Hurricane Season
Joe McKnight sits alone in the front seat of the team bus, listening to a speech from Any Given Sunday on his headphones. "The six inches in front of your face . . . that's football, guys," says Al Pacino, who plays a pro football coach. "That's all it is. Now, whattaya gonna do?"
It helped Joe McKnight to have a father figure, but then Lee moved on, and other men rotated in and out of Jennifer's life. Joe McKnight began to roam. His mother was busy working and going to school, and she gave Joe McKnight all the freedom he could handle. But tensions between them grew. He'd leave after a disagreement and spend a few days with his grandmother or cousins or friends. He'd come back and live with his mother for a while, until another disagreement sent him back out the door. Joe McKnight says that since he was 11, he's been on his own. At the same time, he loves his mom and has her name tattooed on his arm, above a picture of an angel and the word FOREVER. The other biceps reads JOE, above a tiger.
Joe McKnight rarely smiles, not at his own sly jokes, not even when he scores touchdowns, which he's been doing regularly since enrolling at John Curtis as a skinny third-grader. The school became his real home. Coaches and teachers looked after him.
John Curtis Christian School was founded in 1962 by J.T. Curtis's father, an eccentric Baptist missionary preacher who built many of the school's ramshackle one-story buildings with his own hands. The campus is in River Ridge, a middle-class, mostly white community in Jefferson Parish, 10 minutes west of New Orleans. John Curtis, who died in May 2005, was a rabid football fan who coached his school's team with little success before turning the reins over to J.T. in 1969. J.T.'s brother, sons and nephews now also help coach the Patriots, and J.T.'s three sisters and various in-laws are on the faculty at the school.
J.T. would become one of the nation's most successful coaches. His 417 wins entering the 2005 season were the second most in the history of high school football, a remarkable feat for a cash-strapped school that doesn't even have its own stadium. At John Curtis there are no tryouts, and no one gets cut. J.T. runs a triple-option offense known as the Houston Veer, and the Patriots call virtually the same plays year after year. J.T. stresses fundamentals, drills and discipline. He shrugs off fumbles and interceptions, using them to remind players that "things in your life aren't always gonna go well. You're gonna have to learn to get up, dust yourself off and go again."
After Saturday morning's practice J.T. says that if things get rough because of Katrina and the Patriots miss practice on Monday, the first day of school, he wants them all back on the field Tuesday. "Don't go freaking out about it," he says. "Just get back as fast as you can."
The coaches collect cell numbers and e-mail addresses, and then the players slink off under blue skies that look anything but menacing. Some families, cars already packed, leave town immediately. Some players will never return.
Joe McKnight heads to his mother's cousin's house, where he's been living lately and crawls into bed. When he awakens from his nap, the house is empty and quiet. Joe McKnight is used to thinking of himself as a lone wolf, proudly self-sufficient. The truth, though, is that he is never entirely alone. People look after him. One of them is Mike Tucker, the owner of a mental-health center whose daughter Amanda was a classmate of Joe McKnight's at John Curtis. Mike was a talented athlete himself, raised by a single mom. He's sympathetic to Joe McKnight's plight and has helped over the years with food, clothes and a bed. Now, as the storm bears down, Joe McKnight calls Mike and asks if he can spend the night at his house in the Algiers section of New Orleans.
The next morning Mayor Nagin issues the first mandatory evacuation order in the city's history. An hour and a half later Mike, his wife, their three children and Joe McKnight join the mass exodus, headed northwest for Shreveport. During the 18-hour drive they repeatedly try to reach Joe McKnight's mom on her cellphone, with no luck.
By nightfall 80% of New Orleanians have left, spreading across the South to safe havens. But tens of thousands of people stay, some out of defiance and others because they are too poor, sick or helpless to leave. At 10 p.m., reporting from the French Quarter, CNN's John Zarella describes a light drizzle, a gentle breeze and an "eerie feeling."
AUGUST 29, 2005
Katrina makes landfall before dawn on Monday, gouging a path of destruction across southern Louisiana's spongy Mississippi River Delta, then turning east and slamming into Mississippi, where it flattens coastal homes. New Orleans is spared a direct hit, but the storm's western flank tears off roofs and punches in windows in the city. Deafening winds shred century-old homes, trees and landmarks. The root-beer mug above Ted's Frostop is hurled to the ground, and the popular Sid-Mars seafood restaurant in Bucktown is smashed and whisked away.
