Pro. Jake Delhomme

[CDeb]

Originally posted by CajunFanatic91
It wasn't anything special. I wouldn't got to great lengths to read it.

Like snote said, it's a great representation of Jake for those that aren't that familiar with him in a publication with more ciculation than anyother sports pub.

[AirBill]

RaginCajun08 and Turbine: Thank you very much!

[RaisingCajun08]

SPORTS ILLUSTRATED

Ride of his Life

Though he fell short in the Super Bowl, the Panthers' Jake Delhomme played with a passion that captivated fellow Cajuns

By John Ed Bradley

They left Houston the morning after the Super Bowl and flew back to Charlotte and met one last time as a team before calling it a season. Jake Delhomme had lost 10 pounds since training camp opened last July, and the skin on his arms was red with turf burns, and a head cold complicated by exhaustion had him blowing every few minutes into a pile of tissue. At the Carolina Panthers' training facility Delhomme and his teammates had to undergo exit physicals with team doctors, but all that really meant was answering a single question: Are you hurt?

"I'm sore," Delhomme replied when his turn came, "and my heart is hurt. But other than that, I'll see you in April."

Delhomme's wife, Keri, and their 13-month-old daughter, Lauren, were already back in Breaux Bridge, La., and now the quarterback loaded up his black Lexus for the 12-hour drive home. He'd had only two hours of sleep, and though his body had little juice left, his mind was working overtime. Carolina's 32-29 last-second loss to the New England Patriots kept visiting him in flashes so clear he might've been watching game tape.

Although Delhomme had played brilliantly in the last three quarters -- he had passed for 211 yards in the final period alone, finishing 16 of 33 for 323 yards and three touchdowns -- he kept returning to his desultory performance to start the game. Delhomme had completed only one of his first nine passes, a play that had netted one yard. The incompletions bothered him so much that, somewhere on the road home, he reached for his cellphone and called Mike McCoy, his position coach. When McCoy didn't answer, Delhomme left a message. "I told him, 'I don't know if you watched the tape yet, but call me back,'" Delhomme says. "I wanted to go over the missed passes. I wanted to see what might've been, just to know."

Delhomme was wearing a baseball cap with the brim pulled low, and when he stopped for gas, he paid with a credit card at the pump. In the days leading up to the game the entire world had learned that his name is pronounced Duh-LOME, not DELL-home, but on this day nobody recognized him or gave him a second look.

Less than 24 hours before, his counterpart with the Patriots, Tom Brady, had been named Super Bowl MVP, but it was Delhomme who'd won America's heart with his fiery play. It was Delhomme, in fact, who'd made it a game, rallying his team from an 11-point, fourth-quarter deficit with three scoring drives, the second of which -- he floated an 85-yard touchdown pass to wideout Muhsin Muhammad -- had briefly put the Panthers ahead. It was the longest play from scrimmage in Super Bowl history.

Delhomme drove until almost 11 p.m. and spent the night in Birmingham, at the home of a high school friend. Then he was up early and driving again.

One interstate led him to another, and finally at three o'clock in the afternoon he exited at Breaux Bridge, "The Crawfish Capital of the World," a town of about 7,200 in the heart of Louisiana's Cajun country. Delhomme hadn't been home in more than six months, and as he drove through town, he noticed things that hadn't been there before. A billboard on the main strip, for instance, showed Delhomme in his Carolina uniform. WOW, it said simply. Shop windows were decorated with messages wishing him well, and small signs saying WE LOVE JAKE

were in yards everywhere he looked. The town, only two hours west of New Orleans, was traditionally a Saints' stronghold. But here it was festooned in Carolina blue, Delhomme's jersey number 17 brushed on plate-glass windows in big, bold strokes.

Delhomme hung a right at the Wal-Mart and drove by Bayou Teche, swollen and muddy from weeks of winter rain, then past restaurants and dance halls with marquees saying GEAUX JAKE. A mile or so outside of town he turned onto a limestone drive and motored a few hundred feet to his house. The modest, ranch-style cottage with a shady front porch had once belonged to his paternal grandparents. It stood in the middle of a hay pasture. He grew up next door, in the house with the barn, and his parents still live there.

