Cover-up

by John Feinstein

  “I give up,” he said, shaking his head in frustration.

  “Who is going to be the most watched player in this game?” Kelleher said.

  “That’s easy,” Stevie said. “Eddie Brennan.” Brennan was the quarterback for the Dreams, who had emerged during the season as the league’s MVP and—as Susan Carol had once called him on the show—MEB: Most Eligible Bachelor. He was on the cover of glamour magazines, sports magazines, and newsmagazines, and was featured as frequently on Access Hollywood as on SportsCenter.

  “And Eddie Brennan went to college where?”

  “Harvard,” Stevie said, knowing that was partly why Brennan was such a media darling. He had been drafted by the Dreams in the seventh round prior to their first season—presumably to hold a clipboard and upgrade the team’s IQ. But he had become a starter in his second season and a true star in this, his third season, leading the Dreams on their unlikely Super Bowl run.

  “And he went to high school where?” Kelleher said.

  Finally it hit Stevie. “Summit High School in Summit, New Jersey. Let me guess—this guy played with him.”

  “Didn’t just play with him. Was his number one receiver and, apparently, one of the main reasons Harvard recruited him.”

  “And no one else knows this story?”

  “I think some of the Baltimore guys probably do. Brian Billick mentioned it to me when I was talking to the Ravens during the off-week, but I haven’t seen anyone write about it yet. Coach Billick introduced me to him, and Darin said he’d be happy to talk this week. I’ll introduce you.”

  They walked over to Kerns, who was now opening another box. “Darin, how are you?” Kelleher said.

  Kerns looked confused for a moment, then recognition flickered in his eyes. “Hey, how are you?” he said, shaking hands with Kelleher. “Bobby Kelleher, right?”

  He turned quickly to Stevie. “And I know who you are,” he said. “I watched your show. It was entertaining. Smart stuff. I’m really sorry….”

  “It’s okay,” Stevie said, accepting his handshake. “I’m here, and I’ve got plenty to do.”

  “Including, I hope,” Kelleher said, “interviewing you.”

  Kerns smiled. “I think that can be arranged,” he said. “I just have to get some of my guys to store this stuff in the locker room and check on a couple other things. Can you wait about ten minutes?”

  “Of course,” Stevie said. “Should I wait for you here?”

  Kerns glanced around. “Nah, why don’t you walk back to the locker room with me. It’ll be quieter there.”

  That was fine with Stevie. He and Kelleher agreed to meet near the goalpost closer to the locker room at 10:30, which was when the Ravens were scheduled to leave and the Dreams were supposed to arrive. That gave Stevie almost an hour to interview Darin Kerns, learn his way around “backstage,” and then see if he could think of a way to get close enough to Eddie Brennan to get a quote from him on his old high school buddy. That, Stevie realized, would be the hard part, since Brennan would be in high demand from the media while he was on the field.

  For now, though, he’d concentrate on the interview at hand. He followed Kerns up the tunnel leading to the locker rooms. When they reached the hallway, a yellow-jacketed security guard put a hand up to stop Stevie.

  “No media back here today,” he said. “Field only.”

  Kerns was about to say something when the guard put his hand down. “Oh, wait, you’ve got a CBS credential. You’re fine.”

  Stevie almost wanted to tell the guard that CBS was media just like everyone else, but he knew that wasn’t the case. For one thing, CBS was paying to televise the game as part of its multibillion-dollar deal with the NFL. For another, he knew from his own brief experiences that TV was a magic word in the English language.

  “Where did you get the CBS badge?” Kerns asked as they walked down a long hallway filled with signs directing people to locker rooms and holding areas and elevators and the field.

  “They want me to do some work for them this week,” he said. “Right now, I’m working for the Washington Herald, but I’m going to do some CBS stuff too.”

  “Good for you,” Kerns said. “Sure made our lives easier just now.”

  They finally reached a door that had a huge sign on it that said BALTIMORE RAVENS—AFC CHAMPIONS. Stevie followed Kerns inside and was stunned by the size of the locker room. It fanned out in both directions from the doorway. There were at least a dozen men wearing Ravens purple working in different parts of the massive room.

