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damn the 911 call is crazy. wow... Mcnairs boy was distraught and horrified
Steve McNair found shot to death. Murder-Suicide by 20 year old GF
- Thread in 'Sports & Training' Thread starter Started by scotthallwithapick,
- Start date
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Did we ever find out if he and his wife were separated or anything?
I mean, now he might have had a second girl on the side?
I mean, now he might have had a second girl on the side?
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hella %*!+%@ up
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This is a serious issue but this made me
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Originally Posted by ScottHallWithAPick
This is a serious issue but this made me
def. noticed that ... when its not returned ... she def. didn't play her position, was trying to move up in the world ... was she that tight that mcnairjumped in the taxi ... RIP ... damn
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Your right cause i believe making up all these crazy senerios instead of looking at facts is foolish too. Im usually in to conspircies and stuff like that but this has always seemed like a
M-S to me.
most of the scenarios came as the facts were still sketchy and being released in pieces...now that the "facts" are out officially itsmuch easier to say oh ok thats what happened-
some of it still doesn't make sense but it really doesn't have to i guess - its funny how they have all these extra details now about her being upsetand all that - 90% of which i'm sure is coming from the hater of the year ex boyfriend.....crazy how his word can shape alot of this that would havenormally been left unknown
i'm disgusted at the way most of the media is treating this and basically saying everything mcnair did up to this point is erased and that he abadoned hischildren to be with some 20yr old jumpoff behind his wifes back -
\
RIP to Air Mcnair...sadly we will prob never know the truth
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With the case pretty much closed to a M-S, or at least that's what the police wants us to think, it sucks that it seems like there are so many questionsthat will be left unanswered. Of course, maybe those questions and answers are probably just not revealed to the public.
So after reading the article and watching that DUI vid above, I'm going to assume that after Mcnair bailed the girl out of jail, he probably had that talkwith her about wanting to end things. That would explain what might have prompted her to go out and buy a gun that same day assuming she got pulled over earlyThursday morning. I wonder who that 3rd person was in the car with them.
With the case presumed closed, we're all left with a lot of questions that we'll probably never know the answers to. With that said, R.I.P. to SteveMcNair and my condolences goes out to his family and friends.
So after reading the article and watching that DUI vid above, I'm going to assume that after Mcnair bailed the girl out of jail, he probably had that talkwith her about wanting to end things. That would explain what might have prompted her to go out and buy a gun that same day assuming she got pulled over earlyThursday morning. I wonder who that 3rd person was in the car with them.
With the case presumed closed, we're all left with a lot of questions that we'll probably never know the answers to. With that said, R.I.P. to SteveMcNair and my condolences goes out to his family and friends.
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Looks like that DUI was the straw that broke the camel's back. Stupid bird. Rot in pieces.
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So his jumpoff just killed him for no reason? Damn, Mcnair, why'd you have to cheat with that crazy broad? Why did you have to cheat period?
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If Steve really was as drunk as they say, then that's not really proof he wasn't feeling her, y'know?Originally Posted by cRazy dav0
Originally Posted by ScottHallWithAPick
This is a serious issue but this made me
def. noticed that ... when its not returned ... she def. didn't play her position, was trying to move up in the world ... was she that tight that mcnair jumped in the taxi ... RIP ... damn
Or he could have just been simply ticked off that this chick did something to get pulled over to get the dui in the first place and now he has to bail her out.
But yeah, it's looking more and more like m-s.
A lot of things still don't seem right.
But there's nothing we can do except accept the motive and the findings.
superfly
Banned
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R.I.P McNair, the ravens will sure miss you!
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Welp - much as I'm still skeptical about some of these details... like i said before about the Sean Taylor case, many times the simplest answer is theright one and the details just get blurry because of the disbelief involved.
I'll be interested in seeing all the final details that come out..... and I do believe if there was any other possible cause of this it had to be a pro ofsome sort... but it seems like this one is wrapped up, and this chick was just straight bonkers. To shoot somebody up like that, somebody you supposedly loveespecially... is insane.
RIP Steve...
I'll be interested in seeing all the final details that come out..... and I do believe if there was any other possible cause of this it had to be a pro ofsome sort... but it seems like this one is wrapped up, and this chick was just straight bonkers. To shoot somebody up like that, somebody you supposedly loveespecially... is insane.
RIP Steve...
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What a sad and messed up situation all around! Not sure if the wife knew he was messing around with other girls, but I feel for her and the kids. Despite thefact he was a sleaze, liar, and a cheater,no way did he deserve to be murdered in this vicious and despicable manner. It seemed like she was at a bad place andwould not take being the "mistress" since he would not leave his wife. In extreme cases, this is what can happen when you mess with jump-offs. Thisis just one of the many reasons why it is not worth it to cheat, on top of it already being ethically wrong. There are some psychotic and crazy women out therewho will not let any man get away with playing with their emotions or heart like that and where in extreme cases it can be fatal.
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But you my jumpoff
GreenNGold89
formerly bbllplaya23
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I feel bad for his kids and wife. I don't necessarily believe he got what he deserved, but that's what happens when you play the game.