Delhomme was so sore he had a hard time getting out of the car. Keri came out and greeted him with a kiss; Lauren was taking a nap, so they whispered when they entered the house. In the living room the TV was tuned to live coverage of the Patriots' victory parade in Boston. Thousands stood pressed together along a route that ended at City Hall with team owner Robert Kraft hoisting the Lombardi Trophy.

Delhomme stood watching in silence. "You sure that isn't us having a parade?" he said to Keri. Then he went in the other room to have a look at his little girl.

Unless you grew up in southern Louisiana, it might be hard to fully appreciate the beauty and significance of the Jake Delhomme story. The state has produced other Super Bowl quarterbacks, game MVPs Terry Bradshaw and Doug Williams among them, but Delhomme, 29, is the first full-blooded Cajun to have led a team to the title game. Bobby Hebert helped New Orleans land its first playoff berth in 1987, but the Saints and the Cajun Cannon, as Hebert was called, lost in the wild-card round.

On Feb. 1, when Delhomme ran onto the field at Houston's Reliant Stadium, he carried with him more than the dreams of a single man. Fans of the Panthers wanted the win, of course, but the greater yearning belonged to the Cajuns, who had found in Delhomme a hero unlike any since Ron Guidry of Lafayette was throwing fireballs for the New York Yankees. Kind and big-hearted and nice to look at, Delhomme had overcome a career filled with rejection and adversity to reach the Super Bowl in his first year as an NFL starter. In many respects his story paralleled the story of the Cajuns, and to his fortunes his people had hitched their dreams. While the rest of the nation regarded Delhomme's accent with a mix of amusement and curiosity, to the Cajuns back home it was like hearing music being played right for the first time.

"If you'd just seen the Cajun people pulling for him," says Breaux Bridge mayor Jack Dale Delhomme, Jake's second cousin. "We had grandmothers pulling for him, people who knew nothing about football pulling for him. The phones at City Hall were ringing off the hook. 'Hey, Mayor, when y'all going to have a parade for Jake?' Man, we pulled for Jake."

Run out of Nova Scotia more than two centuries ago by the English, the earliest Cajuns were mostly farmers who in the 1760s settled on the prairies in the lower half of Louisiana and came to call the area Acadiana. Most of them, like Delhomme's forebears, were Catholics whose native language was French. Others derisively called them "coonasses" and by the 1940s attempted to rid Cajuns of what made them different. The worst of it was when Cajun children were spanked for speaking French in school.

Cajun chef Paul Prudhomme showed everyone how to blacken fish in a cast-iron skillet, and former Miss USA Ali Landry became famous as the Doritos girl. But too few notable figures exhibited the one quality that Cajuns liked to identify as most common to their kind. "Passion, baby," says Mayor Delhomme. "The enthusiasm for life, the joy in living every moment -- that's who the Cajun people are. Remember, you're not born with passion -- it's a learned process. Jake exemplifies it more than others, and he demonstrates it more than others. You watch him play and, boy, he has that passion and it catches on."

Hours before Super Bowl XXXVIII, Delhomme went out to inspect the playing surface. Across the field he spotted Patriots running back Kevin Faulk and walked over to say hello. Faulk, who grew up in Carencro, La., a small Acadiana town about 10 miles from Breaux Bridge, wrapped Delhomme in a hug. "I hear it's pretty crazy back home," Delhomme said, and both players laughed. "That's our people, Kevin."

"That's why we love them," Faulk said.

The people on both sides of Delhomme's family are Cajun. Their names are Bienvenu, Olivier, Landry and Delhomme, which translated means "of the man." The Delhommes are so thoroughly a part of Acadiana that in 1978 Jake's grandfather Sanders Delhomme was recruited to appear in a film about a Louisiana quarterhorse trainer called Casey's Shadow. He played a character named "old Cajun." As the movie opens, he is seen in a country bar playing cards and exchanging dialogue in French with Walter Matthau.

