Not That Easy

They vowed to escape New Orleans, but now, a decade later, Marshall Faulk and Kordell Stewart will do just about anything to return.

“I lived close to the Superdome,” said Stewart, Pittsburgh’s quarterback, who grew up just across the Mississippi river. “It would take you all day to swim it, a half-day to walk, and about 15 minutes driving.”

Today, getting to the Superdome is a four-quarter proposition. Stewart will lead the Steelers against New England in the AFC championship game; Faulk, star running back for the St. Louis Rams, will face Philadelphia in the NFC title game.

“It would be like a homecoming for me,” Stewart said. “My family is there, all of my friends, my true friends. The stomping grounds where I started as a little buck in Little League, running track, being all-metro, everything.

“It would be a special moment.”

Stewart referred to the city as “my crib” but didn’t delve into the painful memories of losing his mother to liver cancer when he was 12. Faulk, asked to recall his childhood, was edgy and curt, even brushing off the subject of playing against Stewart in high school.

“When I tell you I don’t remember, I don’t remember,” he said. “You can’t make me remember.”

Any other memories of New Orleans?

“Next question.”

Cecile Faulk remembers. She raised six sons in the Desire public housing complex, among the most destitute projects in the country, a place where they no longer cover broken windows with aluminum because too often it’s stolen and sold for scrap.

“If you lived there you’d understand,” she said. “If you can make it out of there, that’s good. If you see a black boy make it out of there, that’s a blessing. You never know when one of those stray bullets is coming.”

According to the New Orleans Times-Picayune, Marshall’s brother, Raymond, was sentenced to seven years in prison for armed robbery; and his best friend from high school, Mark Bruno, got a one-year sentence for theft.

When Cecile was unable to make ends meet with her jobs as a hotel maid and Woolworth’s clerk, she let Marshall, her youngest son, live with the Bruno family.

Even though the Faulks were able to move to a small house when Marshall was 12, money was so tight the family heated the place with the kitchen stove. Marshall worked with the custodial crew, sweeping the halls of Carver High before school. He also sold popcorn at New Orleans Saint games and cut hair for $5 a head.

“Marshall was one of those special kids,” said Wayne Reese, his football coach at Carver. “He was well-mannered, a good student. He was a quiet kid that never said much, and he didn’t get into anything that was out of the ordinary.”

But he wasn’t an angel. He and his friends would stir up trouble with the police by making a mad dash every time they saw a squad car, even if they had done nothing wrong. Reese said Faulk had a bit of a “thug” side on the field. Faulk doesn’t deny that.

“When it’s fourth-and-two, it helps if you have an evil side,” he told Sports Illustrated in 1992. “On fourth-and-two, I’m Freddy Krueger.”

Faulk has a soft side too. His mother used to rest her head in his lap when she would get home from working one of her many jobs. He would stroke her hair and make promises, sounding as naive as he was earnest.

“Don’t worry, Mom,” he would tell her. “I’m going to take care of you.”

Stewart never got the chance to make those vows. His mother, Florence, a nurse, died just before Christmas in 1983 after battling cancer for 10 years. Earlier that fall, she and her husband, Robert, separated then divorced. Kordell, the youngest of three, lived with his mother until she died.

“She got so small, she got so sick and it hit her so fast, it was incredible,” he told the Denver Post in 1994, during his final season at Colorado.

Kordell, along with his older brother and sister, moved in with their father, who grew up in a New Orleans project and made a life for himself as a barber. The family was close, and was drawn even closer by Florence’s death.

The family was rocked again four years ago when Kordell’s sister, Falisha, died at 29, also of liver cancer.

“We still live with the sadness of that every day,” Robert said.

He owned a hair salon called “Second Edition,” and it wasn’t uncommon for young Kordell to spend an entire day there, honing his skills with a shaver and scissors.

Kordell learned the value of a dollar from his father, whom he still calls “Daddy.” When Robert was a kid, he used to collect old newspapers and sell them to the dog pound to line the kennels.

“I usually got a penny a pound, then it went up to two cents. We only lived a half-block from the dog pound, and the other guys lived a couple miles away, so I had a jump on them. I’d go around in the evenings and get the papers, then I’d have it there early in the morning. I’d bring home three or four dollars a day.”