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she was already saying love you? jesus...
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I mean, I dont want to say this is ironic because that would be in bad taste, but man. Thats tough.
I dont want to start an A vs B thread with this, because I dont want it to turn into bad taste, but how does this situation compare to Sean Taylor's deathlast year for you guys? Easier to deal with? Harder to deal with?
Either way, this is sad to see.
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Someone asked me to post this
McNair's girlfriend bared soul to Decatur mom before shooting
By Catherine Godbey
The Decatur Daily
Published: Thursday, July 9, 2009 at 3:30 a.m.
Last Modified: Wednesday, July 8, 2009 at 10:57 p.m.
DECATUR - Two weeks ago, a young waitress at Dave & Buster's restaurant in Nashville sought the advice of Vera Mosley Buckner, a Decatur resident intown for the day.
"She sat in the booth opposite me and said, 'Have you ever been in love?' That's the first thing she said to me," Buckner said. "Shesaid she was in love."
The waitress, Sahel "Jenni" Kazemi, told Buckner details of her relationship, which would flood the nation 10 days later as reports of SteveMcNair's death surfaced.
"She told me she was dating Steve McNair. That was the first time I ever heard that name," Buckner said. "The second time I heard his name, hewas dead."
Kazemi and McNair were found dead Saturday in a downtown Nashville condominium. McNair, 35, was a retired professional football quarterback who led theTennessee Titans to the Super Bowl in 2000.
The Nashville Police Department has ruled the grisly scene a murder-suicide. Police Chief Ronal Serpas said police believe McNair was asleep when he was killedbecause there were no defensive wounds.
After shooting McNair in the head, Kazemi apparently shot him twice in the chest before shooting him again in the head and then shooting herself.
Police discovered McNair with four gunshot wounds and Kazemi with one to the head. The gun used in the shooting, which Kazemi purchased one day earlier, wasfound under her body.
Buckner said Kazemi told her how she and McNair met at the restaurant and dated for eight months. Buckner said Kazemi shared all the details of therelationship the nation now knows, except the fact McNair was married.
Since the deaths of McNair and Kazemi, the brief meeting with the 20-year-old waitress has haunted Buckner.
Along with detailing how they met and trips they took, Kazemi shared a tale of a downward-sliding relationship.
"She was troubled, even two weeks ago," Buckner said. "She said, 'Lately it seems like he doesn't want to spend time with me.' Sheasked for my advice."
Buckner, a single mother of two who went through a divorce five years ago, saw in Kazemi a reflection of her younger self.
"I almost lost myself in my marriage, and I heard her story of losing herself also," Buckner said.
When reports of the deaths of McNair and, at the time, a 20-year-old unnamed woman broke, Buckner never questioned who McNair's acquaintance was - shealready knew.
Buckner said all she has remaining from that brief visit to Nashville are a barrage of guilt and regret, and a single photograph of Kazemi with Buckner'steenage daughters, Michandria and Daylon.
"They thought she was beautiful and wanted a picture with her," Buckner said.
"She's young and beautiful, and no one would think she would have trouble, but she did."
Buckner, who defined the encounter with Kazemi as fate and not coincidence, wondered what she needed to say to reach Kazemi. She also questions why Kazemiapproached her out of all the customers at Dave & Buster's that day.
"We just decided that day to go up to Nashville. I had never even eaten at a Dave & Buster's before. I had never seen her before," Bucknersaid.
"This is a lesson to never miss an opportunity to listen to someone when they need to talk because you never know who you are talking to."
To combat her regret, Buckner, who promotes the empowerment of women, said she plans to restage her play "Woman, What Are You Worth?," whichchallenges women to not lose their identities in relationships.
The play's first and only performance took place in September 2007 to a sellout crowd at the Princess Theatre Center for the Performing Arts in Decatur.
Buckner hopes the play will reach women in situations similar to Kazemi's.
McNair's girlfriend bared soul to Decatur mom before shooting
By Catherine Godbey
The Decatur Daily
Published: Thursday, July 9, 2009 at 3:30 a.m.
Last Modified: Wednesday, July 8, 2009 at 10:57 p.m.
DECATUR - Two weeks ago, a young waitress at Dave & Buster's restaurant in Nashville sought the advice of Vera Mosley Buckner, a Decatur resident intown for the day.
"She sat in the booth opposite me and said, 'Have you ever been in love?' That's the first thing she said to me," Buckner said. "Shesaid she was in love."
The waitress, Sahel "Jenni" Kazemi, told Buckner details of her relationship, which would flood the nation 10 days later as reports of SteveMcNair's death surfaced.
"She told me she was dating Steve McNair. That was the first time I ever heard that name," Buckner said. "The second time I heard his name, hewas dead."
Kazemi and McNair were found dead Saturday in a downtown Nashville condominium. McNair, 35, was a retired professional football quarterback who led theTennessee Titans to the Super Bowl in 2000.
The Nashville Police Department has ruled the grisly scene a murder-suicide. Police Chief Ronal Serpas said police believe McNair was asleep when he was killedbecause there were no defensive wounds.