Sanders, whose first language was French, "spoke English, but it was broken," says Jerry Delhomme, Jake's father. Sanders liked to wear Stetsons and Western-style suits, and he carried himself with a deportment that let everyone know he was a man of consequence. "I'm seeing a lot of Sanders in Jake," says Jake's mother, Marcia. "He looks more like my daddy, Herman Bienvenu, but Jake has a lot of the qualities that Sanders had: I'm in control, I'm the boss, I'm doing what I want to do."

"I used to catch the school bus across the street at my Aunt Jean's, and I'd get mad at her and I'd get mad at Daddy because they didn't teach me French," says Jake. "'Y'all should've spoken to us in French in the mornings,' I'd say. The sad thing is, we hardly ever hear it anymore unless the old-timers get to talking."

On his first morning back in Breaux Bridge, Delhomme got up early and walked next door to look at his father's stable of horses. Cars driving by blew horns at him in recognition. Some were cousins, others friends from town. Jake has 34 first cousins, 21 of them Delhommes, most still living in the area. His older brother, Jeff, a painting contractor, lives just up the road in the big brick house with columns. "Everybody knows me here," Jake says. "They knew me before I left in July and they'll always know me. Just because I was on a good team that made it to the Super Bowl, I haven't changed. As soon as the grass starts to grow, I'll be on my riding lawn mower. People will stop and I'll wave, but don't expect me to get off. I didn't get off before and I won't be getting off now."

Jerry is a food-safety supervisor for the state Department of Agriculture and Forestry, and Marcia is a bookkeeper for the school board. Jerry and his two sons, along with partner June Calais, own a small stable of thoroughbreds that run at area tracks. As a youngster Jake was so steeped in Acadiana's horse culture that he wanted to be a jockey when he grew up. He would put on a helmet, silks and goggles, straddle the back of the living-room sofa and wail away at it with a whip. Finally Jerry told his son to look in the mirror. "You're 70 pounds now and you're almost at jockey weight, so you need to start thinking about something else," he said.

As a boy, beginning when he was nine, Jerry had ridden quarter horses at Acadiana "bush tracks." The match races paired horses in sprints of several hundred yards. Sanders owned a track on the outskirts of Breaux Bridge, in an area called Anse la Butte. There were no bleachers, so spectators brought lawn chairs and sat in the shade of oak trees that ran the length of the track. People made wagers and passed cash around along with cans of ice-cold beer.

"When Jeff and Jake were growing up, I was always in the barn," Jerry says, "and they saw that you have to be disciplined when you train horses. Horses need to eat at a certain time, exercise at a certain time. You can't do it one day and not do it the next day. If you cheat on them, they'll cheat on you. I think the boys recognized the work ethic in training horses, and I think they related it to sports. Those boys didn't cheat when it came to sports. They knew there were no shortcuts."

When Jake was in the fourth grade, Jerry hung a rope from a tree in the backyard and tied an old tire to it. There Jake worked on his arm strength and accuracy by throwing from different distances as the tire swung left and right. The tire is long gone, but Jake still practices his passing in the pasture with Jeff. "I have to wear gloves, and we don't tackle each other anymore," says Jeff, a former standout receiver at McNeese State. "Those are the only differences from when we were growing up."

Jake started dating Keri Melançon when the two were in ninth grade. She was a Cajun girl from nearby Lafayette with blond hair and big blue eyes. Except for a few short breakups when they were in college, they have been a couple ever since. "Jake was bones when I met him," Keri says. "I remember his little skinny self. You'd look at him through his face mask and see all these bones. He'd get the snap and drop back and get sacked. He was always on the ground."

Even as a senior in 1993 at Teurlings Catholic, a small school in Lafayette, Delhomme weighed only 165 pounds. Although he'd thrown for 6,703 yards and 65 touchdowns in four years, the state's major colleges were more impressed by a pair of juniors, Josh Booty of Shreveport and Peyton Manning of New Orleans. With few options available Delhomme went to Southwestern Louisiana, now called Louisiana-Lafayette. He started as a freshman for the Ragin' Cajuns and finished four years later as the state's alltime college passing leader, with 9,216 yards. Cajuns thought he was the best thing going, but after his senior year the NFL didn't invite him to its scouting combine in 1997, let alone draft him.