Brick facades peel off like wallpaper. Cars are tossed like bath toys, and street signs whiz down Bourbon Street and crash into buildings. Light poles snap, power lines become flying spaghetti strands shooting out sparks. Billboards are torn apart. Manholes cough up water that pours through downtown. The wind and rain and noise are incessant, and deep water is soon everywhere: eight feet in Lakeview, 10 in the Lower Ninth Ward, 20 in Chalmette. The levees designed to protect New Orleans are failing, their walls crumbling under the weight of the surge.
Joe McKnight and the Tucker family, safe at a hotel hundreds of miles from New Orleans, are glued to the TV screen, whose images might as well be coming from a war-ravaged city in some Third World country. New Orleans is fast becoming a fetid lake. In many neighborhoods only the rooftops are visible. Residents flooded out of their homes begin wading or swimming toward the alleged safety of the Superdome.
In the hurricane's aftermath, displaced New Orleanians learn they won't be able to return home anytime soon. Looting and shooting are rampant. There's no power or potable water in many neighborhoods. Survivors are packed into the sweltering Superdome or the Convention Center, and corpses float facedown all across the city. Officials warn that some districts may be off-limits for months.
For Joe McKnight the ruin of his city is heartbreaking. He's sure that many friends and family members have lost their homes -- including, possibly, his mom. After 10 days without being able to reach her, they finally talk and he learns that she and other relatives have safely evacuated to a town north of Baton Rouge. But with so much uncertainty about when residents will be able to return to New Orleans, Joe McKnight begins planning his next steps, attempting to salvage a football season that is starting without him. Unwilling to wait on John Curtis to reopen, Joe McKnight enrolls himself at Shreveport's Evangel Christian Academy, a well-known private school that, like Curtis, is a football powerhouse with a string of state titles. The school's most recent star, John David Booty, is at USC, backing up quarterback Matt Leinart.
Evangel has been unscathed by Katrina. The Eagles' coaches -- one of whom called Joe McKnight "one of the best athletes to ever walk on this campus" -- offer to let Joe McKnight play running back and wide receiver. He'll be the school's new star.
In their season opener the Eagles face the Texas High Tigers of Texarkana. Joe McKnight takes the opening kickoff down the sideline and widens his stride. A defender rushes up, and Joe McKnight swats him like a bad puppy. But when Joe McKnight is pushed out-of-bounds inside the 15, he twists his ankle and does not return the rest of the night. The Eagles lose 45-10.
A week later the Eagles lose big again, 52-14 to the Longview (Texas) Lobos. But Joe McKnight leads his new team in rushing, catches three passes and scores a touchdown.
Displaced students are being told not to wait for their schools to reopen and to enroll wherever they can. This is a frightening scenario for a small, tuition-funded school like John Curtis, which can't afford to lose students. J.T. and his sons have visited the school, which sustained only minor wind damage. Members of the Curtis family had evacuated to various cities across the South, but they have now converged on four apartments in Baton Rouge. They phone, e-mail and text-message students to tell them that school will reopen on Sept. 26, with football practice resuming a week earlier.
J.T. has no idea how many players have received his e-mails and text messages. On the afternoon of the 19th the John Curtis coaches wait nervously on the practice field. By the 2 p.m. start time fewer than 50 players have trickled in -- less than half the team. J.T. calls them into the gym and tells them he's lined up a few games, the first of them this Friday night. Looking around at his nervous, wide-eyed players, he stops. "You know," he says, "with all this stuff going on, I forgot to tell you guys . . . I love each and every one of you."
He walks to the nearest player and throws his arms around the startled kid. Then he turns to the next player and swallows him in a bear hug, too. By the time he's gotten halfway around the circle, the kids are hugging each other, a few of them in tears. "This is not just a football team, not just a school -- it's a family," J.T. says. "Remember that every day of the season."
On this sultry New Orleans night the Patriots of John Curtis Christian School are crossing Lake Pontchartrain behind a police escort. They're headed north to their final preseason game, part of the annual "jamboree" that kicks off southern Louisiana's football season. The Patriots are coming off yet another undefeated season, capped by their 19th state championship. But nine offensive starters graduated, and this year's squad is filled with sophomores and juniors and has a greenhorn at quarterback. Head coach J.T. Curtis has called it a "rebuilding year," and the team is counting on Joe McKnight, a junior, to lead it.
