A Perfectly Frank Way to Turn a Game Around

I am picturing a Raider fan inside an automobile. It is a little past 3 o’clock on a fine Halloween afternoon. A football game is on the radio. The points are even at 17 apiece, but a deadly accurate Jeff Hostetler of the Raiders has just connected with James Jett on a guided missile of 55 yards that puts the San Diego Chargers back on their heels, about to give up the go-ahead touchdown.

La-de-da. I can see the driver of the automobile cruising along, elbow out the window, curious to see how the Raiders will score. Then suddenly a voice comes booming from the stereo speakers, like someone screaming “Boo!” from a dark alley. An announcer is doing one of those classic calls of football--”He’s at the five! The 10! The 15! The 20!”--and his volume is rising.

Someone named Donald Frank has the football and is running the other way.

To the 25, 30, 35, 40, 45, 50, 45, 40, 35, 30, 25, 20, 15, the 10 . . .

This can be the most thrilling countdown in the world when it is someone from your favorite team who is peeling past those yard markers. When it is not, well, let’s simply say it can make a driver feel like kicking a hole through a dashboard. Which must have been the case on various freeways Sunday when a certain party took off with the football, traveling from right to left on your radio dial.

Eyes bulged at the Coliseum, too, when with a single motion, Donald Frank, a man with two first names and two fast legs, gambled and gamboled 102 yards to simultaneously jump-start the Chargers and send a thunderbolt’s jolt through the Raiders that would strip them of not only a game, but a piece of first place.

“Football’s a game of momentum,” said Bobby Ross, the coach of the Chargers, in that gentle drawl of his. “And there was a quick 102-yard momentum change.”

That there was. Once the football had been Jett-propelled into deepest San Diego territory, there was no reason in the world to believe that the Raiders were about to find themselves on the what-the-hell-happened end of a 14-point swing. They were five yards from another touchdown and gave the first crack at it to their young, learning-on-the-job backfield threat, Greg Robinson, who is still looking for shortcuts to the end zone and not finding them.

Robinson careened from the pack and went wide around right end, very few obstacles standing between him and a corner goal-line marker. Instead, in a decision he and the Raiders lived to regret, Robinson abruptly came to a halt and elected to cut back against the grain, hoping to dart between would-be tacklers. He did not. They swarmed him after a two-yard gain.

Now three yards away, the Raiders broke huddle, clapped hands and took their positions for second down. Linemen bent into their stances. Hostetler spread his palms behind the center. Jett lined up to his left.

Across the way, Frank had one responsibility. That was Jett. Wherever Jett went, Frank was to follow. Jett is one of the fastest men in the NFL, if not in the world. Keeping up with him was not the easiest assignment any defensive back ever had. But the fourth-year player from Winston-Salem (N.C.) State had been known to run 40 yards in 4.4 seconds himself, and besides, how far or fast could Jett travel when the Raiders had only three yards to cover?

Jett went into motion, left to right. Frank tagged along. As Hostetler continued to call signals, Frank took his eyes from his assignment for a second to catch a glimpse of the quarterback. The eyes can reveal a lot, so Frank kept his on Hostetler’s.

Quickly, Jett changed course. He paused, then jogged the other way, behind the quarterback again, right to left. Again, where he went, Frank followed.

Hostetler took the snap and dropped back, ostensibly searching for Tim Brown. Frank kept his back to Jett, but knew where he was. Stationary, watching the play develop, the cornerback once again took time to look into Hostetler’s eyes. When the football was released, he was not altogether surprised to find it coming directly toward him. He could tell where Hostetler was looking.

Off to the races he went, nobody else within a furlong. The only man with a chance of catching Frank as he sped past his own bench toward the opponents’ goal was the quarterback, Hostetler, who gamely gave chase, even though it was a leg injury that had limited the quarterback’s duty for portions of this season.

“Excuse me, excuse me,” Frank was approached later in the locker room, someone obviously eager to ask a question. “Donald, on that touchdown, did you think that Hostetler was going to catch you?”

Looking up, Frank identified the grinning interviewer, who happened to be Charger cornerback Marquez Pope, using a wristwatch for a microphone.

“Well, to be perfectly honest with you, yes,” Frank said.

He was serious. He wasn’t sure how far or how fast he could run because he had rarely run that far before. Those 40-yard dashes are one thing, but 102 yards is a long way. That’s why Frank was so happy to be so far ahead of those pursuing him, so happy to see Hostetler run out of gas that around 20 yards from paydirt he went into something more resembling a bound than a stride.

“The way things were going up to then, they were tuckering me out,” Frank said. “The Raiders have these quick, quick people that they keep springing on you, and whatever we were doin’, it wasn’t workin’. They were catching some balls on us--some deep balls.

“We really needed to reach into our bag of tricks. When I looked into Hostetler’s eyes, I definitely knew what he was thinking. That’s why I didn’t think he would throw that ball. All I know is that he threw it right to me, and all I could see was this great big field ahead of me.

“I don’t know a DB in the world that don’t dream of taking one the whole hundred yards. I didn’t know if I could make it all the way, but I knew who I stepped in front of to get that ball, that he had world-class speed and that I was happy he was that far behind me.”

Someone else, not Marquez Pope, called it a run that ruined the Raiders’ day.

“Then it was definitely worth runnin’ 102,” Frank said.