After shooting McNair in the head, Kazemi apparently shot him twice in the chest before shooting him again in the head and then shooting herself.
Police discovered McNair with four gunshot wounds and Kazemi with one to the head. The gun used in the shooting, which Kazemi purchased one day earlier, wasfound under her body.
Buckner said Kazemi told her how she and McNair met at the restaurant and dated for eight months. Buckner said Kazemi shared all the details of therelationship the nation now knows, except the fact McNair was married.
Since the deaths of McNair and Kazemi, the brief meeting with the 20-year-old waitress has haunted Buckner.
Along with detailing how they met and trips they took, Kazemi shared a tale of a downward-sliding relationship.
"She was troubled, even two weeks ago," Buckner said. "She said, 'Lately it seems like he doesn't want to spend time with me.' Sheasked for my advice."
Buckner, a single mother of two who went through a divorce five years ago, saw in Kazemi a reflection of her younger self.
"I almost lost myself in my marriage, and I heard her story of losing herself also," Buckner said.
When reports of the deaths of McNair and, at the time, a 20-year-old unnamed woman broke, Buckner never questioned who McNair's acquaintance was - shealready knew.
Buckner said all she has remaining from that brief visit to Nashville are a barrage of guilt and regret, and a single photograph of Kazemi with Buckner'steenage daughters, Michandria and Daylon.
"They thought she was beautiful and wanted a picture with her," Buckner said.
"She's young and beautiful, and no one would think she would have trouble, but she did."
Buckner, who defined the encounter with Kazemi as fate and not coincidence, wondered what she needed to say to reach Kazemi. She also questions why Kazemiapproached her out of all the customers at Dave & Buster's that day.
"We just decided that day to go up to Nashville. I had never even eaten at a Dave & Buster's before. I had never seen her before," Bucknersaid.
"This is a lesson to never miss an opportunity to listen to someone when they need to talk because you never know who you are talking to."
To combat her regret, Buckner, who promotes the empowerment of women, said she plans to restage her play "Woman, What Are You Worth?," whichchallenges women to not lose their identities in relationships.
The play's first and only performance took place in September 2007 to a sellout crowd at the Princess Theatre Center for the Performing Arts in Decatur.
Buckner hopes the play will reach women in situations similar to Kazemi's.
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^ damn....she was intense and moved way too fast, then steve backed off. i heard her roommate mention the same thing - that steve was treating her different inthe weeks leading up...
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Well, "dating" someone 6-8 months is a pretty long time. Steve kept her on the team for a while and she started to fall more and more for him. Italso seemed like Steve treated this girl like his actual girlfriend and more than just a JO.
That article is a very sad read.
That article is a very sad read.
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two weeks ago, the 20-year-old flew to Las Vegas to meet McNair but McNair never arrived, Soheyla said.
damn, thats sorta foul
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this article on espn is very good ... it was probably posted but i didn't see it and i read through 95% of the thread ...
Updated: July 9, 2009, 11:38 AM ET
Looking for a ghostComment Email Print Share By Wright Thompson
ESPN.com
Archive
Getty Images
Those who saw Steve McNair play at Alcorn State will never forget what he meant to Mississippi.
ALCORN, Miss. -- Cardell Jones tended to the grill, looking out at the small lake behind his house. The former Alcorn State coach had nothing big planned forthe Fourth of July. His wife came outside.
She was silent for a moment, a pained look on her face.
"I have something to tell you," she said.
Just the night before, he'd dreamed about Steve McNair. It's hard to understand the bond between the two men if you hadn't lived through themadness of the McNair years at Alcorn State. Even 15 years later, the quarterback still came to the coach while he was sleeping. This time, Jones dreamedthey'd been hanging out and, before parting, the two men hugged.
"My wife told me, 'That could have been Steve's way of saying goodbye,'" he says.
A journey into the mists of myth
Earlier this week, I took a drive back in time. I went home, down Highway 61 into the Mississippi Delta, winding through the dying farm towns of my youth, pastthe cotton fields and the boarded-up commissaries. I was heading all the way down to Alcorn State University.
I was looking for a ghost.
Outside Mississippi, Steve McNair was a famous NFL quarterback, one known for his toughness. Back home, people remember him as a happening. For four years inthe early 1990s, a fever took hold of the state. Everyone woke up Sunday morning and gawked at the stats before church. Many got into their cars and went southto see for themselves. Later, people would wear those journeys as a talisman, a sign of their true Mississippi-ness: I went to see Steve McNair.
The lack of television coverage made the myth seem elusive, somehow more gothic. Sports Illustrated came, put old Steve from Mount Olive on the cover. A mythsprung up, about a country-strong kid who picked beans before sunrise and enjoyed great fame with humility, a narrative befitting someone so far off the beatenpath. Paul Bunyan with a gray Toyota Celica for an ox. He didn't seem like a real person, which I guess is what we wanted.
[+] EnlargeGetty Images
Willie Morris, a noted American author from Mississippi, was among the devoted, and famous, McNair followers.