  “Biggest locker rooms in the world,” Kerns said, seeing the look on Stevie’s face. “You could comfortably get a hundred lockers in here with lots of open space. We only need forty-five. There’s a separate room in the back for the coaches that’s almost as big as our player locker room back in Baltimore.”

  He led Stevie to an office that was clearly his headquarters for the week. “We’ll practice over at IUPUI this week, but I’ll be back and forth setting things up here,” he said, plopping down and offering Stevie a seat.

  “What’s IUPUI?”

  Kerns laughed. “Sorry. It’s Indiana University/Purdue University–Indianapolis. It’s a huge commuter school run by Indiana and Purdue together and it has fantastic athletic facilities. We got lucky they put us there because it’s right downtown. The Dreams have to schlep to some high school in the suburbs and they’re not happy. Meeker is already screaming to the commissioner’s office that the league wants us to win.”

  Stevie smiled. Don Meeker—better known in NFL circles as Little Donny—was the Dreams’ owner. He had a reputation for being short, insecure, and a bully—but he was very rich. He was the first owner in history to pay a billion dollars for a sports team—that had been the Dreams’ expansion fee when they joined the league. But even that was a small percentage of the wealth Don Meeker had amassed by buying and selling telemarketing firms. Stevie remembered Tamara had once written: “Don Meeker is the most successful cold caller in history.”

  “So why did you guys get IUPUI?” Stevie said, slowing down to make sure he got all the letters right.

  “That’s what’s so funny about it,” Kerns said. “It was a blind draw they held last summer at the owners meetings. Li’l Donny himself pulled ‘Watsonville’—that’s the name of the high school—out of a hat for the NFC long before anyone thought the Dreams had a chance of being here. Actually, I know the Dreams’ equipment guy, and he says it’s a great facility. It’s just a little out of the way. The players and coaches don’t really care, but Li’l Donny does like to be angry about things.”

  Stevie was soaking in all the background information but figured it was time to get started on Kerns’s relationship with Eddie Brennan. Kerns reached behind him into a refrigerator and offered Stevie a bottle of water, which he accepted. Then, for most of thirty minutes, he talked about Brennan—giving Stevie anecdotes that would easily have filled three stories.

  “He’s smart, he’s a great athlete, and most women get weak-kneed when he walks into a room. You want to hate him but you can’t. He’s been the captain of every team he’s ever played on, and he’s a real team player. Plus, he’s got a great sense of humor.”

  Stevie asked Kerns about his playing days with Brennan. Kerns leaned back in his chair and smiled.

  “What you have to understand is that Eddie really was the star,” Kerns said. “I was okay, a decent enough receiver, but I was never fast enough that anyone in Division One was going to recruit me seriously.”

  “Not even Harvard?”

  Kerns laughed. “Harvard? You need grades to get into Harvard even if you’re a football player. I got lucky and got a scholarship to Fordham—which plays okay football and is a good school but a far cry from Harvard. But when I was with Eddie, I was a star—he was so good at finding receivers and putting the ball right on the money that all you had to do was be okay and people thought you were Terrell Owens.” He paused. “That’s on the field, not off it,” he a
dded.

  Stevie asked if he had a favorite memory. “Oh yeah, that’s easy,” Kerns said. “It was in the state championship game against Newark Catholic. We were down 10–6 in a pouring rain with four seconds left, and Eddie threw me a perfect ball in the corner of the end zone—to this day I swear I don’t know how he gripped it to throw it that well—and I couldn’t hold on. It was like trying to catch a seal. So we had time for one last play from the four-yard line. Everyone knew we would throw, we had no running game, but how was anyone going to catch the ball?

  “We called time-out, and our coach was talking about running some kind of double reverse. He thought we’d surprise them, but I’m thinking there’s no way we’re going to be able to make two handoffs and get our footing and get around the corner. So, going back to the huddle, I said to Eddie, ‘Let’s run E-D Special.’ He looked at me like I was nuts.”

  “What was ‘E-D Special’?” Stevie asked.