In the hours after a draft during which 11 quarterbacks were selected, Delhomme hoped to hear from teams looking to sign him as a free agent, but no calls came. His only option appeared to be the Canadian Football League, but then the Saints released Jim Everett and suddenly had a hole to fill at quarterback. They called Delhomme, who'd stood out at the club's Louisiana Day, an open tryout in March '97 for area talent. In his first two years in New Orleans, Delhomme languished on the practice squad. But eager to prove himself, he spent the two off-seasons in NFL Europe.

Allocated to the Amsterdam Admirals in '98, he called Keri every night from his hotel room and complained about the food and being homesick. Worse, he was stuck playing behind a reserve for the St. Louis Rams named Kurt Warner. If he couldn't start ahead of a former Arena Football League quarterback, Jake said to Keri, how could he expect to play for the Saints? He almost gave up. "I always came back to saying, 'I'm not a quitter,'" he says. "It was only a 10-week season, and by week four or five I was saying, 'O.K., you only have a few weeks left. Stick it out.'"

The next summer he played for the Frankfurt Galaxy and split time with Pat Barnes, a backup for the Oakland Raiders, and the Galaxy beat the Barcelona Dragons in the league title game. Delhomme, only a year removed from the worst time of his life as a player, had the best time of his life as a player. In one game against Amsterdam he experienced an epiphany of sorts during a fourth-quarter drive. With 10 seconds left he threw a touchdown pass, but it was called back because of a penalty, and the Galaxy lost. However, Delhomme suddenly understood how to manage his team and the clock with the game on the line. "Right then and there the way I handled that drive," he says, "I knew that was how I had to play every game. I felt calm and controlled. I felt like, Don't put too much pressure on yourself, and in the future if there's a time when you're nervous, go back to that drive."

When Delhomme reported to the New Orleans camp later that summer, he was determined to make the roster as no less than the third quarterback. But he was among coach Mike Ditka's final cuts. "I can remember Jake sitting in the living room after being cut, just devastated," says Marcia. "He would say, 'They're going to call me back.' Jake was always a planner. He's not one to sit back and let things happen. He'd planned to devote his life to playing football."

"It's weeks later and I'm living with Mama and Daddy and watching Sunday night football, New Orleans versus Jacksonville," Delhomme says. "Billy Joe Tolliver is in at quarterback for the Saints. He gets hit and goes down. He tries to get up, takes one or two steps and goes down again. Billy Joe's a tough guy, that's not like him. My heart starts pumping. I was hurting for him because he was my best friend on the team, but I knew that if ever there was going to be an opportunity for me, this was it."

Two days later, Delhomme got the call from Charles Bailey, the Saints' assistant general manager. Delhomme laughs when he recalls the conversation: "'Jake, this is Charles. You in shape?' 'Yes, sir.' 'Then get your butt down here.'" He started two games, and in the first he led New Orleans to a 31-24 win over the Dallas Cowboys, throwing for two touchdowns and running for another score.

Ditka and his staff were fired at season's end. Owner Tom Benson hired Jim Haslett as coach, and Haslett brought in Mike McCarthy as offensive coordinator. Delhomme credits McCarthy with preparing him to play quarterback in the NFL, but it appeared he was destined to forever be a reserve. On Feb. 11, 2000, Jake and Keri's wedding day, the Saints signed former Cincinnati Bengals passer Jeff Blake, then later in the spring they drafted Marc Bulger in the sixth round. There was more bad news for Delhomme during camp when New Orleans acquired talented young quarterback Aaron Brooks in a trade with the Green Bay Packers. Sure enough, in the 10th game, after Blake went down with a foot injury, Haslett replaced his starter with Brooks.

"I guess they thought Aaron had more athletic ability," Delhomme says. "I understood the decision. Like I told Mike and Haz, I'm not going to rock the boat. I'm going to pull for Aaron, I'm going to work with him. Whatever Coach says, goes."

