by Wil Mara
“Then I get a call from Herb Schummer, the Rams’ president, about a half hour before the draft begins. He tells me Artie Newhouse, one of the owners, wants to take me with the first pick.” Quincy looked to his son. “I thought it was a prank call, but it wasn’t. Artie and Herb drafted me less than thirty minutes later. Next thing I knew I was being handed a Rams’ uniform and a Rams’ playbook, and carrying all their hopes into the future.”
“Wow.”
Quincy nodded. “It was a lot for a kid to handle. But Art and Herb believed in me. That was the key. They took a lot of heat from people who didn’t want to see me succeed. They figured it was bad enough that I was drafted before all those white players, but to have me be the starter and maybe turn the team around, too? No way.”
“But that’s exactly what happened, right?”
“At first. Artie and Herb wanted to win and decided to look past the fact that I was black. I was never sure if it bothered Herb anyway, but I know it didn’t bother Artie. He was a rare breed—a multimillionaire conservative who didn’t give a damn about race. All he wanted to do was win, and if you could help him do that, he wanted you. He and Herb treated me as good as they treated the white players. They knew I had a chip on my shoulder but they never made an issue out of it. I had all the same privileges, all the same perks.” He paused, blowing a lungful of smoke into the air. “They also gave me the same kind of fat contract any other number one pick would get … and that’s where my problems started.”
“I don’t understand.”
Quincy surveyed the field. “It was too much money for a kid to handle,” he said softly. “They didn’t have money managers and personal advisors and all that stuff in those days. They just handed you a pile of cash. I didn’t know what to do with it. I was a poor kid from the streets of Philly. My old man disappeared when I was nine, and my mama died three years later. I was raised by my Aunt Jean. You knew that, right?”
“I know a little bit about it.”
“I never had more than twenty bucks in my pocket in my life, and all of a sudden I’ve got four hundred thousand. That ain’t a mouse turd compared to what they’re paying out now, but back then it was a fortune. I had no idea what to do with a fortune. I put some of it in the bank for you, some of it in the bank for your mama so she’d have some spending money—she was just as poor as me when she was a kid—and the rest…” He shook his head in disgust. “The rest went to whores, booze, and dope.” He looked back at his son. “That’s right. Your old man was a philanderer. Oh, I had it all—a big black Cadillac, fine threads, gold rings, sideburns. I even had a wide-brimmed hat with a damn feather sticking out of it. Shit, I looked more like a pimp than a quarterback.
“Your mama kept quiet about it at first. I think she was hoping it was just a phase I was going through. But then pictures started showing up in the papers and on TV. Pictures of me with other women, coming out of bars, a bottle in my hand.…” He held up his cigarette. “One of these hanging out of my mouth. That’s when your mama decided she’d had enough. We had a lot of fights over it, and I was in denial the whole time. I was telling her the reporters were making more out of it than it really was, but they weren’t. You get sucked into that world. You never control it—it controls you. And your mama didn’t want any part of it. Not long after you were born, she left, dropped my last name and everything. She didn’t want you growing up in that world. I pretended I was angry at first, but all I was really interested in was the next joint or the next drink. I couldn’t help it—I was hooked.”
“Didn’t Art Newhouse or Herb Schummer say anything?”
Quincy laughed. “Herb didn’t say much, but Artie did. Maybe he didn’t give a damn what color you were, which is why I loved him, but he sure as hell didn’t like you boozin’ and dopin’. He’d had a strict Catholic upbringing, all fire and brimstone. He wasn’t a Bible-thumping lunatic, but he was close. He tried to warn me away from what I was doing, and I knew he was speaking from the heart. But I didn’t listen. I was too cocky. I was creating magic on the field, breaking all sorts of records and turning the team around. By my second year we won fourteen regular season games. Sports Illustrated ran that long article on me, and I was being interviewed on TV every week. I was the hottest dude around, and I knew it. I figured I could get away with anything because I was getting results.
“But like I said, there were still a lot of people in the league who didn’t like the idea of a black hotshot quarterback, and those people got together and decided to take me down. I know that sounds paranoid, but you got to remember the world was a different place back then. There was still a lot of that white supremacy shit around. And to be honest with you, I wasn’t helping my cause very much. People were saying blacks were only interested in drinkin’ and dopin’ and gettin’ laid, and that was exactly what I was doing. The NFL tried to maintain a clean public image, and here I was stumbling around drunk in the streets with a woman under each arm, neither of whom was my wife.” He shook his head again and flicked the dead cigarette over the rusted fence. “I was a real piece of work.”
“You were young. You didn’t know any better,” Raymond said.
Quincy shook his head. “Yeah, and I paid a big price for it. Guys started roughing me up on the field, taking the penalties for late hits and stuff like that. I think they figured if I got hurt, I wouldn’t be quite so valuable any more, and then I wouldn’t be able to get away with everything else. Man, the hits I took back then.…” He rotated his right arm and grimaced. “I took a shot from a Chiefs’ linebacker that dislocated my shoulder. They popped it back into place on the sidelines, and I screamed like a little girl. I never knew such pain.”