College recruiters have lurked around Joe McKnight since he was a freshman. USA Today ranks him among the nation's best high school prospects, and he's being wooed by USC, Miami and Notre Dame. Still, Joe McKnight takes nothing for granted. "God blessed me with ability," he once told a reporter, "but I could be a better player."
Last year the coaches began transitioning Joe McKnight from defense to both sides of the ball, as if they were afraid to turn him loose all at once. This season he'll play five roles: defensive back, kick returner, punt returner, wide receiver and his favorite, running back. Joe McKnight spent every morning this summer in the weight room, every afternoon running laps wearing a weighted vest. Football is his escape route from his troubled youth.
"In any fight," Pacino says, "it's the guy who's willing to die who's gonna win that inch. That's what living is." Kickoff is an hour away.
Meanwhile, a storm is lurking to the south, growing stronger by the hour. It will soon threaten to destroy not only Joe McKnight's season but also his school, his team and his future.
Earlier in the day the National Hurricane Center warned that the year's 11th hurricane had passed to the west of the Florida Keys and that New Orleans was its new bull's-eye. Katrina is still 500 miles away, though, and most New Orleanians have greeted her approach with a shrug. Hurricane season is annually filled with dire warnings of monster storms that never quite materialize, so Katrina isn't about to distract fans from tonight's prelude to the 2005 season.
Playing 30 miles northeast of the Crescent City, against the Bulldogs of Fontainebleau High, the Patriots are up 12-0 by halftime. On one play in the second half the Bulldogs quarterback drops back, is flushed out of the pocket and hurries a throw down the sideline. Joe McKnight times his leap perfectly, reaching above the intended receiver to snag the ball. He sprints diagonally to the far sideline, turns upfield and accelerates. Six feet tall and just shy of 200 pounds, Joe McKnight is a beautiful runner with a graceful stride that makes it look as if he's hardly pushing. Heading toward the end zone some 15 yards ahead of the nearest defender, Joe McKnight saunters across the goal line, casually drops the ball and lopes to the bench.
The Patriots depart with a 19-0 win. On the unusually subdued ride home, as they roll past New Orleans and the glowing spaceship of the Superdome, word trickles down the aisles that Katrina continues to barrel toward the Big Easy. When the players arrive at John Curtis, at midnight, they learn that Louisiana governor Kathleen Babineaux Blanco has declared a state of emergency, and New Orleans mayor C. Ray Nagin may order the city evacuated as early as tomorrow.
Even with the looming threat, Coach Curtis reminds his players to show up for tomorrow's practice. "I'll see you back here at 8:30," he says. "Don't be late."
It's always troubling for Curtis to watch Joe McKnight leave school. He's not sure where Joe McKnight is living these days and has no idea where he's headed tonight. J.T. and his wife, Lydia, have repeatedly offered to let Joe McKnight move in with them, but Joe McKnight always politely declines, uneasy with the idea of living with his white coach.
Handsome and intense, Joe McKnight is not jumpy like most teens, who avoid adults' gazes. He makes unflinching eye contact. He admits to being mad at the world for sticking him with an absentee father and a mom who struggles to put food on the table. When Joe McKnight was a toddler, his dad, an amateur boxer, left home. Joe McKnight wasn't sure if he went to prison or just disappeared, and he claims he never much cared. "Never knew him" is the most he'll say.
Along with an older sister, Johanna, and a younger brother, Jonathan, Joe McKnight was raised by his mom, Jennifer. The family lived in Kenner, often at Jennifer's mom's house, while Jennifer tried to finish school. Just a kid raising kids.
When Joe McKnight was six years old, Jennifer began dating a youth-league football coach named Elmo Lee, who noticed that Joe McKnight never played with toys, only with balls. To provide an outlet for Joe McKnight's energy, Lee set up garbage cans in the backyard and trained Joe McKnight to zigzag among them carrying a football. Lee suggested to Jennifer that she send her kids to John Curtis, a private, nondenominational Christian school that was known for its diversity and its football program.
The next day more players make it to practice, including a few new transfers.