Years later, even though he owned the barbershop, Robert took on odd jobs to augment his income. He worked as a handyman, a gardener, a mechanic, anything to provide for his family.

He still keeps the Father’s Day card he got from Kordell in 1994 that reads:

“What’s up? I know you’re working hard and trying to make ends meet to pay bills. Just relax and chill because I’m doing all I can for you so you won’t have to work in the hot sun anymore. I’m graduating very soon, and I love you very much.”

That love shows. When Kordell went through his struggles with the Steelers two seasons ago--getting booed, benched then demoted from quarterback to receiver--he asked his father to come stay with him in Pittsburgh. Because Robert is a nervous flyer, Kordell offered to send a limousine all the way to New Orleans.

Robert conquered his fears and took a commercial flight to Pittsburgh the week before Christmas this season, then, on Christmas Eve, flew back to New Orleans with Kordell on a chartered jet. Kordell stayed for a day, sharing stories and reminiscing at the house, then flew back to rejoin his team.

Robert has redecorated the family home, but he keeps a bedroom for Kordell. The Walter Payton posters aren’t there anymore, although his son’s favorite teddy bear still sits on the bed.

“Kordell is a nice man,” he said. “He has nice ways. If somebody says they don’t like Kordell, there’s something wrong with them.”

Robert sees that kindness in his son whenever he visits Pittsburgh, where fans have toasted Kordell in good times, doused him with beer in bad. Through it all, he has maintained his warmth, even when fellow restaurant patrons interrupt him mid-bite in search of an autograph.

“One lady came all the way from Mississippi, and she was crying and hugging him like she had seen Jesus,” Robert said. “I never saw anything like that. I thought she was going to pass out.”

Stewart gets a similar reception when he goes back to his alma mater, John Ehret High, and works out after the season.

“A couple of years ago, the first few days Kordell was here, the girls’ softball team was lined up at the window peeking into the classroom,” Coach Billy North said. “Our football players had seen him around the neighborhood. But to actually have him come work out with us was great. After a while, it was just like he was another one of the fellas.”

Playing quarterback was new to Stewart when he got to high school. He had been a receiver and defensive back. He worked his way into the backup quarterback job by his sophomore year, and was the first-string kicker. The starting quarterback, Ernest Calloway, doubled as the holder.

Midway through his sophomore season, Stewart accidentally kicked Calloway’s hand and broke it. Suddenly, Stewart was the starting quarterback, a job he never surrendered.

Likewise, Faulk didn’t play organized football until high school. All his experience came from sandlot games with his brothers, most of which were held on a patch of bottle-strewn grass between two tenements.

“He came out for football and really didn’t know anything about it,” Reese said. “He was just standing around and observing. He was the type of guy that wouldn’t jump in there. You’d almost have to push him.

“After a while, you’d see him out there and to see how graceful he was. To be that good and say he’d never played organized football. You could see that this kid had something special.”

The Carver football program subsisted on a $2,500 annual budget, with threadbare uniforms, out-of-date helmets, and a poorly equipped workout room.

“What I used to do is call other teams--there were four in our district--and I would schedule games with tough teams,” Reese said. “They would pay us to come play them, because it was cheaper for them not to travel. When Marshall came, we started winning. All of a sudden, teams were paying us to come beat them. So that didn’t work out after a while.”

Twice, Faulk’s team scrimmaged Stewart’s. In one of those games, Faulk ran for 400 yards and six touchdowns. Recently, North dug through boxes for four hours in an unsuccessful attempt to find that game footage.

Faulk went on to star at San Diego State, and when he signed his first NFL contract with Indianapolis, he designed and purchased new helmets and uniforms for his high school team. Later, he had Nike send the players about 200 pairs of shoes.

“We were able to give our kids a game shoe, a practice shoe and a turf shoe,” Reese said. “That was amazing, to go from no shoes to three shoes.”

Faulk’s first commitment, of course, was to his mother. He bought her a $260,000, six-bedroom home in eastern New Orleans--where she lives with three of her sons--and covers all her bills. He also bought her a new Lexus, although she returned it because she’s nervous about driving.

After every game, he calls his mother and starts the conversation the same way: “Hey, Lady ...”

“He’s still my baby,” Cecile said.

And those promises he made still resonate.

“I didn’t think they would ever happen,” she said. “You’ve just got to pay attention when your children are talking.”