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DAD’S FUNERAL, WITH ALLthe trimmings, had been the day before, at the Cathedral of Saint Mary of the Assumption. Now it was game day, the Wolves’ opener, against the Browns. I was using only one of the two season tickets on the forty yard line that I’d secretly bought after my last argument with my father, during which he told me for the last time what a disappointment I’d been to him.
I was happy sitting by myself, not having to listen to somebody who wanted to impress me with how much football he knew. I could focus on the game, take notes when I saw a play I thought might help my high school team, test myself to see how many plays I knew were coming just by the formation the Wolves were in.
Joe Wolf had always said that I was the best football man in the family.
Including himself.
By now we’d gone through all the phony pageantry of a death in sports, the moment of silence before the kickoff and the flags at half-staff and the video tribute at halftime. I was hoping that wherever my father was today he was laughing his Irish ass off at the spectacle of the whole stadium being practically overwrought, wanting the Wolves to win one for Joe today.
And wewerewinning in the fourth quarter. Our quarterback hadn’t been great today, hadn’t been great for a while. But Ted Skyler, that horse’s ass, had managed to throw a couple of touchdown passes, and when he did throw a bad interception, the way he just had, the defense covered for him and held the Browns to a field goal and kept us in the lead, 23–20.
All we needed to do when we got the ball back with two minutes to go was run out the clock, if we could.
Ted handed the ball off twice. Third and four now. The Browns called their last time-out. We needed just one first down.
This time I did know what was coming from our formation: Ted was going to throw a quick slant pass to DeLavarious Harmon, our star rookie receiver.
The kid ran a perfect pattern, Ted hit him in stride, DeLavarious was brought down immediately: first down, game as good as over.
DeLavarious popped right up, handed the ball to the ref, pointed in a showy way indicating that he had in fact made the first down, started walking back to the huddle.
I don’t know why my eyes were still on him. But they were. So I was looking directly at the kid, right there in front of me on the forty, when his left leg buckled underneath him, and he spun around as if suddenly dizzy, then fell face-forward to the turf.
And stopped moving.
Eight
THEY DIDN’T BRING OUTthe kind of flatbed cart they used to transfer an injured player off the field, calling for an ambulance instead while players from both teams knelt and formed a circle around DeLavarious Harmon.
Who still hadn’t moved.
Wolves Stadium was as quiet as it had been during the pregame moment of silence for Joe Wolf. Our offense didn’t even line up for one more snap in what would have been the last minute. The refs waited until the ambulance had left the field, then the lead official went to midfield and waved his arms, indicating that the game was over.
In my life, I’d never seen a game called before the clock officially ran out.
I was moving up through the stands then, pulling out the all-access pass I kept in my bag, taking the closest elevator down to the field level and the Wolves’ locker room, on my side of the stadium.
By the time I got to the runway, the ambulance was already gone. It was thirty minutes, maybe, since DeLavarious Harmon had collapsed. Some of our players were standing outside the locker room door, many still wearing their helmets. One of them was Ted Skyler, who looked at me and shook his head.
Danny Wolf was leaning against the wall next to the door, alone, eyes vacant, ashen-faced, phone in his hand.
I walked over to him.
“What happened?”
He turned and stared at me, almost as if he didn’t recognize me at first.
“What?”
“Danny, how is he?”
“He’s dead, is how he is,” my brother said.
Now I stared at him. My father had told me one time that in the history of the NFL, only one player had ever died during a game. Back in the 1970s. I don’t know why I knew his name in that moment, but for some reason I did. Chuck Hughes of the Lions. A heart condition nobody knew he had. The things you remember.
“How?”I said to my brother.
“How? He stopped breathing. That’s how.”
