by Mark Bowden
Antone Davis, Richie’s “megapick,” never became a great player, although he hung on through the 1998 season with the Atlanta Falcons. Ron Heller retired after several last strong seasons with the Dolphins and now owns a pipe-fitting business in Montana. Wes Hopkins has dropped completely out of sight; none of his old teammates know where to find him. Erika Hopkins divorced Wes, married the mayor of Trenton, New Jersey, and then divorced him. She’s now living back in southern California. Seth Joyner left the Eagles and played for Buddy in Arizona before becoming a journeyman backup linebacker and special-teams player for the Denver Broncos and Green Bay Packers. Seth earned two Super Bowl rings with those teams. Jennifer Smit divorced Seth, moved home to the Netherlands with their daughter Jasmine, where she remarried and now runs a small business. As of this writing, Seth is waiting at home in Arizona for a football team to call.
The irrepressibly garrulous Mike Golic has become an ESPN football commentator. “My wife tells me I had to finish my pro football career before finding the thing I was born to do,” says Golic, whose always irreverent commentary has gone from the locker room back bench to the national TV screen.
Ben Smith, Buddy Ryan’s top draft pick in 1990, never fully recovered from his 1991 knee injury. He played briefly for the Broncos, and when they released him he was picked up by Buddy Ryan’s Cardinals. Ben lasted a little over one season with Buddy. When he left training camp near the end of the 1995 season, Buddy couldn’t let him go without a final kick in the rear. “I guess he couldn’t take it anymore,” Buddy said.
Keith Jackson is trying to catch on, with mixed success, as a TV reporter. David Alexander moved back to Tulsa and was thinking about buying into a chain of doughnut shops. Byron Evans is living outside Phoenix, looking for work in TV broadcasting. Terry Hoage is living in Arizona, building custom homes. Jim McMahon never made his goal of being on an NFL roster in the year 2000. He retired after the 1997 season, after the accumulated toll of two decades of football finally caught up to him. He now spends his time playing golf.
Marvin “One-for-One-for-One” Hargrove played for one season with the hilariously inept, winless, and now defunct World Football League team the Raleigh Skyhawks. He works for Coca-Cola in Philadelphia, as part of the corporation’s outreach program to city schools.
“Every now and then I think back on how much fun I had, the people I got to meet, the places I got to go, all for playing football,” said Hargrove, who has lost none of his damn all obstacles cheer. “I think, having had that experience, I have a greater respect for the game and people who play it, and it makes me proud to have been a part of it. I think about how I actually got to play in the NFL and that I actually scored a touchdown, how blessed I was.”
People in Philadelphia still sometimes recognize Marvin’s name and ask for his autograph—”So you can imagine how it is for somebody like Reggie White,” he says.
Mostly, Marvin’s remarkable past comes as a surprise. “I’ll be watching Randall Cunningham on TV now and I’ll tell my friends, ‘I caught a touchdown pass from him once.’ And they’re like, ‘Right.’”
Marvin once paid me the highest compliment I ever received from a football player, maybe the best compliment ever. I had traveled down to Raleigh to do a story on his hapless Skyhawks. After I interviewed him, he told me, “You were always different than the other sportswriters.”
“How’s that?”
“Well, for one thing, you didn’t know that much about football, and you admitted it.”
“It was just the truth.”
“Yeah, but it made you more like a human being.”
August 1999
Author’s Note
As the Philadelphia Inquirer’s Packman for three seasons (’90-’92), I reported almost daily on the doings described in this book. Thanks to everyone who helped me. I’d like to particularly thank Eagles assistant coaches Peter Guinta and Zeke Bratkowski, true monks in the temple, who spent hours reviewing game films with me and giving me the authentic Coach’s-Eye View. I am also grateful to my agent, Rhoda Weyr, and to the fine crew at Knopf—Ashbel Green, Jennifer Bernstein, Dori Carlson, and Elise Solomon. Thanks to my brother, Drew, and my friend Don Kimelman for their careful reading and suggestions.
Events described that I did not witness, including dialogue, are based on the memories of those involved. In cases where scenes are based on the recollection of only one participant, it is so indicated. None of the names have been changed to protect the innocent because, as Kurt Vonnegut once so rightly pointed out, “God Almighty protects the innocent as a matter of heavenly routine.”