  Kerns smiled. “Eddie-Darin Special,” he said, grinning. “It was a play he and I first came up with in peewee football when we were ten. Absolute trick play. You don’t even tell the other nine guys! You call a pass play in the huddle. Everyone—I mean everyone—thinks it’s a pass. Quarterback goes back and everyone is blocking to keep the pass rushers to the outside. One receiver—me—takes a step as if to go out in the pattern, then turns and goes straight to the middle of the field because you know there’s going to be one blitzer coming straight up the middle to try to get to the quarterback. He blocks the blitzer just as the quarterback fakes a pass, pulls the ball down, and runs straight up the middle with the ball. Quarterback-draw play.”

  “Did it work?”

  “Yup. I got the blitzer, and Eddie walked into the end zone completely untouched. We’re all jumping up and down and celebrating, and our coach is out there screaming, ‘What the hell was that? What are you guys doing running some school-yard play with the state championship at stake?!’ And Eddie just said, ‘Yup—and that school-yard play just won you the state championship, Coach.’”

  Stevie could see that the memory was still pretty vivid for Kerns—even eight years later. “One thing you have to understand about Eddie,” he added. “He’s never afraid on a football field. People miss that sometimes because he went to Harvard and uses SAT words when he talks. But there’s no one more fearless than Eddie Brennan.”

  That quote, Stevie realized, would need to go very high in his story.

  Kerns was telling Stevie that he and Brennan had bet dinner on the outcome of the game, when his phone rang. “Gotcha,” Kerns said to whoever was on the other end.

  “They’re wrapping up out there,” he said. “Have you got enough?”

  “To start a book,” Stevie said, thanking him.

  Kerns laughed and gave Stevie his cell phone number. “Anything I can help you with during the week, give me a call. I’d give you some Ravens gear, but I doubt you want to be seen with it around here.”

  Stevie laughed. “Imagine what Li’l Donny would say. He’d think there was a media conspiracy to get the Dreams.”

  Kerns nodded. “You really are sharp for fourteen,” he said. “USTV will be sorry they went for the pretty boy over the smart kid.”

  They were walking out of the locker room at that point. “Thanks,” Stevie said. “But the pretty girl is very, very smart. She can probably cover for the pretty boy.”

  “Won’t be the same,” Kerns said, shaking hands as he prepared to duck into another room. “She’ll miss you. The show will miss you.”

  Stevie could only hope he was right. Especially about Susan Carol missing him.

  6: FLAG ON THE PLAY

  THE RAVENS were starting to make their way up the tunnel as Stevie was heading back to the field, and Stevie was struck by just how huge they were. He walked past Jonathan Ogden, the team’s six-foot-nine-inch, 345-pound All-Pro left tackle, and felt as if he had stepped into a hole. He must have been staring, because Ogden smiled at him and said, “I’m only this tall on Tuesdays.”

  Reaching the field, Stevie could see Ravens quarterback Steve McNair still surrounded by a number of reporters. Some of the Dreams were starting to drift onto the field to start their session. He spotted Bobby and Tamara talking to a slender man with straight black hair who was wearing a shirt that said “Dream the Dreams” on it.

  “Stevie, this is someone you not only want to meet but you need to meet,” Kelleher said.

  “Dewey Blanton,” the man said, giving him a smile and a warm handshake. “I do PR—at least I try to—for the Dreams.”

  He had an easygoing manner that made Stevie feel comfortable right away.

  “I told Dewey about your interview with Darin Kerns,” Kelleher said. “He’s going to try to grab you a minute with Brennan toward the end of the session.”

  Blanton was nodding. “He finishes on the podium about eleven-forty-five, and then we’re going to take him to a taping room under the stands. He’s got to do some pieces with CBS and then ESPN and, finally, a couple minutes with USTV.”

  “Who from USTV?” Stevie asked, realizing he sounded semi-panicked when he asked.

  “Easy, Stevie,” Kelleher said. “It’s them, but it’ll be brief.”

  “If you just walk with me back to the room, when he finishes all that, I’ll get you a minute with him,” Blanton said.

  Stevie really didn’t want to see Susan Carol and her new favorite dude in action. “Maybe I can just get a question in while he’s on the podium?” he said.

