Pro football lost a legend last week, and he left in fitting fashion. He left quietly.

We are not talking about Terrell Davis here, although he is certainly a legend in Denver who has legitimate Hall of Fame credentials.

No, we are talking about a true legend because the essence of legends is that they are quite often more fiction than fact.

This legend played for the Colts until Aug. 20. The Colts are desperate for a running back at the moment, with starter Edgerrin James still recovering from offseason knee surgery and 1,000-yard backup Dominic Rhodes and rookie Brian Allen both out for the season with knee injuries of their own.

That being the case, it should have been the sound of opportunity knocking for a guy who became known around Cleveland last year as "The Legend."

But the "Legend of Ben Gay" seems to have written its last sad chapter in a career bright with promise but one that was shorter than a novella.

Gay was once the leading running back in Texas high school football, which is saying something. He was one of the most heavily recruited players in the nation and a guy ranked as the sixth most sought-after player in America by USA Today, as well as being selected as one of its high school All-America running backs.

When Gay was handed a football in those days, you didn’t often see it again until he was standing in the end zone. He disappeared. Unfortunately, that trend continued even without the football.

People in Houston were shocked to see him sign with lowly Baylor when he could have gone anywhere in the country, including places like Miami (Fla.) and Texas, but he said he felt comfortable in Waco, so he went there intending to put the Baylor Bears back on the college football map.

He didn’t.

He disappeared with them.

That was the first of a string of such disappearances for Gay. Mistakes and bad judgment led him out of Waco in just over a year, despite being the best back on the field in the opinion of most people who had to try and tackle him. The problem was keeping him on the field.

No one gives up on a talent like Gay, however, so he quickly landed at Hutchinson Junior College, which is a major power in that sometimes murky world.

For five games, he was brilliant in his one season there. Unfortunately, Hutchinson J.C. played nine games. He was suspended or benched for nearly half of them.

Still he landed on his feet again in the Canadian League for a few weeks because when you saw him on tape, you saw the real deal. You saw a guy who could run, catch and do what he wanted when it was time to run. What you didn’t see is that he often wanted to run away from the game God seemed to have put him on Earth to play.

"I think everybody else wanted Ben to play more than Ben wanted to play," one of his junior college coaches said. "There was no question about his football ability, but I was never too sure he wanted to do this."

Perhaps not, but there always seemed to come the moment when that didn’t matter. It was usually the first or second moment he got the ball for his new team. He had moments like that every where he went, including last summer in Cleveland after the Browns signed him away from a life of literally carrying bedpans at a nursing home on the over- night shift.

Back in uniform, Gay went 54 yards for a touchdown the first time he touched the ball in a team scrimmage. "The Legend" was reborn.

Fans created a website to glorify him at www.BenGay.com. When he gained his first yard in an NFL game, they began listing how far he was behind Walter Payton’s all-time NFL rushing record.

Love bloomed, but Ben Gay didn’t.

By last February, Browns head coach Butch Davis had released him, potential and all. Gay signed with the Colts, who already had damaged goods at running back even with Rhodes’ 1,000-yard performance of a year ago. Certainly, Gay had more raw talent than Rhodes. In fact, he had more raw talent than most people.

It was raw life that kept tripping him up.

Nothing major. No brushes with the law. Just little things.

Being late.

Not knowing his assignments.

Not being able to stay focused on the job.

Not really knowing how to play pro football because he really was still a high school player trying to make it in the NFL.

"We had Ben on special teams for a while, and it was like watching a pinball game when he came down the field," recalled ex-Browns LB Marty Moore.

"He didn’t know how to protect himself. He was just getting hit by everybody. He was like a high school kid. Kind of running wild. But they didn’t knock him down for long. And if he got the ball and got going, they didn’t tackle him much either."

Problem was, Davis didn’t trust him with the ball or the playbook. He didn’t trust him with blitz pickup either. And when Gay’s mind began to wander, and all the things that were a problem in the past resurfaced, one of the most liberal coaches in the NFL let him go.

This summer he was with perhaps the most understanding coach in Tony Dungy. Here was a match if there was going to be one. Dungy is a good man and a kind one, and his was a team in need of a back with the speed and power "The Legend" possessed.

It should have worked out.

It didn’t.

Gay was cut even before the Colts needed to get down to the 60-man roster. He was cut despite his size, his speed and his power. He was cut despite a scout from the Rams saying two years ago, "He may be the greatest football player I ever saw."

He was cut because that same scout had to add one thing: "I just wish I could see more of him."

It seems nobody will now.

Gay was once told he might parlay his career into ads for the analgesic Sportscreme by simply saying, "I’m Ben Gay. I make your muscles ache."

Sadly, "The Legend" made coaches’ heads ache too.

They ached for what Gay might have been and for what never quite happened.

But years from now, they’ll remember him. If you bring his name up to coaches like Davis and Dungy and the others who knew him for the moment he was in pro football, they’ll remember what he might have been.

Sometimes that’s all a legend turns out to be.

Ron Borges is a columnist for the Boston Globe.

This content is featured from our Pro Football Weekly edition — Issue 9.