The governor wrote a letter to Heisman voters. The past governor went to see for himself. Heisman Trophy winner Charlie Ward came. Spike Lee came. WriterWillie Morris drove down and decided to skip the rest of his beloved Ole Miss games. He'd follow McNair, and he'd bring friends. Even George Plimptoncame. Thousands of Mississippians, white and black, made the drive out Highway 552, out past East Jesus, as a friend puts it. They were there for the entireride, right to the end, when Steve "Air II" McNair broke the NCAA record for career total yards. They released purple and gold balloons into the skythat afternoon, and the world stopped for a moment, though it would soon start to spin again, faster than anyone ever could have imagined. Steve handed thegame ball to his mama. In the stands, Willie Morris cheered alongside his friends, novelist Larry Wells and his wife, Dean Faulkner Wells, niece of WilliamFaulkner.
"We were there as pilgrims," Larry Wells told me over the phone as I began my drive. "We were there to go to a shrine and partake in a spiritualexperience. And that's what it was. When we got in the stadium, they were playing Mozart. We couldn't believe it. It was a happening. We knew it as wedrove down the Natchez Trace. We were going into the history funnel. We were headed into history. We were headed to see Steve McNair."
Now he's dead, shot four times. Gunned down in a tabloid scene involving a mistress half his age. The details are worse than bad. They stand in suchcontrast to everything else we thought we knew about him that I wasn't sure what I'd find at the end of this drive. Was there a place where the past ofMcNair still outshone the grisly present? I had no answers, just questions, as I passed the first big town on Highway 61, Tunica, where they had dug up thecotton and planted casinos. One question, mainly.
Did the legend of "Air II" McNair die along with Steve?
Remembrances of Air II things past
During the drive, I thought about McNair.
I thought about the Sports Illustrated story that became liturgy. One scene stuck with me -- the McNairs gathered on a hill overlooking the stadium, in a groveof trees, grill smoke rising up into the lights from the field. The entire family waiting on Steve to arrive, counting the minutes until night fell and thestars twinkled overhead, shining down, blessing them. I imagined the family gathering again, except this time Steve wouldn't be coming to greet them.
I thought about a newspaper story from 1994, when everyone sent reporters down to Mississippi to see for themselves. His mama Lucille's words are hauntingtoday: "Sometimes I ask myself, 'Is this a dream?' I always told them that God gives, but He can take it away. You really never know what mighthappen."
I thought about the first time Steve went to New York, for the Heisman ceremony, and how big everything looked, how far away it seemed from the Mississippi ofhis childhood. He talked then of being ready to move, to make new friends, and I wondered if he knew where his journey was taking him. At the end of a storyabout that trip, he told a New York Times reporter about eating the pork chops at Mary's, a restaurant just outside campus. He talked about Mary's alot; it became part of the McNair pilgrim experience. Coach Cardell Jones laughed when I called during my drive, said he could still see Steve getting on thebus for a road game with a plate of Mary's fried chicken for the ride.
I thought about word of the murder spreading through Mississippi. The Alcorn players began to get calls. A few called Tim McNair, who'd played college ballwith his brother. All Tim could say before hanging up was: "It's true."
[+] EnlargeSteve Kagan/Time Life Pictures/Getty Images
Lucille McNair speaks with reporters outside her home in Mississippi in November 1994. With his first big NFL paycheck, Steve McNair would buy his mother apiece of land, and build her a new home.
I thought again about Lucille, and a story she'd told me once. She was the daughter of a sharecropper who raised five boys by herself. When McNair made it,got that first big check, he bought some land. He was going to build her a house. When the papers were signed, he drove her out to where her new home would be.She began to cry.
"Is this the place?" she asked.
He told her it was and, through her tears, she explained that this was where her daddy had sharecropped, where she herself had picked cotton in a segregatedMississippi. Now she owned it. It was hers. I could hear the happiness in her voice when she told me she'd imagined the white family's reaction if thechild of a sharecropper had told them that one day her boy was going buy this land.
Now that house was packed, for a different reason.
As I got closer and closer to Vicksburg, where the flat Delta gave way to soft rolling bluffs, I talked to the mayor of Mount Olive, a man named Robert McNair,a distant relative. "It's hard to believe he's laying in a funeral parlor," the mayor said.
He had gone out to Lucille's house the other day, to see how she was doing. He didn't think it had hit her yet. The brothers were preparing to go toNashville for a memorial service, but Lucille didn't think she could handle that. She would wait in Mississippi for her boy to come home.
A nontransferable legacy
A funeral wreath hung on the front gate to the university -- "Alcorn State remembers Steve 'Air II' McNair." The school flag above the pressbox flew at half-staff. An empty feeling filled me as I walked around the field, trying to imagine the sky dotted with purple and gold balloons. I looked up atthe grove of trees where the McNair family waited on the stars and Steve to arrive, and it seemed barren. The stadium itself felt abandoned.
When Steve left here for the NFL, those who remained imagined he'd leave a legacy. A foundation. Jones bragged then of a bump in national recruiting. Thefootball program wildly increased its revenue during the madness. Turns out, all McNair left was a hole. "Nobody wanted it to end," said EmanuelBarnes, the stadium PA announcer. "They used to say, 'What after McNair?'"
