by Tim White
We took a walk on Newport Beach and played in the waves with the kids. As Ulee and I held hands and watched the sunset, Ulee leaned over and gave me a kiss on the cheek. I asked, “What is going through that white Indian mind of yours?”
He said with a smile, “Maybe God can wipe away all my past sins. This is kind of a dream we are living.”
When Ulee got his playbook he memorized it and knew what every position was doing. When they scrimmaged, he learned the audibles and the intricacies of the quarterback play—not because he had designs on taking someone’s job but because he loved football.
The first game of the year was going to be at Philadelphia—always a tough place for the Los Angeles football team to play. Ulee wasn’t supposed to travel, but a player was fined for a DUI and was sent home for breaking team rules and Ulee took his place on the special teams. So before classes ever started at Fuller, Ulee was a pro football player. When Ulee came to Philadelphia, he was assigned to kickoff and punt teams—and of course the return teams.
On Saturday night before the game, all the quarterbacks went out with their coach for seafood. Before the last course, it was apparent that the clams were not right, and the starting quarterback started to get sick. It wasn’t long before the backup quarterback became overwhelmingly sick, too. That night the two quarterbacks and the quarterbacks’ coach became violently ill. By four in the morning they were sent to the hospital, and the head coach of the LA team, needed an emergency plan. Ulee got a knock at the door at six that morning and was told to be in the meeting room in fifteen minutes. There he was told about the situation and informed that he would be the starting quarterback. Ulee looked dumbfounded.
“Is this part of rookie hazing?” The look on the coach’s face let him know this was no joke.
“You played in college. This is going to feel like a bowl game only you don’t get to prepare and you have never played with your offense before. Are you nervous?”
“Well, it’s not like Vietnam. At least no one will be shooting at me.”
“No, I don’t think anyone is going to try and shoot you,” the coach said. But some very angry men are going to try and injure you. Listen, we are going to give you five plays. The offensive coordinator coach is going to talk them through with you. Then we are going to have a walk through in the hotel ball room with the offense, and your job is simple: don’t make a mistake; let our defense and running game win it for you.”
“Yes, sir,” said Ulee, and he saluted out of habit.
Philadelphia drove it the length of the field and scored first. When LA had the ball, it was three and out and they punted. The Philadelphia offense took it on a drive the length of the field and scored again.
Ulee had been nervous during the first two sets of downs and his timing was off. His teammates could sense it. But when he took the field a third time he calmed himself, rehearsing in his mind the plays he had so rigorously studied.
You can do this, he thought. You’ve done it before.
Ulee called shotgun formation and called all the receivers to run their routes to the right. This wasn’t one of the five plays, but it was in the playbook he had memorized.
Ulee took a shotgun and took a three-yard drop back. The defensive end took an inside route, and Ulee did a spin and came out of the pocket on the left side. It was wide open, and no one knew how fast he was. He blazed down the sideline and scored. No defender was within ten yards of him. Philadelphia scored again, but when LA got the ball back again, there was a new confidence in him as the team leader. When they got to the line of scrimmage, there were eight defenders within seven yards of the line of scrimmage, so Ulee changed the play at the line of scrimmage with a special audible and completed a pass for fifteen yards. A defensive player smashed Ulee from the back seconds after be completed the pass. It was a “welcome to the big time” hit. Ulee couldn’t believe how much harder they hit than they did in college.
In the huddle several team members were shocked.
“How did you know our audibles or our plays?” one of the wide receivers asked.
“I read the playbook and what I read and understand I remember.”
The coach sent in a play for Ulee to run. But Ulee said, “I am changing the play pro right. Halfback motion right set up as trips—tight end split wide out.”
The team responded, and the halfback followed the fullback and ran for thirty-five yards. The coaches were livid that this rookie disregarded their instructions, but they couldn’t argue with the results. They sat back to see what else the kid could do.
Ulee threw a twenty-yard touchdown pass on the next play to his best friend Rod Halvorson. LA’s defense held and Ulee had the ball again with less than two minutes to go. Ulee led the team down the field with and called time out with forty-five seconds left in the first half. The coach told Ulee to run a play to the right, but Ulee said he wanted to do another shotgun-style play “We ran it before and we scored,” he told the coach.
Ulee took the ball and dropped deep. The tight end was open on the right for the screen. He gave it a hard pump fake, tricking the defenders into believing he was going to pass the ball. Instead, Ulee took off running, blazing down the middle of the field. No one came close to catching him.
Ulee scored and then leaped in the air, slamming the ball over the goal post, just as he had done in the big game against Seattle.
I cried as I watched Ulee celebrate. I had seen him as a football hero before, but never on this kind of stage. I thought of him missing high school because he killed a man defending me. I remembered what it was like when we heard he was KIA, POW, and MIA. He deserved this. Telemachus and Nhung kept asking, “Is that my daddy?”
“Yes,” I cried, “that is your daddy.”
At half time, the LA coach, called Ulee to the side and asked him how he knew their playbook so well.
