In pursuit of Faulk

Media, foes are left grasping

By Michael Smith, Globe Staff, 2/1/2002

EW ORLEANS - Even the game's greatest runner can't run away from this.

When you are the elusive Marshall Faulk, the best player in pro football and the key cast member in the Greatest Show on Earth, and you are about to play in the Biggest Show on Earth, which just so happens to be in your hometown, the spotlight is inescapable.

Oh sure, lots of other stories are getting plenty of ink: Kurt Warner, the NFL's MVR (Most Valuable Ram) this season and Super Bowl MVP two years ago; Tom Brady vs. Drew Bledsoe; Bill Belichick vs. Mike Martz; and Faulk's fellow New Orleans homey, Aeneas Williams, to name a few. But none of those story lines has gotten nearly as much publicity as ''Faulk's Backyard Super Bowl.''

This is Marshall Faulk's game. Whether he likes it or not, he is the beloved homecoming king. His face should be on the cover of the official game program, the event renamed Marshall Bowl I, and New Orleans be referred to as Faulk, La.

This week, it's his world.

''I wouldn't say it's been a distraction,'' Faulk said yesterday, the last day the 2000 NFL MVP was required to meet with the media and answer inquiries regarding his childhood. ''I think it's the focal point because you guys look for stories, and that's just it. So you can poke and pry about things in life that [I] basically have put behind [me].

''But that's the business. I understand you guys have a job to do. I just don't want to be the story, that's all.''

Yet the relentess investigation into his difficult past is one he can't shake. Neither can his family and friends. We already know the player who has made scoring touchdowns (59 in three seasons with St. Louis) and gaining yardage (2,000 from scrimmage a record four straight seasons) seem simple.

But everyone in America wants to know about teenage Marshall selling popcorn in the Superdome and sneaking peeks at Saints games. About him cooking fries and refusing to wash dishes at a French Quarter restaurant. About him growing up in the 9th Ward. About life in the Desire Housing Projects. About escaping poverty. About his years at George Washington Carver Senior High. About his charitable endeavors, such as his foundation's celebrity golf tournament that will raise money to rebuild St. Roch park, where Faulk says he learned to play football.

They want to know anything and everything about Faulk.

''Watching him on tape and on television does not do him justice,'' said Martz, the Rams coach. ''You almost have to see him in person to believe it. He has such great stop-and-go and change-of-direction ability. He can come to a dead stop and jump into full gear within two or three steps it seems. He is remarkable at seeing and being aware of holes, wherever it is, and being able to get through it before it closes up. He has that great runner's vision that people talk about.

''As at any position, when you talk about great players, the game kind of slows down for them. It certainly does for Marshall.

''Then, the other aspect of it is that he's probably one of the most unselfish players you will see in this league,'' added Martz, dispelling the prima donna reputation Faulk had in Indianapolis. ''He is a terrific pass blocker and we have asked him to be a lead blocker occasionally for Ernie Conwell. And he's a remarkable receiver. He probably has the best hands on the football team.''

Faulk definitely had the best number of receptions on the team, and that isn't easy to accomplish. He caught 83 passes, more than Torry Holt (81) or Isaac Bruce (64).

''He's the whole football package,'' Martz said. ''I don't know if there's ever been anybody like him. He's absolutely remarkable.''

School tales

While Marshall Faulk may have the speed, the quickness, and the strength, his mother, Cecile Faulk, has the caller ID. She says the phone in her New Orleans East home usually doesn't ring much. But it hasn't stopped since her son led the Rams over the Eagles in the NFC Championship game with 159 rushing yards and two touchdowns against one of the league's best defenses.

''It's hard,'' said Cecile Faulk, seated on a friend's sofa, speaking softly and briefly, with her hands folded on her lap. ''A lot of people think it's easy [being the mother of a pro football player]. But it's really not.''

''At one point, I thought I was looking forward to this,'' said Jack Phillips, Carver's football coach and one of the most sought-after interviews this week.

Phillips said that to his eighth caller yesterday morning. Call Carver High and ask for him, and the receptionist will ask, ''Are you a reporter?'' then take a message, and perhaps give you Phillips's direct number.

Phillips, Faulk's position coach when he was a Ram - yes, Carver's mascot is a Ram - from 1987-91, estimates he's spoken to 25 reporters. Countless others have tried to contact him. He hasn't the slightest idea how many have talked with Danielle Foley, the athletic director, or Faulk's teachers who are still at the school. Phillips figures he's seen 20 television cameras at Carver this week. Most of them were there Wednesday to capture the scheduled return of its famous alumnus, who couldn't show because of a mandatory press conference.

