Walter & Me (6 page)

I eagerly headed to Doc Fortenberry for a follow-up so I could get his blessing and finally get back on the field. It was a quick check-up, as I knew it’d be, and he told me everything looked fine with my leg. I was thrilled and ready to put that mess behind me.

“So, about football…I can do spring training in March, right?” I asked, trying to take him to the right answer.

“No, I don’t want you playing football for a while.”

That was not the right answer. I felt like I’d just been blindsided and was heartbroken yet again. And this time, I didn’t know what I was going to do. I didn’t have anything to look forward to. There was no looking on the bright side with this. No light at the end of the tunnel…. Then a light turned on in my head.

“Well, how about baseball in the spring?” I asked with the slightest of hesitancy. I thought he’d be okay with baseball since it wasn’t as strenuous as football, and I was right.

“Sure, I guess. You should be all right to play baseball.”

My plan was coming together. “Great, but here’s the thing. Momma’s worried, and she said I need a letter from you that says it’s all right to play baseball.”

Doc didn’t see what I was doing. He didn’t suspect a thing. “Okay,” he said, “I oughtta be able to do that. What do you want the note to say?”

Music to my ears. A symphony, in fact. “It should just say something simple like ‘I’ve examined Edward, and it’s all right for him to play
ball
this spring.’” I repeated it slowly for the good doctor to write it down, and he did just that. Word for word. The note said I could play “ball,” and I ran that thing back home like I was already back on the field.

“Momma! Momma!” She could tell I had good news. “Here’s the note from the doctor! See, it says right here that I can play football!”

Momma quickly scanned the note and sort of turned one side of her mouth up into a half smile. Did she notice the word “ball”? Would she question it?
Oh, no, she’s on to me….
She handed the note back to me and said, “All right, you can go back out there.”

Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hal-le-lu-jah!

I’m not sure angels were singing that chorus, but it was sure running through my head. I felt bad about my little trick for a second, or at most until I was out on that practice field in the spring. The next fall, I was ready for two-a-days and felt like I was close to all the way back. I just had to avoid a run-in with Doc Fortenberry out there on the field and I was home free. The missed time put me pretty far behind, though, so when my sophomore season came rolling around, I wasn’t getting much glory under the Saturday night lights (the white school had the field on Friday nights). None, to be exact. Plus, though the running back spot was okay, I had originally played running back
and
linebacker, and there just wasn’t a lot of demand that year for a 5'5", 145-pound linebacker. I wasn’t thrilled, but this time there was a light at the end of the tunnel. The next two years would be all mine.

Heading into my junior year, having still not grown, I was starting to develop a classic Napoleon complex. I started to feel like I was being overlooked because of my size, and I became determined to prove that size doesn’t matter. The goal became to do the only thing I could: knock the hell out of everybody. During spring training, I compensated for my size by being overly aggressive, especially on the defensive side of the ball, where my size mattered most. My kill-’em-all mentality seemed to be working just fine, and then I got what I’d been praying for all along. That’s right, I hit a growth spurt.

I got serious about weights, and Momma found me some nutriments, too. She’d seen me lose 10 pounds just lying there flirtin’ with that nurse in the hospital, and she started giving me nutriments to put some of that weight back on. I also started eating everything I could. I guzzled down a gallon of milk a week, and I started packing on the pounds. In addition to growing out, I starting growing up. And boy, did I ever grow. By the time my growth spurtin’ and weight gainin’ were done, heading into my junior year, I was playing middle linebacker at a whopping 5'7" and 160 pounds. Okay, fine, so it wasn’t such a great growth spurt, and I didn’t gain that much weight. But hey, for a kid as small as I was, growing an inch was like growing a foot, and putting on 15 pounds was like putting on a ton. So, there.

All of my aggressiveness and extreme growth paid off and catapulted me to great heights during my junior year. In addition to earning the starting middle linebacker spot, I earned the starting running back spot (and even served as the backup quarterback). So, there I was as a junior, finally all the way back (and then some) from that terrible broken leg. The only problem was that now other bones were breaking. Not mine, but bones of other kids. I was so aggressive that I had a hard time staying in games. Penalties were common, and I got thrown out of three or four games that year.

Have you ever seen
The Waterboy
with Adam Sandler? Well, on defense, I was kind of like that. Whacking people left and right. Making them pay for having the nerve to step onto the field with me. My first ejection was for throwing an elbow. I wanted to inflict pain and punishment, so I got it in my head that I needed to start leading with an elbow. It got worse and worse…until I got ejected. Coach wasn’t very happy about that. He placed me at the end of bench and calmly, yet firmly, said, “You sit down right there.”