“Coach, I read the playbook. What I read and understand I remember.”
“Really?” asked the coach incredulously.
“Give me a try,” said Ulee. “I know every play for every player. And I learned the audibles listening in practice.”
“I am glad you are on my team,” replied the coach.
In the second half, Ulee took control of the game, running for 160 yards and passing for another 250. He threw just one interception on a miscommunication play. The final score was LA 42, Philadelphia 38. The first week in the NFL, rookie Ulysses Looking Glass Sundown had the highest quarterback rating in the league.
Around the seminary, they never put two and two together to understand that Ulee Sundown was the war veteran who set NCAA Division II college records at tiny State College of LaGrande Oregon. The word spread slowly through the school until it hit the LA newspaper sports page headline with the headline “Seminary student shocks pro-football world!”
We met Ulee at the airport. To his family he was a hero. His grandparents flew down, his parents and his children were all there to greet the plane. He was our hero.
I kissed him when I saw him and said, “You are really doing well for just being part of the practice squad.”
The executive vice president of the Rams and general manager Tom Brently, was there to greet Ulee. He reached out his hand and said, “I don’t think we have met.”
“Nice to meet you, sir. This is my wife, Dr. Penelope Sundown, and this is my son, Telemachus Sundown, and my daughter, Nhung Sundown. Over there getting autographs are my two other boys, Plato and Aristotle.”
Mr. Brentley said, “Sundown . . . is that Spanish?”
“No sir,” said Ulee. “We are proud Nez Perce Native Americans.”
Mr. Brentley said, “I don’t think I have seen a quarterback come in with zero repetitions in practice and play the way you did. I look forward to seeing what the future holds for you and your family.”
Ulee said, “If I never play again I am thankful to God for this game and this moment. Thank you for the opportunity, sir. I hope they told you that I had it written in my
contract that I would not play before noon on Sunday. I have strong beliefs and the fact that our society is pulling the local church out of our priorities will contribute to the downfall of our society. So I am good as long as I am not competing with God.”
This pretty much sealed Ulee’s football fate. LA would accommodate its new star: no practice or games before noon Sunday. Ulee and the team went to the playoff that season, losing only two games. The team lost in the conference final, but had a spectacular year.
I can’t tell you how much the kids and Sundown family enjoyed watching Ulee play and reading stories about him.
The greatest aspect of sports is that it is truly a melting pot built on ability. Ulee was star, and no one asked me if I was his housekeeper because I was Hispanic and his skin was light. The Sundown family, itself, was a melting pot of races and cultures. But first and foremost, we were all Nez Perce—even our Vietnamese kids.
The family loved my Spanish heritage and cooking. And we learned as much about the Vietnamese heritage of our children. Ulee and I learned to cook traditional Vietnamese and Ulee kept us all using all the languages. Spanish, Nez Perce, Vietnamese, and English. We attended a Vietnamese missionary alliance church when we could as well as a large Latino church, this was another way we could save our cultural identities and treat one another with Godly respect. And you can imagine there was no one with more American patriotism than our family. Often in the pregame the TV camera would pan to Ulee, then to me and our kids all crying our eyes out as we sang proudly our nation’s national anthem.
Ulee had become a national celebrity but was fined by the league for not making himself available to the press. He had his reasons; Ulee did not want our lives scrutinized or judged. And he did not want to discuss Vietnam.
Chapter Eleven
The Past Invades the Present
THE CHILDREN SMILED as I told about Ulee’s heroic accomplishments on the football field. And then next day they were all out playing catch with the football, which is not easy in the woods. Living along the Wallowa River is an experience close to heaven. The sound of the roaring river colors everything. The deer around our house come up and eat out of our hands. The chipmunks are always begging for food and the raccoons even enjoy playing with our Beauceron. The blue jay watches as we wash our dishes over the open fire pit outside. The Eagles cry always makes us look up to the granite mountains towering over our lodge. A lot of family members sleep out under the stars they are so majestic from this altitude. All of this leads back to our legend-telling time around the fire each evening as the darkness changes the Wallowa Mountains and our imaginations begin to see in technicolor—again.
The second season Ulee became much better. The coaches had confidence in him and he passed practically every down and they seldom punted because he could pick up fourth downs so frequently. Together, LA was setting every record in the book. It was unheard of to string so many 300-yard passing games together, but Ulee and his receivers were averaging above that number.
They came up with a two-quarterback system to accommodate Ulee. Quarterback Jack Kirk started on days when Ulee couldn’t because of church. The Rams only lost two games and won Pro Championship, crushing its opposition with their air blitz attack
We were invited to the White House to meet the new Democratic President and were meeting influential people all over the country. Ulee used his celebrity to advocate for Native American causes, and he often did football camps at Native reservations.
I spent time working with the impoverished and marginalized immigrant population, practicing medicine there on Saturdays. And our children helped out at Asian community centers with their volunteer efforts. One day we were in a favorite bagel shop and some young men came in and started giving the Vietnamese owner a bad time.