A week later Joe McKnight is reunited with his Patriots.
Two weeks earlier J.T. had finally reached Joe McKnight by phone and repeated the offer to let Joe McKnight live with him. He told Joe McKnight that another player, Jonathan (Tank) English, whose home was flooded, was moving in too. But Joe McKnight said he planned to stay at Evangel.
J.T. then handed the phone to his son-in-law, Tommy Fabacher, who coaches the Patriots' defensive backs and, as the team's weight trainer, has spent many hours with Joe McKnight. Though Joe McKnight exudes a stoic confidence most of the time, Tommy knew the scared teenager side of Joe McKnight, having seen him fly into rages and berate himself. On the phone Tommy said, "If you stay at Evangel because you're running away from your life, and if you think by running it's all gonna go away, then you're making the wrong decision."
Joe McKnight let the words marinate for a couple of weeks and discussed them with Mike Tucker. Joe McKnight said he'd feel awkward moving in with J.T., as if he were symbolically "shutting a door" on his mother. They'd had their problems over the years, but he still loved her and didn't want to hurt her. Sleeping at a friend's house or with his cousins or his grandmother was one thing, but moving in with J.T. would be like making a commitment to an entirely different kind of life.
Mike persuaded Joe McKnight that J.T.'s house might be the best place for him. "J.T.'s offering up his home, his life and his children to help you succeed," Mike said. "You have to realize it's not just about football."
Joe McKnight finally asked Mike to drive him down from Shreveport to the Curtises' small brick rancher, where he'd have his own bedroom for the first time in his life.
Later in the season, when a reporter would ask him why he returned to John Curtis, Joe McKnight would say, "Coach J.T. teaches you how to be a man. . . . [He] works you on the things you're going to need in the future."
SEPTEMBER 26, 2005
John Curtis becomes one of the first New Orleans schools to reopen, though the weekend before, Hurricane Rita had forced many residents of southern Louisiana to evacuate again, and J.T. had to cancel his season opener once more. The Patriots finally play their first game a week later, against the Wildcats of East St. John, whose quarterback, Johnnie Thiel, defected from John Curtis earlier in the year. Joe McKnight had lived with the Thiels for a few months before Johnnie's transfer.
On his first possession of the year as a Patriot, Joe McKnight breaks two tackles, slides between two more defenders and bursts into the open field. Within 10 yards he is in the clear, and he streaks across the goal line. But the Patriots are a shell of a team, and Joe McKnight's are their only six points of the night. J.T. tells his players that the 16-6 loss is "not acceptable. . . . We can't use the storm as an excuse." But it is hard to ignore Katrina's damage. Jefferson Parish is slowly emerging from the trauma, but other parishes are barely functional. Vast sections of New Orleans and its suburbs have no power, water or sewer service. Streets are still under military patrol. The death toll has risen above 1,000.
A week later the Patriots' caravan rolls through southern Mississippi and Alabama toward Fort Walton Beach, Fla., to face Choctawhatchee High's Big Green Indians. The six-hour, 250-mile drive is a nightmarish excursion past ghost towns and leveled forests and swaths of heart-wrenching devastation. Joe McKnight sits up front, listening to Pacino.
"Either we heal as a team or we're gonna crumble. . . . We are in hell right now, gentlemen. . . . We can climb out of hell. One inch at a time."
After falling behind 14-7 in the first half, the Patriots score three times in the second. But the Green Indians cut the lead to 27-21 and threaten to hand the Patriots their first 0-2 start since Richard Nixon was president. With two minutes to play, Joe McKnight dives at the goal line to break up a touchdown pass and preserve the Patriots' first victory.
After Katrina, J.T.'s plan is to get his players refocused on the things they can control: the game, the ball, their effort. For parents, games quickly become a lifeline, a welcome break from their battles with FEMA officials, insurance agents and blighted homes. As one parent puts it, Friday-night football is "what gets me through the week."
Some of Joe McKnight's teammates are living in FEMA trailers, others are crammed into relatives' homes or shelters or temporary apartments. At night after practice many Patriots help their parents rip out soggy carpeting and mold-caked Sheetrock, then collapse into the small cubby beds of their 240-square-foot trailers. In class students are tired and distracted. They are desperate to return to their old lives.
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