The team lost when he left. It lost a lot. Three straight 3-8 seasons. Jones was pushed out. Willie Morris died, then George Plimpton, then the governor whowrote that letter to the Heisman voters. The fans who had poured into town to see the show never came back. Another flashy quarterback, this one from Hawaii,came along and broke that record.
Mary's burned down.
I found a few former teammates gathered on campus in the main administration building, surrounded by reminders of Steve's career. They looked at an oldyearbook and joked about how skinny he looked. One, Shawn Archer, laughed while remembering a time when he forgot to block because he was so transfixed by thelatest improvisational masterpiece. Like the other Alcorn Braves who lived through their own brief version of Beatlemania, he worried that the details of hisfriend's death would obscure everything else. "Regardless to how much good he did," Archer said, "it's going to always lead up to thisnot-so-good end. I can get past it. People here in Mississippi can get past it. But other people, who didn't know the guy he was or the type of family hecame from, they might never let go of that."
[+] EnlargeJamie Squire/Getty Images
McNair, as seen here in September 1994, inspired college football fans to journey to see him play at Alcorn State.
Barnes saw every game McNair played at Alcorn, became a fixture himself. His voice was the sound track of the happening. The only time he didn't use thenickname was during graduation. Tim and Steve graduated together, the first in the family to earn degrees.
"I remember that smile on Miss Lucille's face," Barnes said. "That day we just said, 'Steve McNair.' All the other times, it was'Air II McNair.'"
Barnes said "Air II McNair" again to himself, quiet this time. He was almost whispering. "How many times … ?"
He looked back up at me, and he seemed to have aged. "I think it's still sinking in with people," he said.
It took coming back here, to the place the myth was born, for McNair's death to sink in for Harry Brown. He was the starting tailback on those teams andstill lives in the area. He got the call: Mac was dead. That's what they called McNair. Mac. He asked, "Mac who?"
The next morning, he went for a run through the campus and came down by an old dorm and found himself at a place where the past washed over him -- the backdoor of Lott Hall, where McNair hung out when he wasn't at class or practice. He remembered a time before -- before anyone made the pilgrimage, before themagazine covers, before a person became a legend, before a reputation was built that would later be destroyed. He remembered the smiles, and the music, and thelaughter. He remembered Steve sticking his head out his window, talking to folks down below.
For the first time, he understood his friend was gone.
Innocence versus the real world
Brown took me over to the dorm. He pointed to the third floor. McNair's floor. The Third World, they called it. He pointed at the second window on thefront side. McNair's room. The back door was purple, and it was shaded, a welcome thing in the shimmering Mississippi heat. Cracks snaked through theconcrete and weeds grew in green clumps. There was a rough patch of gravel near the door. "That was his parking spot," Brown said. "They wouldsit back here by his car."
Remembering Steve McNair
The Tennessee Titans are opening LP Field on Thursday, from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m., for fans to pay their respects to former quarterback Steve McNair.
A memorial service for McNair is scheduled for Thursday evening in Nashville.
In Mississippi, there will be a visitation Friday from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. at Reeves Funeral Home in his hometown of Mount Olive. A funeral service will be heldSaturday at 11 a.m. at the University of Southern Mississippi's Reed Green Coliseum in Hattiesburg, with a private burial in Mount Olive.
Standing behind the dorm raised questions for him, too. Will the circumstances of McNair's death overwhelm those four magical years? Will the team evergather again after the funeral? A reunion without McNair didn't seem to have much point. Nobody wants to see the court if King Arthur is gone.
Eventually, Brown ran into Douglas Fitzgerald, another teammate from the McNair days. They're older now, bigger and slower, and coming back to this placebrought on a rush of nostalgia. Before long, they began calling other guys to try to remember who lived where and ended up telling stories about the old days.About sneaking out of the dorms, and about McNair's old car, and the route Coach made 'em run three times a week. They drove over to where Mary'sused to be. There are a few ratty trailers there now.
"Oh, man," Brown said. "They could have been giving people credit for classwork here. Mary's 101."
They made a big loop around campus. That's where they used to play intramural softball.
"Steve hit the ball one time over the chapel," Brown said.
"Over the chapel," Fitzgerald said. "He was a man."
They talked about McNair's oldest son, whom Douglas saw play ball not long ago. Brown asked if he played quarterback.
"He played everything that night," Fitzgerald said.
"Sounds like his daddy," Brown said softly.
In the administration building, they ran into two current football players. War stories passed back and forth. None of the four mentioned McNair's strangeend until one of the young guys blurted, "I don't know why Steve did that."
Fitzgerald tried to explain, to say that everybody makes mistakes.
"In life," he said, "you're going to be in a lot of situations."
"That's a messed-up way to die," the kid said.
A heartbreaking question of staggering poignancy: What's left?
