones and performed bench press.

When he neared the car, Allee looked for clues from his facial expression. But he was stoic.

"He was quiet,'' she remembered. "I asked how it went, and it was like pulling teeth. He didn't know his 40 time, but he thought he was fast ... he thought he was rusty catching passes ... It was like he had fear to hope.

"But I think he knew he killed it.''

Soon, his phone rang. It was Wright. Williams had not only been invited to the Super Combine in Dallas, but NFL teams were already asking about him.

At the top of the teams' questions was Williams' neck and spinal condition.

"Any time you have injuries to your feet, neck and back, those are major red flags for NFL teams,'' Wright said. "We had to answer those questions.''

Wright lined up an MRI in Albany, but Williams didn't have the money to pay for it, so Lindahl's parents paid the bill. Then, he had the MRIs delivered to different doctors, including the team doctor of the Oakland Raiders.

"They didn't see anything to rule him out,'' Wright said.

So it was a hopeful Williams who flew to Dallas for the Super Combine on April 7, 2013, and his spirits lifted even higher after the testing when the New York Giants immediately invited him to their rookie minicamp later that summer.

Also showing interest were the Dallas Cowboys, New England Patriots, Indianapolis Colts and the Panthers.

The Panthers, in fact, wanted to fly him to Charlotte for a workout.

After the workout, Williams said the Panthers told him they were interested in signing him, but they wanted him to stay an extra day while their team doctor looked at his MRI.

As he stayed in a hotel room, thinking how close he was to the NFL and his dreams, he started to think about his journey, and how many times he was counted out.

Before he could grasp it all, the Panthers called. There would be no signing. The doctor who was to review his MRI died that day of a heart attack. He was to return home and wait for further notice.

On his flight back to Portland, he said he sighed.

"I thought, man, I guess I'm not getting signed,'' Williams said. "I guess it's over with.''

* * *

When he returned to Portland, he slipped back into his routine. Work. Gym. Scraping together enough money to pay bills.

"And a lot of praying,'' Williams said.

Nearly two weeks after he had left Charlotte, he awoke in the middle of the night and needed to use the bathroom. His rustling stirred Allee, and as she was about to nod off, she was awakened in alarm.

"I heard him start screaming,'' Lindahl said. "Screaming and screaming. Then he came out and it was just a rush of emotion.''

Wright had left him a voice message: The Panthers had found a doctor to look at the MRI. They wanted to sign Williams. He was to report in four days.

* * *

Too broke to put gas into his 1993 silver Cadillac El Dorado, Williams typically took the MAX train to work, or asked co-workers for a ride.

But this day was special.

It was his last day at his $11-an-hour job as an unarmed security guard, the last day he was ordinary, so he fired up his car and let the 24-inch rims carry him from his girlfriend's place in Scappoose to downtown Portland.

The night before, he had received a message from his agent that he had earned a shot to make the Carolina Panthers. If he made the team, he would make $405,000.

The slow roll of his odometer showed 106,000 miles and counting; it might as well have been his mind scrolling through the memories and obstacles that led to this drive.

He thought back to that day in Eugene when he was blindsided with the career-ending diagnosis. Thought back to his request to play basketball for the Ducks, only to have that door shut, too. Thought back to that humiliating Pro Day in Eugene. And he thought back to all the people who had helped him with rides and groceries and bills.

Behind the wheel of his El Dorado, Williams cried.

"It hit me that I'm not going to be working a regular job anymore, that I was going to be doing what I loved,'' Williams said. "I still had to make the team and all, but considering everything I had been through, it was a dream come true.''

When he arrived at PPI, Madison and the gang had a cake, decorated with a football and trimmed in the Panthers' aqua blue and black. They took pictures. They chided him that he better not eat the cake lest he get out of shape. And they presented him with a signed card with a group shot of the 65 employees.

A picture from that party still hangs on the office walls.

"We always talk about chasing dreams,'' Madison said. "And, I tell ya, that's what he did.''

* * *

Nobody knows for sure if Williams will ever suffer a neck injury, or whether he is at greater risk because he was once diagnosed with a spinal condition.

At Oregon, Dr. Skaggs says he is "a little surprised" Williams has been cleared to play.

"It's not black and white; it's hard to quantify how great the risk is,'' Skaggs said. "The doctors we consulted felt the risk was too high, and we are a pretty conservative group by nature. That doesn't mean it's the right or wrong answer.''

Williams said he was initially fearful when he began full contact practices with Carolina -- he hadn't taken a hit in two years -- but soon gained confidence that his neck and spine were sound.

"As time went on and the more collisions I took on, I realized: Hey, I'm fine,'' Williams said. "I don't even worry about it anymore. I just play. But I do try to be smart, keep my head up, but it's football, you can't avoid everything.''

At home in Chicago, his mother says she comes to grips with her son playing by relying on her spirituality.

"I pray to keep him out of harm's way,'' Tanya Williams says. "But I'm also a nurse, so I know the possibilities and I always consider them.''

She also gains comfort knowing that before every game, Williams calls her step-father, and the two pray.

"Brandon knows he can't do it without faith and a strong spiritual foundation,'' she said.

* * *

After running his team through the hottest and hardest practice of the season last week, Carolina Panthers coach Ron Rivera noticed that one player didn't leave the field.

So Rivera noted the time, and watched his third string tight end, Brandon Williams, work on his craft. He caught extra balls. Hit the blocking sled. And ran routes. All in 98-degree weather.

"He elected to stay for 16, 17 minutes,'' Rivera said. "He works so hard at it.''

This summer, on the heels of a preseason in which he had six catches for 101 yards and a touchdown, Williams made the team as one of its four tight ends. He was inactive in the Panthers' first game at Tampa Bay, but is scheduled to make $495,000 this season.

Staying after practice is the least he can do.

"Since I was little I dreamed about being in the NFL or NBA, and now that I'm here, my goal isn't just to have made it, it's to be great in this league,'' Williams said. "I know I have a lot of work to do, but as long as I have an opportunity, I'm going to make the most of it.''

His favorite saying is "things happen for a reason" and he hopes his story is one that stresses perseverance, chasing dreams and being thankful for what you have.

"He knows that light he can give to people,'' Lindahl said. "He has that opportunity to make an impact on people who have no hope.''

After all, he was once broke and broken, but last year, in his first preseason game, he stood tall on the sideline, a player who had chased down his dream and caught it.

"I was at that first preseason game, and the national anthem was playing, and I saw him in his jersey, and I just lost it and just a bawled my head off,'' Lindahl said. "I told him later that night that I cried ...

"He said he cried, too.''

-- Jason Quick | @jwquick