The Legend of Jesse Smoke (43 page)

“It got worse,” Liz said.

“I just hope she’s all right,” I said. “I don’t give a damn about the game anymore. I want her to be all right.”

Finally Jesse came out, looking none the worse for wear. Doc was behind her. When he saw Coach Engram he moved over to talk only to him. But we were all there listening.

“She’s got nothing going on in her chest,” he said. “Her lungs are
clear. I listened and this time I took an X-ray. Her teeth look fine. Nothing I can see in the back of her throat.”

“So what’s the problem?” Coach Engram asked.

He shrugged. “It could be high up, in her nose. The sinus area we can see—‘Little’s area’ it’s called—that’s clear. Higher up, though, she could have a polyp, or even an injury that’s bleeding down into the back of her throat.”

“She had a bad bloody nose during the game Sunday,” I said.

“And after the Giants game, too,” Jesse said.

“I don’t remember that,” I said.

“I do.”

“So what do we do here?” Engram said.

“I want her to get some rest,” Doc said. “Have a CAT scan on her head as soon as we can arrange it.”

“What about tomorrow?” Engram said.

“Well …” He didn’t finish. He looked at Jesse kind of sadly, then at me. With a short wave of his hand he said, “I don’t think she should, but … I left it up to her.”

“I’m playing, ” she said.

“Is there any danger of permanent harm?” I asked.

“I’m playing,” Jesse said.

“My best guess is, it’s safe,” Doc said. “I’d rather she got this taken care of first, certainly, but … there’s no concrete danger.”

“Should I keep her out, Doc, or not?” Engram said, flatly.

Doc paused a minute before speaking. “I’ve left it up to her,” he said, quietly.

So on Sunday, Jesse walked onto the field with the rest of the offense and the crowd cheered like they always did. We kicked off and the Cardinals went three and out. They punted and Sean Rice, catching it on our 24-yard line, broke through the first line of defenders, slipped to the sideline, and ran it back for a touchdown. Jesse trotted out and
kicked the extra point. Before she even took the field for our offense it was 7–0. Over the next 5 minutes or so the Cardinals held on to the ball, got it down to our 15, but then stalled. They kicked a field goal and it was 7–3.

Then, after they kicked off to us, Jesse began one of the most incredible shows I’ve ever seen. As it turned out the Cardinals did try a version of the Giants strategy against us, blitzing from a variety of formations, but they never laid a hand on her. Time and again, she just dropped back three steps and fired the ball—or flipped it, or gently lofted it—to Exley, Anders, Louis, Rice, Mickens, Frank, and White. Everybody got into the act. She completed 20 of her first 22 passes, for 244 yards and 4 touchdowns. It was uncanny to watch, actually. These were passes of 5 to 15 yards, mostly. I think her longest completion that day was an 81-yard pass to Anders that started out as a quick 8-yard toss over the defensive line and two blitzing linebackers. The cornerback on that side fell down, and Anders was free to jog his way to the end zone. We led 35–3 at the half.

In the locker room, Jesse spit a lot of blood into a white towel, and Coach Engram said he was going to let her take the second half off. “If we score again, you can do the kicking. But you’re done for the day.” He announced it to the whole team.

She didn’t like it, but when he told her it was to keep her fresh for the Super Bowl, everybody got into it, cheering and hollering Jesse’s name. It was a sweet thing to see. She put her hands up over her face and rubbed her eyes. Everybody stepped past her and patted her on the shoulders as we went back out for the second half.

The Cardinals scored on their first possession of the third quarter, but we took the ball on the following kickoff and ran it on them—a long, time-consuming drive that took up most of the third quarter. We kept the ball for 14 plays. Mickens ran it in from the 4. He gained 128 yards on 24 carries in the game, and he had 11 of those carries in that one drive. They couldn’t stop us. Spivey mopped up, completing 5 of 7 passes. Winning the game 42–10, we were headed for the Super
Bowl. The next day all the papers and sportscasters in the country were calling us a “powerhouse.” One article suggested that we might even be able to beat the Oakland Raiders, who had also “waltzed” into the Super Bowl.

On the Monday after we won the NFC championship, Jesse woke up and found a mass of blood on her pillow. She told her mother about it, and me. I insisted she go to the doctor, but by noon she felt okay and refused to do it. “I know what I’m dealing with,” she said. “Okay? Please don’t ruin this chance for me.” She wanted so badly to play in the Super Bowl I believed it clouded her judgment. I even asked her, “Do you want to risk your life?”

