The Legend of Jesse Smoke (6 page)

And at the same time, I wondered what she might be able to do with our playbook.

One early morning, I called Jesse and asked if she’d meet me at the Divas’ practice field. To be exactly polite about it, I invited Andy Swilling as well. Of course, Nate showed up and so did Michelle Cloud, who looked at me as though I was a rapist.

I had a playbook with me, and a bag of footballs that I’d brought from Redskins Park.

“What’s the drill?” Jesse said.

I gave her the playbook. “Study this.”

“What is it?”

“Our playbook. You know how to read one?”

She held it in her hands and opened it as though it was some sort of ancient text. More than three hundred pages, it featured a wide variety of plays from almost every conceivable formation. “I can read it,” she said. If she was in awe, it was not because anything in the book was too complex for her, but simply because it was a real playbook from an NFL team.

“Study it carefully, then—memorize it if you can.”

“I can
have
this?”

“Well, I’m lending it to you. I want it back when you’re done.”

“Why are you doing this?”

For a moment I was uncertain how to respond. “I really don’t know.” Everybody looked at me. “I just want you to show up at that camp, you know, as prepared as I can get you.”

“Awful lot of work for a practical joke, isn’t it?”

“I’m going to sign you,” I said now. All four of them looked at me as if I’d just announced my intention to part the waters of the Potomac River. “You’ll make a lot of money for it.”

Jesse looked at the book in her hands. Then she closed it and held it against her chest. Her face was expressionless.

Andy said, “Can I see it?”

She handed it to him and he flipped through it while we all stood there awkwardly. Then I told Jesse what I’d noticed about her delivery. Andy piped in that he’d noticed it too. Nate and Michelle said nothing.

Jesse mulled it over a bit. “Off my back foot.”

“It’s pretty well-pronounced. I wish I had film so I could show it to you.”

“No. I’ve seen it on film,” she said. “My dad worked with me on it all the time. Said it was my worst flaw.”

“He noticed other flaws?”

“Sure.”

“Like what?”

“I used to tap the ball before I threw it.”

“A lot of quarterbacks do that.”

“My father said I did it every time, right before I let the ball go. As soon as I made up my mind where I was going to throw it, I’d tap it, with my left hand, then throw it. He said I was telegraphing my throw, and eventually folks would notice it and then they’d know when to jump to try and knock it down.”

“How’d he break the habit?”

“It was hard. First he tried to make me quit by forcing me to throw with one hand, leaving the other one taped to my side. But that was just too awkward. I needed to feel the ball in both hands when I was dropping back. Oddly enough, it helped my form when I run and throw.”

“But if that didn’t work, then what’d he do?”

“He made me hold a second football under my left arm. My hand was still free to tap the ball I was going to throw, but every time I did, I’d drop the other ball. That worked for a while, but eventually I figured out how to hold the ball under my arm just right so that I had flexibility in my wrist and I could tap the ball again, without dropping the one under my arm, so he gave up on that. He didn’t want to, but he did. He sometimes used that football under the arm thing with the wide receivers; he’d make them hold a ball under both arms, run down the field, and catch a third ball without dropping any of them. You try that sometime. But … it worked. Made them sure-handed as hell.”

“That’s what I did with Michelle and Brenda and all the others,” Andy said. He had the playbook under his arm now. “Jesse told me about it. I used smaller balls, but it worked.”

“I’ve noticed,” I said.

He smiled with pride.

I turned back to Jesse. “So then, how’d your dad beat your habit of tapping the ball? I haven’t seen you do that once.”

“He rigged up a black rubber glove with a bladder in the palm that made a loud squeak whenever it was pressed. It didn’t take long
wearing that thing. I’d hear the blare of it every time I tapped the ball, so I’d throw passes until I didn’t hear anything anymore. Then I didn’t have the habit.”

“Your father knew what he was doing.”

“He did. Taught me a lot.” It was quiet for a beat. Then Jesse said, “Anyway, I’ve seen myself on film. I know when I’m forced to throw before I’m ready for it I sometimes let it go from my back foot. I don’t do it often, though.”

“If you were a man, you could do it a lot if you got the ball off under pressure and hit what you were aiming at. Nobody’d care. I’m afraid when we get to camp, though, and let the others see you throw, you can’t afford to do that even once.”