Later on that same year, I got ejected for throwing a knee into some poor kid. I’ll never forget it. While playing middle linebacker, the center had his head down, and when he snapped the ball, I grabbed him by the shoulder pads and went straight up with my knee into his facemask. Stuff like that will get you tossed every time, but I guess I didn’t care. Well, Coach sure cared, and he once again placed me on the end of the bench, saying, “You sit down right there.”

Now, Coach Boston was a very nice coach. He never cursed at us. I mean, never. He was just a different sort of cat that way. He was a great teacher with simple ways about him. He was a do-it-right, do-it-again, play-as-hard-as-you-can kind of coach. And did I mention he didn’t curse? At the time, I thought he was just a calm guy and a little soft in the verbal abuse department. I thought he didn’t know how to curse when needed. Turns out I was wrong. He knew exactly what he was doing.

Later on that same year, Coach had had enough of my getting ejected and playing dirty and all that. We were playing the game that ended up getting us into the conference championship, and we were dominating early when I high tee’d a guy—elbow to the chin—which brought with it a 15-yard penalty. I wasn’t ejected on that play, but it was headed that way, and a penalty hurts the team, too. Coach called me over to the sideline and I was expecting him to place me on the end of the bench with another calm yet firm, “You sit down right there.” I got a little more than that. Coach grabbed me by the jersey with all the force he could muster, looked me square in the eyes and yelled, “You ain’t gonna fuck me up tonight, Chief!” I was shocked. In fact, that one sentence from Coach was so effective that it calmed me down for the rest of my career. And you know what? I think it was so effective because Coach didn’t overuse curse words like Rex Ryan and some other coaches famously do. Now, I realize this was high school and all, but I can tell you from experience that, while curse words can be powerful motivators, they’re most powerful when rarely used. That’s when they pack the most punch.

Fully motivated by Coach to get my act together on the field, I was the complete package heading into my senior year. I was finally starting to reach my maximum potential, and Walter was slipping ever more into the shadow of his older brother. I had come back from my broken leg to be a star football player, and Walter wasn’t even playing football during my junior and senior seasons. That was his choice. And looking back, I think he was showing me some sort of unspoken, adolescent, sibling type of respect, letting me have my time in the spotlight even it if meant I was casting a shadow on him.

If Walter was living in my shadow by choice, I’m grateful, because my senior year was something special. We were such a good team that year. We opened up against Jim Hill High of Jackson. They were in the North Big 8, and we were a couple of divisions below them in the Tideland conference. Jim Hill High was the largest school we’d play ll year. The previous year, they really beat up on us. I think I scored a touchdown, but they won the game something like 30–14. It was embarrassing, but my senior year was our chance at a little payback. We knew it, too. It was opening game, and we were ready to roll. Coach Boston tells it best:

We really had no business playing a big school like Jim Hill. I’d been trying to drop them from our schedule, but my principal wouldn’t let me. We didn’t have film and everything like they do now, but I’d ease up to Jackson and try to catch them practicing. Usually when I’d go up there, I’d first stop by Jackson State College and visit a friend who worked there. Then I’d go scout Jim Hill High, and on game day, I’d see different players than the ones I saw at practice. I didn’t know what was happening until before the last game we played against them with Eddie. The coach at Jackson State and the coach at Jim Hill High were buddies, and as it turns out, the Jackson State coach would find out I’d stopped by the college and would let the Jim Hill High coach know I was coming over to scout, and he’d have a different set of guys out there for me to see. So, during my last visit to Jackson, I didn’t go by Jackson State first. I went straight to Jim Hill’s practice that time. When I walked up, people were just standing around, so I mixed right in. I didn’t have a notepad because I knew they would’ve noticed that, so I just had to try to make mental notes. The first thing I noticed was their center. He was a small guy. I saw that he kept his head down after he snapped the ball, so I thought,
I’m going to tell Eddie to attack him.
And you know he did—he did a marvelous job on that guy. We beat Jim Hill High that day 35–12, if I remember correctly. They dropped us from their schedule after that game. My, oh my, how roles reverse sometimes.