“I’m not ‘risking my life.’”

For two weeks, while the press chased after her, desperate for an interview with the First Woman to Play in the Super Bowl, she carried a red handkerchief around to spit blood into, as necessary, making sure nobody noticed.

She was sharp in practice, though—threw the ball like she always did—and she studied film of the Raiders, preparing for the game as though she
knew
it would be her last game on earth. Gradually, over those two weeks, the bleeding got worse. She was sick from swallowing it. In spite of how she played in practice, she started to look ill. Roddy wanted to know if she was losing weight. “She looks a bit thinner to me, Skip,” he said. “She okay?”

“She’s fine,” I said, but I didn’t really believe it.

The night before the game, she checked into a hospital for further tests—and
that
, we couldn’t keep from the papers or the television people.

I’ll never forget the hours I spent in that hospital waiting room. I’ve never been so terrified in my life.

Well, of course you know the story. It’s been told a million times. But you don’t know the truth. What really happened.

Jesse wasn’t “rushed” to the hospital for emergency tests. I drove her there. I stayed at the hospital as long as I could, but it was the day before the Super Bowl. We were in Los Angeles and I had to get to the Coliseum by 9 a.m. I left Jesse there with Andre Brooks and Jimmy Kelso—two of our injured-reserve players, still a part of the team, who were attending the Super Bowl.

The doctors didn’t tell her she could die. No one suggested anything like that. They just told her they didn’t want her to play. She had an unexplained “mass” high up in her nasal cavity, apparently—just at the point where it bends down toward the back of her throat. They wanted to operate as soon as possible, and she told them they could have at it
after
the game.

But they kept her there a good, long time. As game time approached, she got more and more anxious. When they finally let
her go, we were already in warm-ups. She had to race back to the hotel and get dressed, then make it to the locker room to don her equipment and her uniform.

She didn’t rise from a hospital bed at kickoff time and sneak out of the hospital, like in the movie. And she wasn’t forced to hail cabs and ride buses to get to the stadium. Brooks and Kelso were with her the whole time and they drove her to the game. But she couldn’t get there in time. She was fifteen miles from the stadium at kickoff.

Meanwhile, Spivey started. Everyone agreed the Oakland Raiders were the league powerhouse that year. At 16 and 2 they had scored 596 points, the most of any team in the history of the NFL, averaging a staggering 33 points a game. Only the ’98 Vikings, the ’83 Redskins, and the 2007 New England Patriots had ever averaged more, but that was in a sixteen-game season. The only teams the Raiders had lost to were the Giants and us. Our first game against them—one of the most thrilling contests I ever saw, and Jesse’s first start—felt like years ago. And the idea of duplicating that effort seemed impossible, certainly without Jesse.

It was bright and sunny—no wind, and no clouds. Cool as a fall day in Vermont. The Raiders kicked off and things sort of went down from there. Spivey couldn’t get anything going. Suddenly, the Raider defense, which wasn’t the best in the world—they’d given up 334 points during the year—was playing like the Giants. They didn’t even seem to care that Jesse was not in there; they used the same multiple blitzes and defensive packages that had been designed to put our quarterback on her ass. This was an all-out rush, mind you—with no quarter. The object was to knock the quarterback down, no matter if the ball was still in his hands or not.

Now, Spivey had gotten better with his temper, but, as I said about him in the beginning, he didn’t take kindly to being shoved or pushed around. He started to lose his cool, and his passes wobbled,
sailed high on him, lost velocity. Or, on the short swing passes to Mickens and Jack Slater, our fullback, he’d throw it right into the ground.

The Raiders were quick to take advantage, but our defense was at full strength. Orlando Brown, Drew Bruckner, and Dave Schott played like madmen; and Talon Jones, who came in on passing downs, covered the middle of the field like an entire trio of linebackers. He was that fast and that unstoppable.

So we held on. It was nothing like the first game, though. Nobody scored in the first quarter. Both teams kept struggling to get first downs. There were six punts in the first quarter alone. About midway through the second quarter, the Raiders pushed the ball to our 10-yard line. They tried to run it in from there but gained nothing. On third down, their quarterback, a really great player named Darren McCauley, threw a looping pass into the corner of the end zone to their tight end and suddenly we were down 7 to 0.