“Is that why you stopped playing?”
“No, I hung in there. All they did by pushing me around was make me more determined than ever. I got tougher and played better. And that made me even cockier. I partied more, and I caused more trouble. I started speaking out to the press, criticizing people, which they definitely did not appreciate. They still don’t tolerate it, but they were really against it back then. But I figured I was indestructible. Nothing could touch me. And then came Judgment Day—December twenty-fourth, 1988. A date I’ll remember it if I live to be a million years old.…”
He shook a third cigarette from the pack and positioned it between his lips. “We were playing the Redskins in the first round of the playoffs. They were damn good. But I knew we could beat them, so I went out the night before, prowling around like a tomcat in spite of Coach Jessel’s orders to stay in and rest up. I was hung over and feeling like crap.
“I came to the stadium early because this kid who worked for the league, Bobby Cartwright, called and asked me to. I didn’t know him, but I knew he was part of the inner circle, so I wasn’t about to say no.
“I get there before anyone else and go down to the locker rooms. Newley wasn’t there, but three other guys were. I’d never seen them before. One was small and fat, dressed in a gray suit. He was, as it turns out, one of the silent partners in the Rams’ ownership. The other two wore dark suits. One of the dark suits was older than the fat dude, the other looked like he was fresh out of college. They were all white and they all looked pissed. The moment I saw them I knew I was in trouble…”
The heavyset man motions for Quincy to come toward him. “Mr. Pressner, can we have a word with you?”
“What’s this about?”
“Come on in here. We want to talk to you for a moment.”
He puts his arm around the big black man—around his waist because he can’t reach his shoulders—and leads him into the showers. One of the heads is dripping, the drops ticking off the minutes on the tiled floor. When they stop, each man takes a different position, surrounding Pressner. The two dark suits fold their hands together at the crotch and bear down on him with their eyes. The other man puts one hand in his pocket and the other to his lips in a pose of deep reflection.
“Mr. Pressner, I’ll get right to the point�
�we’ve received some complaints about you.”
“What kind of complaints?”
“Complaints about drugs, alcohol, and prostitutes.”
Pressner’s eyes go from man to man. “Who are you guys? Who sent you?”
“Don’t worry about who we are,” the same man replies. Quincy realizes he’s the head of this little nest of serpents and thus the one who will do most of the talking. “That’s not important. What’s important is the league. There are a lot of people working very hard to keep its image clean, and frankly you’re not helping with your behavior.”
“My behavior? What I do off the field is my business, understand?”
The dark suits suddenly look uncomfortable, but the gray suit is unfazed. He tilts his head back and evaluates Pressner carefully, as if trying to guess his age or exact height. Then one of the other men sweeps back the flaps of his jacket and puts his hands on his hips. As he does, a Browning 9mm handgun is revealed. Pressner realizes the gesture was intentional.
“No, Mr. Pressner, what you do off the field isn’t just your business,” the heavyset man continues. “What you do off the field is everyone’s business, because it affects everyone in this business. Do you understand?”
Pressner doesn’t answer, and in spite of the gun he has no intention to.
“A lot of people have tried to be reasonable with you. You’ve been asked to keep your drinking under control. You’ve been asked to keep your womanizing quiet. And you’ve been asked to lay off the dope. But you don’t listen. You seem to think you can do anything you want, anytime you want, just because you’re a star.”
“Other guys dope and drink. I’ve seen them. But you don’t bother them because they’re white.”
“Take it easy,” the older of the dark suits says, nudging Pressner with a long, bony finger. He’s much older than Pressner originally thought.
“Mr. Pressner,” the fat one continues, “we don’t want any trouble. We’re just here to deliver a message, that’s all.”
“Yeah? What message?”
“It’s time for you to step down.”
“Step down?”
“That’s right. Walk away, hang it up. Call it whatever you want. It’s time for you to go away, Mr. Pressner. You won’t play along, so you’ve become too much of a risk.”
“To who?”
“Mr. Pressner…”
“If you think I’m going to throw away my career, you’re out of your fucking mind.”
“Mr. Pressner?”
“You can kiss my ass if you think—”
The man with the gun reaches into his jacket, and Pressner stops. The man doesn’t pull out the weapon, however. Instead he retrieves a small envelope.
“Have a look at these.”
Inside, Pressner finds a collection of photographs. They were taken at different times and in different places. Some are of him alone, others are with friends or prostitutes. In all of them he’s either snorting coke or using a needle.
“Those would be very hard to explain to your wife, Mr. Pressner. Or the media.” Then the fat man smiles. “Or a prosecutor.”
Pressner looks at the other dark suits. They’re smiling, too.
“You’re a bunch of fucking parasites.”
“No, we’re doing our job.” The man takes the photos back and replaces them in his jacket pocket. “Try to remember, Mr. Pressner—the good of the league. So what’s it going to be? You can go to jail for a long time, or you can walk away at the end of this season by declining to sign a new contract, and keep your money and the warm memories of your brief but spectacular career.…”
The last cigarette lay dead between his fingers. He never took a single puff. “I played a great game that day. One of my best ever. We went on to win the next game, but lost in the conference championship.”