At the end of this final pilgrimage to Alcorn State, I hadn't answered the question. I wasn't sure if the legend was dead, though I wasn't sure itwas alive, either. Something like purgatory, even in the place where it began. As a Mississippian, I still feel proud of McNair. I still wish I'd made thatdrive myself. I don't regret the exhilaration, or the love, of that long-ago madness. I celebrate his life despite what I learned about it from his death.I hope that time won't change that.
[+] EnlargeMark Phillips/AFP/Getty Images
Drafted by Houston in April 1995, McNair would go on to be an NFL star in Tennessee.
I'd found the ghost of that long-ago fever was most strongly felt here, which meant that the feeling of loss was more acute, too. I'd found that evenhere, the name Steve McNair meant something slightly different than it did a week ago, and that was heartbreaking.
As I pulled back onto the narrow road out of town, back toward a world of ballistic reports and police investigations, one moment stuck with me. Before goingover to Mary's and the makeshift softball field, Harry Brown and Douglas Fitzgerald had parked at the corner of the stadium, the bumper of the car right upagainst the chain-link fence. They could see the bright green grass of the field.
"It used to be jammed to the rafters," Brown said.
They looked into the stadium. They planned for this weekend's funeral, talked about sharing a car over there, wondering how many people would come to paytheir respects. They felt suddenly old. This would be the first teammate they buried.
"Saturday's probably going to come down like a ton of bricks," Brown said.
Fitzgerald finally eased the car into reverse, but he didn't release the brake. Not yet. He didn't want to leave the past behind. They'd tell astory and he'd back up a few inches, tell another story and then back up a bit more. Out there, they couldn't be sure what people thought. But here,and maybe only here, overlooking this field, they could close their eyes and remember a time when the whole world came to marvel at Steve "Air II"McNair.
Updated: July 9, 2009, 11:38 AM ET
Looking for a ghostComment Email Print Share By Wright Thompson
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Those who saw Steve McNair play at Alcorn State will never forget what he meant to Mississippi.
ALCORN, Miss. -- Cardell Jones tended to the grill, looking out at the small lake behind his house. The former Alcorn State coach had nothing big planned forthe Fourth of July. His wife came outside.
She was silent for a moment, a pained look on her face.
"I have something to tell you," she said.
Just the night before, he'd dreamed about Steve McNair. It's hard to understand the bond between the two men if you hadn't lived through themadness of the McNair years at Alcorn State. Even 15 years later, the quarterback still came to the coach while he was sleeping. This time, Jones dreamedthey'd been hanging out and, before parting, the two men hugged.
"My wife told me, 'That could have been Steve's way of saying goodbye,'" he says.
A journey into the mists of myth
Earlier this week, I took a drive back in time. I went home, down Highway 61 into the Mississippi Delta, winding through the dying farm towns of my youth, pastthe cotton fields and the boarded-up commissaries. I was heading all the way down to Alcorn State University.
I was looking for a ghost.
Outside Mississippi, Steve McNair was a famous NFL quarterback, one known for his toughness. Back home, people remember him as a happening. For four years inthe early 1990s, a fever took hold of the state. Everyone woke up Sunday morning and gawked at the stats before church. Many got into their cars and went southto see for themselves. Later, people would wear those journeys as a talisman, a sign of their true Mississippi-ness: I went to see Steve McNair.
The lack of television coverage made the myth seem elusive, somehow more gothic. Sports Illustrated came, put old Steve from Mount Olive on the cover. A mythsprung up, about a country-strong kid who picked beans before sunrise and enjoyed great fame with humility, a narrative befitting someone so far off the beatenpath. Paul Bunyan with a gray Toyota Celica for an ox. He didn't seem like a real person, which I guess is what we wanted.
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Willie Morris, a noted American author from Mississippi, was among the devoted, and famous, McNair followers.
The governor wrote a letter to Heisman voters. The past governor went to see for himself. Heisman Trophy winner Charlie Ward came. Spike Lee came. WriterWillie Morris drove down and decided to skip the rest of his beloved Ole Miss games. He'd follow McNair, and he'd bring friends. Even George Plimptoncame. Thousands of Mississippians, white and black, made the drive out Highway 552, out past East Jesus, as a friend puts it. They were there for the entireride, right to the end, when Steve "Air II" McNair broke the NCAA record for career total yards. They released purple and gold balloons into the skythat afternoon, and the world stopped for a moment, though it would soon start to spin again, faster than anyone ever could have imagined. Steve handed thegame ball to his mama. In the stands, Willie Morris cheered alongside his friends, novelist Larry Wells and his wife, Dean Faulkner Wells, niece of WilliamFaulkner.
"We were there as pilgrims," Larry Wells told me over the phone as I began my drive. "We were there to go to a shrine and partake in a spiritualexperience. And that's what it was. When we got in the stadium, they were playing Mozart. We couldn't believe it. It was a happening. We knew it as wedrove down the Natchez Trace. We were going into the history funnel. We were headed into history. We were headed to see Steve McNair."
Now he's dead, shot four times. Gunned down in a tabloid scene involving a mistress half his age. The details are worse than bad. They stand in suchcontrast to everything else we thought we knew about him that I wasn't sure what I'd find at the end of this drive. Was there a place where the past ofMcNair still outshone the grisly present? I had no answers, just questions, as I passed the first big town on Highway 61, Tunica, where they had dug up thecotton and planted casinos. One question, mainly.