“I thought we fought you guys in Nam, and now you come over and buy up everything here,” one man said.
The Vietnamese owner named Peter tried to be kind. I grabbed on to Ulee’s hand. He did not like a bully. But Telemachus, who was nine years old, stood up and walked right up to the guy giving the proprietor a bad time.
“You should be ashamed,” Telemachus said, staring down the man. “This is a hardworking man and heroic.”
The man felt ashamed and walked off with his friends. Ulee beamed with pride.
On the third season of Ulee playing for LA we had our own home in Malibu on the beach. We also built our own large cabin and ranch up near Hurricane Creek. We had a heard of Appaloosa ponies, a Nez Perce caretaker with his own cabin and a herd of buffalo running our range land. We had a large guest lodge for visiting tribesman. It was a little bit of heaven for us. At the same time, we certainly were not accustomed to the celebrity life.
Ulee still would not cooperate with interviews, adding to the mystery of his life. The team had improved through the draft every year and was being called one of the greatest in pro football history. They really focused on a balanced attack with both running and passing.
It was during this amazing undefeated season that I came to work and the nurses asked me if I had read the paper, heard the news on the radio, or seen the news on television. My hands started to shake and I sat down.
“What?” I said.
One of the nurses said, “It is not so bad. They didn’t catch your husband with another woman or drugs or something typical.”
“What?” I said. One of them handed me the Los Angeles newspaper. It was front page: “Star Quarterback Accused of Being Mass Murderer.” It had the team publicity photo of Ulee on it.
The article went something like this.
“According to eye witness sources, Ulee Sundown, professional quarterback and most valuable player in the league has been accused of being a mass murderer. The source said he has killed women, children, and men by the hundreds. On further investigation, this paper found that Ulee had a checkered past with gang activity in the Tri-Cities of Eastern Washington and was kicked out of high school after killing another student. The majority of the US public is still ashamed of the war in Vietnam, but Ulysses Looking Glass Sundown (Nez Perce) took it to a level never imagined in US history. He was, according to sources, better at war than he is at football and became a merciless murderer with the nickname of Savage. He even scalped his victims and hung them naked from trees.”
They showed a picture of him in uniform and covered with blood, and at least twenty dead Vietnamese piled behind him.
The article continued:
“At one point, he pulled the heart out of a living man in a fistfight with him. Maybe the most concerning part of the information is that he killed a United States lieutenant colonel by shooting him in the head along with five other American Marines serving in Vietnam. He was never prosecuted for this because he was deeded a very valuable asset as a sniper who could live in the field and produce record body counts. Evidently, Sundown fought as a mercenary for Israel in the Yom Kippur War and killed hundreds there also. His military records were sealed, but he was given an honorable discharge after the fall of Vietnam in 1975. The question we have to ask is not only, “Do we want a murderer from the most unpopular war in US history to get away with these actions, but also, should we permit someone of this kind of character to be a role model for the youth of America by playing for a professional sports team?”
I was devastated, but I had to complete my shift. People’s lives depended on it. I did call Ulee when I got the chance. He was almost catatonic with depression and said he did not want to talk about it. He said he had called in to miss practice. When I got home, the kids let me know that he had left in our fishing boat and that they did not know where he was headed. There was nothing I could do but pray. I guess that is a lot. And it helped me, but I knew how sensitive Ulee was about his past. We did not see him till Friday. I told him that he at least owed his team a call.
The coach made the decision to start Ulee on Sunday. That was a tough decision, since Ulee would not explain to any of us his side of the story. When
Ulee took the field, he was booed by both home and away fans. His fellow players even scorned him, except those who had played college with or against him.
Ulee played flawless football using the running game effectively, but even when he ran for a touchdown himself, his own fans booed. They won and Ulee came home without showering and hardly spoke to anyone. His friend Rod tried to talk to him but Uleee was just silent. Even Telemachus could not get him to speak. Now the press was really wound up. They tried to interview him, but he refused. Letters to the editor were horrible. Our house was egged. Telemachus got into a fight at school and came home with a black eye.
Nhung got a split lip trying to defend him, and all three of them ended up going to the emergency room. Telemachus was livid and looking for revenge. He tried to wear war paint to school the next day, so I kept all the kids home. The press met us every time we left the house and came home. They were at my work, and my fellow workers left me peace symbols on my office door.
Ulee played the next game against their Western Division rivals San Francisco. Ulee played like the savage, as he seemed to play with a vengeance. The fans of this antiwar city threw garbage at Ulee when he took the field. This time he never handed off. He just threw long passes to his wide receivers until the crowd became silent. Finally, the coach took him out when they were ahead by thirty-five points. After the game, some of the LA players did interviews saying they had heard nothing from Ulee and would refuse to play if they didn’t hear an explanation. That night Mike Wallace on 60 Minutes interviewed a Marine who had been a POW with Ulee and who had served with Ulee. Marine Slater would not allow his face to be shown or his name to be used.