WP:Gildea-Delhomme, Ramsey Added to Cajun Mix

[TK]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A45958-2003Nov15.html

Delhomme, Ramsey Added to Cajun Mix

By William Gildea

Sunday, November 16, 2003; Page E06

When the Redskins meet the Carolina Panthers this afternoon, the game will be rife with meaning: The Redskins will be trying for a second straight week to salvage their season, while the Panthers hope to continue on a clear and surprising path to the postseason. Interest in the game has been heightened by a subtext: Will the Panthers' Stephen Davis run into or through his old team? But the game offers yet another aspect, a sub-subtext, if you will, that discerning football fans in one particular part of the country have been eagerly anticipating.

That would be the matchup of quarterbacks, Patrick Ramsey and Jake Delhomme. This may not sound like Joe Montana vs. John Elway or Johnny Unitas vs. Joe Namath. But it qualifies as such in the state of Louisiana. Ramsey and Delhomme are Louisiana-born quarterbacks, the most recent manifestations of an extraordinary breed that includes Hall of Famer Terry Bradshaw, Doug Williams and Bert Jones to mention only three. If western Pennsylvania is rightly thought of as the birthplace of legendary quarterbacks, Ramsey-Delhomme serves as a reminder that Louisiana has developed its own glorious history.

It's true that Ramsey and Delhomme are young and striving to establish themselves in the NFL. But long ago, both found a special place at home in Louisiana, in the hearts of football fans there. If you're a quarterback of merit, you're theirs and, from all accounts, always will be. Quarterbacks tie together the generations.

Radio station KPEL in Lafayette, deep in Cajun country, joined the Carolina football radio network this season after the Panthers signed Delhomme. He comes from the nearby town of Breaux Bridge, which is known for its crawfish festival. At Louisiana-Lafayette, he established all the school's passing records. Bayou fans by the boatload who used to root for the New Orleans Saints have abandoned the team because it abandoned Delhomme. They now wear Carolina blue.

"People around here continue to mourn the loss of Jake Delhomme. They talk about it continually, to the point of obsession," said John Ed Bradley, the novelist and former Washington Post sportswriter who knows about Louisiana quarterbacks. He used to hike the ball to them at LSU, and now lives in New Orleans.

"People ask, 'How could the Saints have given up Jake Delhomme?' He's a native son. When he's gotten the chance, he's always played with a lot of heart. Whenever he was put in a game, he would play heroically. He's a winner. And he's made the people proud."

Up in the northern part of the state, around Shreveport, Monroe and Ruston, football is king.

Ruston produced Ramsey, who went on to Tulane, and Jones, who played at LSU. O.K. Davis, executive sports editor of the Ruston Daily Leader, having been at his post 34 years, covered Jones in Little League. "You'll probably write my obit," Jones has told him.

"Oh, Lord, yes," Davis said when asked if people there are still following Ramsey's career. "We use every opportunity to write about him. When I bump into somebody over at the Wal-Mart, they'll say, 'Good story on Patrick.' That's the kind of reaction you get." Knowing, of course, that Ramsey has been operating behind a porous offensive line, Davis added: "People wonder if he's got enough insurance for bodily injuries."

Reluctant to compare Jones ("The Ruston Rifle") and Ramsey, Davis allowed that both have excellent arm strength and thought he knew the reason: Both were javelin throwers in high school. "Bert set all the records at Ruston High and Patrick broke them," Davis said. "The other thing about them is the mettle of both players. You about got to knock 'em out to get 'em out."

Injuries forced Jones, the NFL's MVP in 1976 with the Baltimore Colts, to retire after just 10 seasons.

Otherwise, Davis believes Jones was on the road to Canton, Ohio, and the Pro Football Hall of Fame. But there's another Colts quarterback from Louisiana who might yet make it there, the Indianapolis Colts' Peyton Manning. Manning grew up in New Orleans, tossing footballs with his two brothers and their quarterback father Archie on the lawn of their antebellum home in the Garden District.

Over the years, quarterbacks have become folk heroes in Louisiana. They include longtime Buffalo Bill Joe Ferguson; David Woodley, who quarterbacked the Miami Dolphins against the Redskins in Super Bowl XVII; Bobby Hebert, "The Cajun Cannon"; Bubby Brister, James Harris, Kordell Stewart, former Redskin Stan Humphries and current Pittsburgh quarterback Tommy Maddox. The Redskins' longtime kick returner, Brian Mitchell, grew up in Plaquemine and quarterbacked Louisiana-Lafayette. Even Eddie Robinson, who won 408 games as Grambling's coach from 1941 to 1997, was a college quarterback in Louisiana, at Leland College in Baker.

As to why there are so many good Louisiana quarterbacks, there seems to be no whole answer. "It's the good water they have here in Louisiana," Davis said. "And I kind of mean that, too. Doug [Williams] has mentioned that, 'It's the water,' and we've laughed about that."

Louisiana has also long been a destination for quarterbacks. Born in East Texas, not far from the border, Y.A. Tittle desperately wanted to attend LSU back in the '40s, in part because his older brother had starred at Tulane. With LSU, Y.A. began a career that would eventually lead him to the Hall of Fame.

But that was not before in-state Texas recruiters lured him to Austin to enroll at the University of Texas, even though he had agreed to play at LSU. Like cavalry, two LSU coaches arrived for the rescue.

"They said I was going to have to tell Coach Bible. I was scared," Tittle told me some time ago, referring to Dana Bible, then the coach at Texas. "So I went into this phone booth with them watching and I faked it. I came back to their car and one of them said, 'What'd he say?' I said, 'He was sorry, but he understood.' Like that, we took off for Baton Rouge."

© 2003 The Washington Post Company