“And then you quit,” Raymond said.
Quincy nodded. “And then I quit. I didn’t sign for the following season. I didn’t do anything. I just went underground, as the saying goes. I didn’t want to talk to anyone, didn’t want to be seen by anyone, so I vanished. And it made those guys very happy.”
“Sons of bitches.”
“Yeah, they were.”
“And Uncle Pearly wants me to play for them?”
“No, Ray, not them. Those guys didn’t represent every person in the league. They were a dying breed, on their way out. Maybe they really thought they were protecting the league; I don’t know. But other people were more open minded, more forgiving. I should’ve realized that then, but I was too young. I didn’t know enough about things. They knew how to scare me, and let’s face it—I was way out of line. If the wrong people found out about the drugs, I could’ve gone to jail for a long time. Twenty years at least. My life would’ve been over. I was big and strong, but I never could’ve survived prison. I had a big mouth and I didn’t know when to shut it. I would’ve ended up face down in a pool of my own blood somewhere, and no one would’ve cared.”
He paused and took a deep breath. Then he reached over and took the football in hand.
“Not a day goes by that I don’t think about playing. I can’t watch it on television because it makes me think about what might have been. Those bastards stole my career, but I helped them. I wanted to blame it on racism, but there were other black guys in the league who went on to greatness. O. J. Simpson, Walter Payton. Being a black quarterback wouldn’t have been such a big deal. Look at how well Doug Williams and Warren Moon did. Moon had an amazing career. And plenty of new ones, too, like that McKinley kid. It’s no big deal.”
He threw the ball in the air a few times, then gripped it tight. His long fingers still had some power.
“My chance has come and gone.” He looked over at his son. “But yours hasn’t. It’s just starting. And you could make it, Ray. You’ve got what it takes. I know. I can spot it a mile away. I’ve watched you play.”
“You have?”
“Yep. No one knows that, not even Pearly. It’s easy to walk around unnoticed when you don’t look the same anymore, especially with the help of a pair of sunglasses and a cap. I came to a few of the games. Your best was against St. John’s. They had a good defense, but you figured it out real quick. You got that from me. I could always dissect a defensive scheme. There are a few smart defensive coordinators in the pros, but most of them are hacks. No originality at all.” He shook his head and laughed. “What I wouldn’t give to be back out there, running them around in circles.”
Raymond chose his next words carefully. “I’m sorry, Dad. I’m sorry about what happened to you. I wish there was something I could do.”
Quincy smiled. “There is.” He tossed the ball back. “You can go out there and do all the things that I didn’t. You can play your best and try to become a pro and carry on the family name. And you can stay out of trouble so you don’t blow it like I did. Be everything I was, and be everything I wasn’t.”
“Are you serious?”
“You bet. Pearly’s right—you’re not going to get another chance like this. Take it for all it’s worth. Don’t end up a loser like me. Be a winner. Climb as high as you can, then climb a little higher. Make me proud.”
Raymond was smiling; smiling and nodding. He gripped the ball the same way Quincy had only moments before.
“Will you help me?”
“You’re damn right I will.”
A great ball of warmth exploded inside the handsome young man, starting in his belly and slowly expanding to the rest of him. He never thought he would know such happiness.
“Okay, Dad, I’ll give it a shot.”
“Good.”
“But … first I have to talk to somebody.”
“Who’s that?”
With one eyebrow raised, Raymond said, “I think you can guess.”
“Ah, right. Of course.”
13
Unable to repress his smile, Jon Sabino set the phone back into its cradle and got up.
“How’s it going today?�
� he asked an intern as he breezed past her. She gave some small reply, but he didn’t hear it. He cruised down the hallway, which also served as a gallery of large, framed photos featuring great moments in the Ravens’ brief but mostly happy history. There were shots of the last two Super Bowl victories, and one of the first regular-season game they ever won—a 19–14 home-field victory over the Raiders on September 1, 1996. There was a formal portrait of Art Modell, the team’s first owner, and of the stadium during construction. Each frame had a little brass plaque along the bottom with a caption, as if anyone in the building dared be so ignorant.
He passed a little alcove that served as the office’s copying and mailing station. There was a massive Xerox machine that had been bought outright rather than leased (and was decorated with various Ravens’ stickers), plus a long white table with a variety of FedEx and UPS boxes. In spite of the obscene amounts of money the team harvested, they had no full-time mail or copy clerks; there was always someone around to take care of those chores. Half the time the higher-ups were in such a hurry to get something copied or mailed that they did it themselves. Taped to the walls were a variety of clipped cartoons, including a few old Far Sides, and one inspirational note—“If you fail to plan, plan to fail.” These little motivational, corporate-type messages were common to NFL clubs, targeting not just the players but anyone who drew a team paycheck. They were posted everywhere, even the bathrooms. The one painted above the locker room doorway (visible on the way out) read, “What you do today determines what you do tomorrow.” Jon, notably, did not keep any in his office. He preferred to follow a collection of accumulated personal ideologies, and those only in his mind.