''It's unbelievable,'' Phillips said. ''But it's different. This doesn't happen too often.''

That's the way it is at Carver and in the 9th Ward, where news usually is of the bad variety. The networks and newspapers have come this week, one after another, to see where it all started for Marshall Faulk.

They've asked Phillips what kind of player Faulk was at Carver. He tells them he was a backup running back until late in his sophomore season. Faulk stepped in after the starting running back got injured, and wound up keeping the job for good. Phillips tells them how versatile (Faulk played defensive back, receiver, kicker), shifty, and speedy the skinny kid was. By former coach Wayne Reece's count, Faulk gained 2,000 yards from scrimmage and scored 25 touchdowns in each of his last two seasons at Carver. Phillips tells them how Faulk was recruited by Nebraska, Miami, Ohio State, and Texas A&M, among others, as a cornerback.

Reece said Faulk would have

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been a great one.

''Had he stuck with cornerback, he would have been the No. 1 pick in '94 instead of No. 2,'' said Reece, now the coach at Washington-Marion High in Lake Charles, La., who has been receiving a mere 3-4 calls a day.

Reporters have asked Phillips about how he took Faulk to McDonald's when the boy was hungry, and Reece about how he persuaded Faulk not to drop out of school as a sophomore to take a job to help his struggling mother. Both of them were asked about how they helped keep Faulk out of trouble.

Still others have asked Faulk's ninth-grade science teacher, Merrill Davis, what kind of student he was. She's told them he was a hard worker who got good grades, that he was mature and well-liked by the faculty, some of whom, like Davis and English teachers Madelyn White and Connie Hall, were part of the village that raised this child.

Davis and two of her colleagues advised Marshall, often treated him to dinner, brought him home when he had no way to get there, and went with him to select his senior prom tuxedo. Davis, in motherly fashion, once left the stands to attend to an injured Faulk on Carver's sideline during a game. The school janitor gave him some pocket change for helping him clean the building before school.

''A lot has been made about his background, but if you would have met him as a student, you'd never know that,'' Davis said.

That's because Cecile Faulk made sure Marshall knew education, not football, was his ticket out.

A mother's instincts

''I wanted him to accomplish something I didn't,'' said Cecile Faulk, who persuaded Marshall to remain at San Diego State another year after he finished runner-up for the Heisman Trophy as a sophomore, and nearly pulled him off the team at Carver when she felt his grades were slipping. ''I told him education was more important than anything.''

Cecile Faulk didn't want her son to play football for fear he would get hurt. Marshall didn't even develop an interest in the gridiron until high school.

His mother, who acknowledges she knows very little about the sport but does know that her son is pretty good, remembers going to only one or two of his legendary high school games.

''I didn't care for them much,'' she said. ''I get mad too quickly when they jump on him.''

Opponents often get infuriated because they seem to jump on Faulk only after he's covered a large portion of the field with a catch or run.

Cecile Faulk nearly had a fit when Marshall's helmet came off in a pile near the goal line last Sunday against Philadelphia.

''Oh, if I could have gotten through that television,'' she said. ''I had to get up and go walk. I couldn't take it.''

That's why she doesn't watch Marshall's play, unless the family is over and insists that she put the game on. Otherwise, Cecile Faulk would prefer to keep her television locked on Lifetime, or to pop in her favorite movie, ''Harlem Nights.'' (She also enjoys sewing and eating out. She makes her own clothes, and likes the catfish and gumbo at Dookie Chase's.)

Just a glimpse

Yesterday Cecile Faulk cooked (red beans) for a small gathering of family and friends as the phone rang continuously. If it wasn't a phone number she recognized, she had no desire to answer and talk of her years spent supporting a family by herself, or the nights when she and her children missed meals.

She went to the Super Bowl in Atlanta two years ago, but she hasn't decided whether she'll be in the Superdome Sunday, because she just knows someone's going to find her under her hat and ask for an interview and ''not let me have peace.''

In that respect, she's a lot like her son. She doesn't have much to say because she doesn't want to be the story; that's all.

''I'm feeling joyful on the inside,'' said Cecile Faulk, who as of Wednesday night had seen Marshall once since he arrived here, and only for a few moments, much longer than the Patriots will have to bring him down come Sunday, or else the homecoming king could be the game's MVP.

''I just sit and look at him. He amazes me, though.''

He amazes all.

''I'm proud of him. I really am.''

So is all of New Orleans.