“You’re really serious about this?” she said.

“He must be,” Andy said, holding up the playbook.

“I am dead serious.” I realized the truth of this even as I spoke the words. I did not want to mislead Jesse, and the joke was not going to be on her. I had a really nervous, kind of scary feeling all over. The way you feel when you’re standing on a balcony, fifty floors up, and you look over the edge—the thrilling kind of rush that, for a moment, makes you breathe differently. I was really going to do it; sign her and try to get her a tryout with the team.

I opened the bag of balls and let them out on the ground. It was an absolutely beautiful spring day. The last game of the Divas’ season was coming up in a week, but Jesse had no practice until later in the afternoon. Anyway, her coach was right there and we were on their field, so it wasn’t as if she could be late.

“What’s your dad doing now?” I asked Jesse, flipping her one of the balls.

She held the ball tightly in her hands, looked at Nate, then to the ground. “He passed away my senior year of high school.”

I told her I was sorry.

“It was a heart attack,” she said, looking back at me.

“He was only fifty-three,” Nate said.

“Well, he sure would be pleased to see you play now,” I said. I waited a bit, then said something stupid about her mother handling things on her own. It wasn’t a question, just an expression of hope that she was all right and all.

Jesse’s face lost some of its luster then; she didn’t exactly scowl, but something went out of that usually bright demeanor. “I don’t know my mother,” she said. “She left when I was too young to remember her.”

“And you’ve never seen her since? Never heard from her?”

“No. I don’t want to, either.” She flipped the ball up and let it spin. Caught it again gently, then flipped it up again—just the way she had that day on the beach when I first saw her.

Andy looked at me. It was clear he’d never heard her talk about her mother or father. This was all news to him. He looked sad to me.

“So what’s the drill?” Jesse asked. “You going to teach me something here or what?”

“I’m going to try to.”

She flipped the ball again. She looked a little bit like a tall, teenage boy with those brown freckles across her pretty, broad nose.

“You’ve got to learn to do one of three things when you’re under pressure,” I said. “Step up, in between rushers and blockers; step to the side a bit and throw, leaning toward your front foot as you should; or take off with it, and throw on the run. What you cannot do is step back and try to whip it off at the same time.”

“All of this I know,” she said. “But you left out one other option my father taught me.”

“What’s that?”

She took the ball into her stomach and doubled up, her head down in front of her knees. Then she straightened and looked at me. “Fold ’em. Take the sack.”

“Absolutely, he was right about that.”

“That’s what I can’t seem to learn to do, you know? Whenever, I
should
do that, I just end up stepping back and throwing the damn thing.”

“Well, right now I don’t want to drill you on taking sacks. I’d like to see if we can work on the other three options.”

“Okay.”

So that’s what we did. All that morning and even into the afternoon we worked on it. By the time we quit, the other Diva players had arrived for practice and were stretching on the sidelines.

In the first drill, I had Nate and Andy rushing at her, with me and Michelle in front, blocking them, which formed what is called a “pocket.” I showed Jesse how to “step up” in the pocket. I could tell she was just humoring me. It was a move that came naturally to her, though I hadn’t had a chance to see her do it in a game. She moved forward easily, planted, and threw. Then we stood in front of her and waved towels in her face, overhand, fast and hard so she could feel the wind of them, and she’d step to the side, left and right, plant, and throw. Finally, I had her drop back to pass while Nate, Andy, and I threw footballs at her, not exactly trying to hit her, just having them in the air all at once, coming toward her, while she had to plant, look for Michelle in various pass routes, and hit her on the move. Every time she shied away from one of those footballs, I blew a whistle. A few times she got hit, but we weren’t throwing them hard, and after a while, she didn’t even flinch.

We repeated the last drill, relentlessly, every chance we got, over the next few weeks, hefting footballs at Jesse, and as far as I could tell she’d stopped throwing off her back foot. She got a bloody nose once (after that I put a helmet on her) and had the wind knocked out of her a few times, but as long as she had the ball in her hands, she never ducked or shied away. Jesse learned and adapted as swiftly as any player I’d ever coached. (We like to call that, “coachability.”) But the thing I remember most from all those drills was her power of concentration. After a while, it was as if only she and Michelle were on the field, playing catch. Michelle didn’t drop many balls, and Jesse didn’t miss once. It really was delightful watching her play.