That game against Jim Hill High defined my senior season. We ripped through the schedule and made it to the championship game, which we lost to Heidelberg. To this day, I say we didn’t lose that championship game because of talent; we lost it because of their level of experience. They were grown men over there. We’d never lined up against high school players who had beards and mustaches before, so we thought something funny was going on. Who knows? All I know is it was a great year, and it flew by. Before I knew it, and perhaps even before I was ready for it, the college recruiting process was on.

It was all sorts of surreal, with people calling and coming by to talk to us. Our team had seven or eight top-notch prospects, including me, all of which would be recruited today by Division I programs from all over the country. At the time, opportunities were a bit limited. Recruiters were in and out from places like Cal State, Long Beach, West Virginia, and Wisconsin. Those seemed like the only schools recruiting black players. The SEC didn’t recruit black players at the time, so we could only talk to who’d talk to us.

I was all-conference my senior year and was told over and over again that I was one of the most versatile athletes in the state of Mississippi. I was being recruited by Wisconsin, Cal State, Xavier of New Orleans, and Dillard. But despite my junior-year growth spurt of a full inch, I was still too small for most schools. Again, I was only 5'7" and 160 pounds. Maybe a little taller and a little heavier soaking wet with mud stuck to my shoes, but even so, I was just too little for a lot of coaches. Too small even for friends of Coach Boston.

Coach was an Alcorn alum, so Jefferson High had become a pipeline for players to Alcorn. Also, Alcorn was a historically all-black school, so I had no problem there. I was all black, that’s for sure. On top of that, Coach Boston specifically told Alcorn’s coach, Marino “The Godfather” Casem, that he needed to take me. Though it seemed like a sure thing, it wasn’t enough for Coach Casem. He still said I was too small, so Alcorn was a no-go. Funny thing is, looking back, it’s good that I didn’t go to Alcorn. Not necessarily because Alcorn would’ve been a bad place for me, but as it turns out (as I’ll get into a little more later), Walter would’ve followed me there. Who knows how things would have turned out for him had he gone to Alcorn? All we know is how things turned out at Jackson State, and I’m sure we’d all agree that we wouldn’t change a thing.

Jackson State wanted two guys from Jefferson High: Ray Holmes (the other running back) and me. Holmes had scored 30 touchdowns as a senior, and I had scored 28, so we were pretty even in terms of scoring. He was bigger than me, though. At 5'10" and 200 pounds, Ray was considered a big back by any standards back in 1969. I guess you could say we were like thunder and lightning, and Jackson State wanted the whole storm. They certainly seemed to want us more than the other schools that were recruiting us from far away places. Perhaps it’s just that they were closer than the other schools, and head coach Bob Hill could come visit more.

Coach Hill would come down to Columbia to meet with me and Ray, and it all seemed just fine to us. During one of his visits, he must’ve cut a deal with Mr. McLaurin, the Jefferson High principal at the time. Ray and I were called to Mr. McLaurin’s office one day, and he told us how our football dreams were going to come true. “This is what we’re gonna do the night before national signing day,” he said. “I want you guys to stay here in my office after school, and Coach Hill will be coming down to pick y’all up. He’s gonna take you up to Jackson. If you need anything, clothes and stuff, he’s gonna get it for ya, and they want you to sign with Jackson State.”

I guess you could say I was pretty damn naïve back then, because I just went right on along with what I was told and didn’t think nothing of it. Ray and I were called from our last class on the day before national signing day and taken to Mr. McLaurin’s office. I say “taken,” but we went willingly. We were told to just sit there in the principal’s office to wait for Coach Hill, and Mr. McLaurin said he’d let our parents know where we were. When Coach Hill got there, he took us to his purple Impala, and we shuffled on in for the ride to Jackson. On the way, there wasn’t much conversation between Coach Hill, Ray, and me. Just small talk about how Ray and I were going to be featured backs in the Jackson State offense. Sounded good to us, I guess. What did we know? It was kind of like all that “be all you can be in the Army” stuff. Speaking of which, when we arrived at Jackson State, we were ushered into a military-style barracks on campus with about 15 other guys we didn’t know. Seemed the principals of their high schools had apparently cut the same deal with Coach Hill. We were all a little uneasy about the whole situation and didn’t really say much. Coach Hill and others then took us to what was the Penguin Restaurant at the time to feed us hot dogs and hamburgers, and then returned us to the barracks for the night, where we slept on fold-out cots lined up in a row. The next morning we all signed a letter of intent in the coach’s office, and that was that. I’d like to say I was offered a bunch of money to sign, but the fact is I signed for the hot dog special at the Penguin Restaurant.