Did the legend of "Air II" McNair die along with Steve?
Remembrances of Air II things past
During the drive, I thought about McNair.
I thought about the Sports Illustrated story that became liturgy. One scene stuck with me -- the McNairs gathered on a hill overlooking the stadium, in a groveof trees, grill smoke rising up into the lights from the field. The entire family waiting on Steve to arrive, counting the minutes until night fell and thestars twinkled overhead, shining down, blessing them. I imagined the family gathering again, except this time Steve wouldn't be coming to greet them.
I thought about a newspaper story from 1994, when everyone sent reporters down to Mississippi to see for themselves. His mama Lucille's words are hauntingtoday: "Sometimes I ask myself, 'Is this a dream?' I always told them that God gives, but He can take it away. You really never know what mighthappen."
I thought about the first time Steve went to New York, for the Heisman ceremony, and how big everything looked, how far away it seemed from the Mississippi ofhis childhood. He talked then of being ready to move, to make new friends, and I wondered if he knew where his journey was taking him. At the end of a storyabout that trip, he told a New York Times reporter about eating the pork chops at Mary's, a restaurant just outside campus. He talked about Mary's alot; it became part of the McNair pilgrim experience. Coach Cardell Jones laughed when I called during my drive, said he could still see Steve getting on thebus for a road game with a plate of Mary's fried chicken for the ride.
I thought about word of the murder spreading through Mississippi. The Alcorn players began to get calls. A few called Tim McNair, who'd played college ballwith his brother. All Tim could say before hanging up was: "It's true."
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Lucille McNair speaks with reporters outside her home in Mississippi in November 1994. With his first big NFL paycheck, Steve McNair would buy his mother apiece of land, and build her a new home.
I thought again about Lucille, and a story she'd told me once. She was the daughter of a sharecropper who raised five boys by herself. When McNair made it,got that first big check, he bought some land. He was going to build her a house. When the papers were signed, he drove her out to where her new home would be.She began to cry.
"Is this the place?" she asked.
He told her it was and, through her tears, she explained that this was where her daddy had sharecropped, where she herself had picked cotton in a segregatedMississippi. Now she owned it. It was hers. I could hear the happiness in her voice when she told me she'd imagined the white family's reaction if thechild of a sharecropper had told them that one day her boy was going buy this land.
Now that house was packed, for a different reason.
As I got closer and closer to Vicksburg, where the flat Delta gave way to soft rolling bluffs, I talked to the mayor of Mount Olive, a man named Robert McNair,a distant relative. "It's hard to believe he's laying in a funeral parlor," the mayor said.
He had gone out to Lucille's house the other day, to see how she was doing. He didn't think it had hit her yet. The brothers were preparing to go toNashville for a memorial service, but Lucille didn't think she could handle that. She would wait in Mississippi for her boy to come home.
A nontransferable legacy
A funeral wreath hung on the front gate to the university -- "Alcorn State remembers Steve 'Air II' McNair." The school flag above the pressbox flew at half-staff. An empty feeling filled me as I walked around the field, trying to imagine the sky dotted with purple and gold balloons. I looked up atthe grove of trees where the McNair family waited on the stars and Steve to arrive, and it seemed barren. The stadium itself felt abandoned.
When Steve left here for the NFL, those who remained imagined he'd leave a legacy. A foundation. Jones bragged then of a bump in national recruiting. Thefootball program wildly increased its revenue during the madness. Turns out, all McNair left was a hole. "Nobody wanted it to end," said EmanuelBarnes, the stadium PA announcer. "They used to say, 'What after McNair?'"
The team lost when he left. It lost a lot. Three straight 3-8 seasons. Jones was pushed out. Willie Morris died, then George Plimpton, then the governor whowrote that letter to the Heisman voters. The fans who had poured into town to see the show never came back. Another flashy quarterback, this one from Hawaii,came along and broke that record.
Mary's burned down.
I found a few former teammates gathered on campus in the main administration building, surrounded by reminders of Steve's career. They looked at an oldyearbook and joked about how skinny he looked. One, Shawn Archer, laughed while remembering a time when he forgot to block because he was so transfixed by thelatest improvisational masterpiece. Like the other Alcorn Braves who lived through their own brief version of Beatlemania, he worried that the details of hisfriend's death would obscure everything else. "Regardless to how much good he did," Archer said, "it's going to always lead up to thisnot-so-good end. I can get past it. People here in Mississippi can get past it. But other people, who didn't know the guy he was or the type of family hecame from, they might never let go of that."
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McNair, as seen here in September 1994, inspired college football fans to journey to see him play at Alcorn State.
Barnes saw every game McNair played at Alcorn, became a fixture himself. His voice was the sound track of the happening. The only time he didn't use thenickname was during graduation. Tim and Steve graduated together, the first in the family to earn degrees.
"I remember that smile on Miss Lucille's face," Barnes said. "That day we just said, 'Steve McNair.' All the other times, it was'Air II McNair.'"