Jesse still hadn’t come into the game, but by the time McCauley threw that touchdown pass, she was already at the stadium. She didn’t see the pass on television in the hospital, as the story goes. In fact, she was dressed and could have gone in on the next series, but Coach Engram would not let her on the field. He told Kelso and Brooks to keep her in the locker room, by force if they had to. He’d decided not to risk it; as he says in his book about Jesse, he was going with Spivey.

Spivey gave the ball to Mickens for two plays, but he only gained 4 yards. Then, on third and 6, Spivey missed Darius Exley on a crossing pattern and we had to punt again. We still had plenty of time in the first half, but we had to get the damn ball back.

This time the Raiders moved it a little more quickly. McCauley hit his best wide receiver, Jeremiah Stubbs, for a 31-yard gain on the first play from scrimmage after the punt. Now they were at our 33-yard line. He hit his other wide receiver, the great Aaron Crow for 15 yards. Then they ran a draw play up the middle that gained 11 yards.
It was first and goal from our 7. The defense dug in though and held them to a field goal.

Now, it was 10 to 0.

On our next play from scrimmage, Spivey threw it at the feet of Rob Anders on a quick slant. Then Delbert Coleman, the Raiders’ superstar defensive end, slammed him to the ground and he fumbled. Dan Wilber recovered at our 15-yard line.

Our punter, Jack Clue hit a terrifice kick that put the raiders all the way back to their 28 with 4 minutes left in the first half.

Coach Engram paced the sideline. I couldn’t concentrate on the game knowing Jesse was in the locker room and that she wanted to play. But I didn’t say anything to him about it. I was worried about Jesse, about what was wrong with her. I couldn’t believe they’d let her leave the hospital.

We both watched as the Raiders marched the ball to our 17-yard line. They missed a third and 4 with a shuttle pass that dropped out of the running back’s hands before he could take it up the middle. He would have had a first down and a lot more, if he’d held on. They kicked another field goal and made it 13–0.

The stadium was quiet mostly. There were a lot of Oakland fans there, don’t get me wrong, but they just didn’t make that much noise. It was like they expected much better; despite the points the Raiders had racked up so far, the fans seemed disappointed in their team’s performance; and of course they didn’t like it that Jesse wasn’t playing. Boring and sad, it seemed like the whole game was being staged as a kind of retreat to a world where there was no Jesse. Hell, I was the offensive coordinator on a Super Bowl team and I could hardly focus on what was happening out on that field. It might as well have been a high school soccer game.

The fans knew Jesse was coming out before I did, and in no time the noise was deafening. You’ve seen the films of Jesse trotting out of the tunnel behind our sideline and approaching the bench. We wore white jerseys in that Super Bowl because that year the NFC was
counted as the visiting team. That bright burgundy number 17 on her back glittered against the white jersey. She carried her helmet, her curly hair bouncing in the lights, and just as the offense was taking the field, she cut through the defensive players standing on our sideline and ran out on the field.

Spivey slapped her hand as she passed him and he came to the bench with a kind of wry smile on his face.

“What the
fuck
?” Engram snarled at him. “Get back out there.”

“It’s her play,” Spivey said.

That part of the story is true. Spivey
was
willing to let her take over. “I was having a lousy day,” he said later. “I knew she’d get it going.”

It’s also true that Coach Engram didn’t want her in there; that she took the field on her own. But she wasn’t spitting blood, or running a fever. She didn’t hide among the players on the bench and vomit into a bucket either. I don’t know how that story got started.

Here’s what she
did
do:

First, she settled the offense down. “This defense isn’t that good, all right?” she said when she got into the huddle. “And the way our defense is playing?—we should be kicking ass.”

Now, the Raiders were running those random blitzes, so some running plays would get stuffed pretty embarrassingly, but if you hit a hole where the lineman was pulling out to get into pass coverage, or where they might be stunting to let in a linebacker, you could break some things. Jesse called a trap play with Mickens going off tackle, and he gained 5 yards. Then she dropped three steps and hit Anders with a perfect strike for 8 yards. It was like watching a clinic on quarterbacking. She commanded the huddle, walked to the line surveying the defense, then leaned over center and called the play she wanted. I didn’t even bother trying to call things from the sideline. It was her game and we both knew it. She had practiced this offense for almost two weeks before she became ill. If this was going to be her last game ever, she wanted to make the best of it.