  Kelleher was shaking his head emphatically. “First of all, you won’t get a good answer up there,” he said. “Second of all, you’ll be sharing the story with five hundred other people. Out of the question. This way, you’ll get a couple quotes on a story no one else will have at the Super Bowl. That’s pretty rare.”

  “Okay then,” Stevie said, squaring his shoulders, ready to do what he had to do for his story. “Thank you, Mr. Blanton. Where should I meet you?”

  “I’ll be standing right behind the podium when Eddie comes off,” Blanton said. “You meet me there and just walk with us. I’ll get you through all the security so you can walk up the players’ ramp with us. Gotta run—see you later.”

  Stevie turned to Bobby. “What are you writing today?”

  Kelleher grinned. “Are you kidding? Li’l Donny. He’s already thrown one tantrum over where his team is practicing, and now I hear he’s threatening to boycott the NFL dinner on Friday night. Bisciotti told me the rest of the owners are hoping he does boycott.”

  Steve Bisciotti was the Ravens’ owner. Stevie had read a couple of stories the previous week about how he was the anti-Meeker—equally rich but without the attitude. Meeker was known for demanding that everyone who worked for him call him Mr. Meeker. Bisciotti was Steve to everyone. The contrast made for a great story.

  Stevie spent most of the next hour wandering around, listening to various members of the Dreams talking about how much respect they had for the Ravens. He listened to Coach Skyler Kaplow for a minute but gave up when Kaplow said his team would win the game on Sunday “if it’s the Lord’s will.” Kaplow was extremely religious and was frequently seen crossing himself on the sidelines before big plays. He was a great coach, but the gesture really bugged Stevie’s dad. Every time he saw it, Bill Thomas would say, “For crying out loud, Kaplow, if God is watching this game he should be fired!”

  Shortly before 11:45, he wandered toward the back of Eddie Brennan’s podium, only to find the inevitable security guard blocking the entrance to the roped-off area behind the podium. Just as inevitably, the guard stepped aside when he saw the CBS credential dangling from his neck. Stevie still didn’t like it that TV had such power, but he had to concede that he could get used to wielding that power pretty quickly.

  Dewey Blanton was waiting at the podium stairs with several more security guards and a gaggle of people wearing various TV credentials. Susan Carol and Whitsitt were nowhere in sight.

  “Where are, you k
now…”

  Blanton, reading his mind and his discomfort, answered before he finished. “All the TV talent are waiting in the back,” he said. “Lesley Visser’s doing CBS, Berman’s doing ESPN, and, well, you know who’s doing USTV.”

  One of the men waiting with Blanton came over with a hand extended. “I’m Andy Kaplan from CBS,” he said. “I’m one of the segment producers this week. I think we’re going to work together starting tomorrow. Looking forward to it.”

  “Me too,” Stevie said, comforted that he would have at least one ally inside the room. He heard a commotion behind him and looked up to see Eddie Brennan coming down the stairs with security front and back and a couple of suits walking next to him.

  “NFL PR guys,” Blanton said, again showing a remarkable ability to read Stevie’s mind. “The league keeps an eye on everything this week.”

  As soon as Brennan hit the bottom step, everyone started walking across the field toward a tunnel in the corner, but not one of the tunnels Stevie had seen the teams using to come and go. Blanton fell into step with Eddie to go over the plan with him for the next few minutes.

  “Is there anything to drink in the room?” was Brennan’s only response.

  “What do you want, Eddie?” one of the NFL PR people said. “We’ll get it for you.”

  “A cup of coffee would be great,” Brennan said. “That was a long seventy-five minutes. Some guy asked me if Harvard was still in the Ivy League.”

  Everyone laughed—a little too hard, Stevie thought. He had read a story in the paper once about the stupidest questions asked on media day. His favorite was someone asking Dexter Manley of the Redskins, “If you could be a tree, what kind of a tree would you be?”

  This wasn’t quite up there with that. “Did you see the guy’s credential?” someone asked Brennan.

  They were now nearing the end of the tunnel, and one of the PR guys had run ahead to open the door to the room. “Yeah,” Brennan said. “I think he was from the Yale Daily News.”

  Now that, Stevie thought, was funny.