At the end of one of our little practices, after I had gathered all the balls and bagged them, and we’d all drained a bottle of water or two,
as we were walking off the field, Jesse said to me, “You remind me of my father a little bit.”

Even back then I was a little portly in the middle, though at six feet four, I suppose I had the height to carry it. I said, “I feel sorry for your father.”

“No. I mean the way you coach me.”

“Really.” I was moved by that, if also a little disappointed. I didn’t feel old enough, yet, to be completely eliminated from the romantic arena. Jesse was beautiful. I had been admiring her beauty in just the way a potential suitor admires that sort of thing. But I was just being an old fool, I see now. At twenty-four to my fifty-one, she was almost thirty years younger than me. I guess I was just coming to terms then with the notion that I was too old for a lot of the women I saw and admired. At any rate, it was a high compliment she’d given me, and I was moved when she expressed it. I reached over and tapped her on the shoulder. “He would be very proud of you.”

I saw Andy’s pace shorten a bit ahead of us, as though he had to avoid stepping on something in front of him.

“You’ve coached them up well, Andy,” I said.

“Thank you. They’re a great bunch of gals.”

Jesse shot him a look.

“A great bunch,” he said again. “Terrific women.”

I laughed a little, and Jesse said, “I hate being called a ‘gal.’”

“Come on! It’s just the opposite of ‘guy,’” Andy said.

The truth was Andy
had
done a good job getting them all to play together, taking advantage of the talent he had on the team. The Divas finished the season at 7 and 1, first place in their division. (They beat the Cleveland Bombers 34-0.) And so they did indeed get a chance to play the Fillies one more time—this time for the championship. I was as excited about that game, I have to say, as any in my own professional career. I couldn’t wait to see it.

I shouldn’t mention my own professional career as if it meant anything. What I mean is, I was not ever a first stringer on any pro team. I played well at the University of Illinois and got enough recognition to be drafted in the fourth round by the Atlanta Falcons. I even got a bit of attention my rookie year because I showed so much “promise,” as the sportswriters like to say. In one exhibition game—teams only played two in Jesse’s day, but back when I was playing, they played four—I threw three touchdown passes to rally our third stringers to a victory over the Bears’ third stringers. That won me a spot as the third-string quarterback that year. I carried a clipboard and studied the playbook and watched a lot of football. In practice I sometimes got to run the “scout” team. Those are the second and third stringers who pretend to be the opposing team of the week and run that team’s plays against the first-string defense so they can recognize them in the game. When you are running the plays of the team you’re about to play, against the first stringers of your
own defense, you don’t learn a hell of a lot about how to run your own offense. I was always pretending to be the opposing team’s quarterback and sometimes that was fun. I would never admit this to anyone back then, but I got a kick out of beating the defense in practice. You could tell sometimes that it pissed them off, too. They’d make a little more noise when they rushed at me. I used to hear the word “kill” a lot.

Anyway, I ended up playing for half a dozen teams—or, I should say, ended up on the roster of half a dozen teams—and then one year nobody wanted me. In my entire NFL career I threw only twenty-two passes that counted and completed twelve. I never threw a touchdown pass in a regular season game, though I did have a couple of spectacular interceptions, one of them run back more than a hundred yards. It was Reggie Clovis’s last interception as a matter of fact, and he is now in the Hall of Fame. The other was only technically an interception. I was playing for the San Diego Chargers at the time. Second-string quarterback behind none other than Jonathon Engram. (That’s how we met and became friends, and how I eventually got into coaching.) We were on top in a huge blowout when the coach took Engram out and put me in to “mop up.” It was a simple shuttle pass to the halfback—a glorified draw play, really—where you drop back like you’re going to throw the ball, then flip it underhand a few feet in front of you to the halfback, who takes off up the middle. Well, I flipped it to the guy and he fiddled with it a bit, almost gently, before a defensive lineman from the other team picked it out of the air in front of him and went the other way with it. In the replays it looked like I’d shuttled the ball to the running back so he could lovingly hand it off to the opposing lineman. Anyway, on his way to the end zone for his big moment in the limelight, the lineman ran right over me and shattered my collarbone.