Barnes said "Air II McNair" again to himself, quiet this time. He was almost whispering. "How many times … ?"
He looked back up at me, and he seemed to have aged. "I think it's still sinking in with people," he said.
It took coming back here, to the place the myth was born, for McNair's death to sink in for Harry Brown. He was the starting tailback on those teams andstill lives in the area. He got the call: Mac was dead. That's what they called McNair. Mac. He asked, "Mac who?"
The next morning, he went for a run through the campus and came down by an old dorm and found himself at a place where the past washed over him -- the backdoor of Lott Hall, where McNair hung out when he wasn't at class or practice. He remembered a time before -- before anyone made the pilgrimage, before themagazine covers, before a person became a legend, before a reputation was built that would later be destroyed. He remembered the smiles, and the music, and thelaughter. He remembered Steve sticking his head out his window, talking to folks down below.
For the first time, he understood his friend was gone.
Innocence versus the real world
Brown took me over to the dorm. He pointed to the third floor. McNair's floor. The Third World, they called it. He pointed at the second window on thefront side. McNair's room. The back door was purple, and it was shaded, a welcome thing in the shimmering Mississippi heat. Cracks snaked through theconcrete and weeds grew in green clumps. There was a rough patch of gravel near the door. "That was his parking spot," Brown said. "They wouldsit back here by his car."
Remembering Steve McNair
The Tennessee Titans are opening LP Field on Thursday, from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m., for fans to pay their respects to former quarterback Steve McNair.
A memorial service for McNair is scheduled for Thursday evening in Nashville.
In Mississippi, there will be a visitation Friday from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. at Reeves Funeral Home in his hometown of Mount Olive. A funeral service will be heldSaturday at 11 a.m. at the University of Southern Mississippi's Reed Green Coliseum in Hattiesburg, with a private burial in Mount Olive.
Standing behind the dorm raised questions for him, too. Will the circumstances of McNair's death overwhelm those four magical years? Will the team evergather again after the funeral? A reunion without McNair didn't seem to have much point. Nobody wants to see the court if King Arthur is gone.
Eventually, Brown ran into Douglas Fitzgerald, another teammate from the McNair days. They're older now, bigger and slower, and coming back to this placebrought on a rush of nostalgia. Before long, they began calling other guys to try to remember who lived where and ended up telling stories about the old days.About sneaking out of the dorms, and about McNair's old car, and the route Coach made 'em run three times a week. They drove over to where Mary'sused to be. There are a few ratty trailers there now.
"Oh, man," Brown said. "They could have been giving people credit for classwork here. Mary's 101."
They made a big loop around campus. That's where they used to play intramural softball.
"Steve hit the ball one time over the chapel," Brown said.
"Over the chapel," Fitzgerald said. "He was a man."
They talked about McNair's oldest son, whom Douglas saw play ball not long ago. Brown asked if he played quarterback.
"He played everything that night," Fitzgerald said.
"Sounds like his daddy," Brown said softly.
In the administration building, they ran into two current football players. War stories passed back and forth. None of the four mentioned McNair's strangeend until one of the young guys blurted, "I don't know why Steve did that."
Fitzgerald tried to explain, to say that everybody makes mistakes.
"In life," he said, "you're going to be in a lot of situations."
"That's a messed-up way to die," the kid said.
A heartbreaking question of staggering poignancy: What's left?
At the end of this final pilgrimage to Alcorn State, I hadn't answered the question. I wasn't sure if the legend was dead, though I wasn't sure itwas alive, either. Something like purgatory, even in the place where it began. As a Mississippian, I still feel proud of McNair. I still wish I'd made thatdrive myself. I don't regret the exhilaration, or the love, of that long-ago madness. I celebrate his life despite what I learned about it from his death.I hope that time won't change that.
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Drafted by Houston in April 1995, McNair would go on to be an NFL star in Tennessee.
I'd found the ghost of that long-ago fever was most strongly felt here, which meant that the feeling of loss was more acute, too. I'd found that evenhere, the name Steve McNair meant something slightly different than it did a week ago, and that was heartbreaking.
As I pulled back onto the narrow road out of town, back toward a world of ballistic reports and police investigations, one moment stuck with me. Before goingover to Mary's and the makeshift softball field, Harry Brown and Douglas Fitzgerald had parked at the corner of the stadium, the bumper of the car right upagainst the chain-link fence. They could see the bright green grass of the field.
"It used to be jammed to the rafters," Brown said.
They looked into the stadium. They planned for this weekend's funeral, talked about sharing a car over there, wondering how many people would come to paytheir respects. They felt suddenly old. This would be the first teammate they buried.
"Saturday's probably going to come down like a ton of bricks," Brown said.
Fitzgerald finally eased the car into reverse, but he didn't release the brake. Not yet. He didn't want to leave the past behind. They'd tell astory and he'd back up a few inches, tell another story and then back up a bit more. Out there, they couldn't be sure what people thought. But here,and maybe only here, overlooking this field, they could close their eyes and remember a time when the whole world came to marvel at Steve "Air II"McNair.