PHOTOGRAPHIC CREDITS
Brown on sidelines: Andrea Mihalik/Philadelphia Daily News
Ryan and Braman: Jerry Lodriguss: Jerry Lodriguss/Philadelphia Inquirer
Gamble and Braman: Rick Bowmer/Philadelphia Daily News
Kotite: Andrea Mihalik/Philadelphia Daily News
Ryan with reporters: Michael Bryant/Philadelphia Inquirer
Carson on sidelines: George Reynolds/Philadelphia Daily News
Barnett: Andrea Mihalik/Philadelphia Daily News
Hargrove: Andrea Mihalik/Philadelphia Daily News
Waters smiling: Mark Psoras/Philadelphia Daily News
White moving into dormitory: Andrea Mihalik/Philadelphia Daily News
Davis before locker: Andrea Mihalik/Philadelphia Daily News
Heller, Alexander, and Golic: Andrea Mihalik/Philadelphia Daily News
McMahon: Andrea Mihalik/Philadelphia Daily News
Brown, Cunningham, and Byars dousing White: Andrea Mihalik/Philadelphia Daily
Hopkins cooling off: Andrea Mihalik/Philadelphia Daily News
Joyner on sidelines: Charles Fox/Philadelphia Inquirer
Smith writhing: George Reynolds/Philadelphia Daily News
Cunningham at home: Andrea Mihalik/Philadelphia Daily News
Byars and Cunningham: Andrea Mihalik/Philadelphia Daily News
Cunningham crying: Andrea Mihalik/Philadelphia Daily News
White clowning: Andrea Mihalik/Philadelphia Daily News
Jackson at practice: Andrea Mihalik/Philadelphia Daily News
Waters with broken ankle: Andrea Mihalik/Philadelphia Daily News
White and Joyner on the bench: Andrea Mihalik/Philadelphia Daily News
Walker in the end zone: Michael Bryant/Philadelphia Inquirer
Rose, Feagles, et aI.: Jerry Lodriguss/Philadelphia Inquirer
Joyner sprinting after interception: Rebecca Barger/Philadelphia Inquirer
Cunningham in classic form: Rebecca Barger/Philadelphia Inquirer
Joyner tackling Rypien: Jerry Lodriguss/Philadelphia Inquirer
Allen, Clark, et al.: Jerry Lodriguss/Philadelphia Inquirer
Brown’s headstone: Mark Bowden
A NOTE ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Mark Bowden was raised in the suburbs of Chicago, New York, and Baltimore. He graduated from Loyola College of Maryland in 1973 and spent six years on the staff of the now defunct Baltimore News-American. Over the last twenty-six years, Bowden has written extensively for newspapers and magazines, but primarily for the Philadelphia Inquirer, specializing in nonfiction storytelling. He has won many national awards for his writing, including the Overseas Press Club’s Hal Boyle Award for Best Foreign Reporting. His book Doctor Dealer (1987) is about an Ivy League dentist who built the largest distribution business in Philadelphia history. His story “Finders Keepers” (1986) was made into the motion picture Money for Nothing (1993) by Disney Studios. Black Hawk Down (1999), his best-selling narrative account of the Battle of Mogadishu, was a finalist for the National Book Award and is soon to be a major motion picture from Jerry Bruckheimer Films.
Bowden lives in rual southeastern Pennsylvania with his wife, Gail, and three of their five children. His oldest son, Aaron, is a reporter for the Concord Monitor. His second son, B.J., is a corporal in the United States Marine Corps.
A NOTE ON THE TYPE
The text
of this book was set in a digitized version of a typeface called Baskerville. The face itself is a facsimile reproduction of types cast from molds made for John Baskerville (1706-1775) from his designs. Baskerville’s original face was one of the forerunners of the type style known to printers as “modern face”—a “modern” of the period A.D. 1800.
Composed by Crane Typesetting Service, West Barnstable, Massachusetts Printed and bound by Arcata Graphics/Martinsburg, Martinsburg, West Virginia Designed by Robert C. Olsson