Brooks was spectacular in leading the Saints to a division title and the first playoff victory in franchise history. But the next year the team failed to make the playoffs. And in 2002, during a game in which New Orleans would improve to 9-4, Brooks suffered a rotator-cuff injury to his throwing shoulder, and the Saints began to falter. Needing one win to make the playoffs, they stayed with Brooks and lost three straight to end the season. In Acadiana, Cajuns were waving in disgust at their television sets. "That really turned the area off," says Jack Dale Delhomme. "People were outraged. Everybody knew Jake would've won at least one of those last three games, if not all of them."

Panthers offensive coordinator Dan Henning says one reason Delhomme might not have gotten a shot in New Orleans was that he's a better player in games than in practice. "Until you see Jake play under fire," Henning says, "you can't really appreciate the guy. And I mean the hotter the fire, the more appreciative you get. He plays much better when the heat was on him than I think anybody I've ever coached, and I've coached a lot of guys [including Super Bowl quarterbacks Joe Namath, Joe Theismann and Doug Williams]. Jake might look sloppy starting out, but when the game is on the line, almost invariably, he delivers."

After the 2002 season finale, Delhomme left the Superdome knowing he had probably worn a New Orleans uniform for the last time. The team wanted him back, but Delhomme, an unrestricted free agent, "wanted to see what was out there." His top salary had been $595,000, and he had thrown all of 86 passes in the NFL. "I had a pretty good idea there'd be opportunities," Delhomme said, "and I knew I'd never get a chance to play in New Orleans unless something happened." Complicating his decision was the birth of Lauren in December. The couple liked knowing that they had family nearby to help with their daughter.

One day, before Delhomme met with Panthers coach John Fox in Charlotte and Cowboys coach Bill Parcells in Dallas, Jake and Keri checked out the housing market in Old Metairie, in suburban New Orleans. "We were saying, 'What if we could stay,'" Keri recalls. "Jake said, 'If you want me to, Keri, I'll call the Saints today and we'll stay. I'll make decent money as a backup.' Maybe deep down Jake would've always wanted to be a Saint. But he wanted the opportunity to start for somebody more than he wanted a new house."

The Cowboys, according to Delhomme's agent, Rick Smith, promised to let Delhomme compete for the starting job with Quincy Carter and Chad Hutchinson. The Panthers made a more enticing offer: $4 million over two years and a chance to start.

In the preseason Carolina fans couldn't pronounce Delhomme's name or figure out his accent. (Brooklyn? South Boston?) They got to know him better in the Panthers' regular-season opener, against the Jacksonville Jaguars. Down 17-0 in the third quarter, Fox brought Delhomme off the bench to replace a struggling Rodney Peete. Delhomme sparked the Panthers and won the game, 24-23, on a 12-yard touchdown pass to wideout Ricky Proehl with 16 seconds left. It would be only the first of many such comebacks. In the regular season Delhomme put together seven game-winning drives on Carolina's last possession, completing a combined 22 of 29 passes for 232 yards and two touchdowns. One of those wins came in overtime against the Saints at the Superdome, Delhomme's second triumph in as many tries over his former team. In the playoffs Delhomme beat St. Louis with a 69-yard touchdown pass to wideout Steve Smith in the second overtime.

The demand in Acadiana for information about Delhomme was so great that area newspapers, all but ignoring the Saints, ran game stories about the Panthers and wet-kiss features about its dazzling Cajun quarterback, whom sportswriters took to comparing to Seabiscuit. Carolina's games were carried live on a Lafayette radio station. In Breaux Bridge, TV satellite dishes popped up on rooftops, as Delhomme's games weren't available otherwise.

Jack Dale Delhomme, the mayor, recalls that Sunday in September when Jake's life changed forever. "Jake's dad calls me at home," he says. "Usually Jerry is pretty excitable, but he's serious now, his voice is low. 'What you doin'?' he says. I said, 'What do you mean what am I doin'?' He said, 'You watching TV?' I said, 'Yeah, I have the Saints on, but they put me to sleep.' He says, 'I'm watching Carolina against Jacksonville and Jake is going in. Why don't you come over?'"

When the game ended, Jack Dale looked at his cousin and said, "He's on his way. He's proved to the world he can play. Let's see what happens now."

Delhomme agreed to do it, but only if other players from the area who'd had good years were included. Domanick Davis, a 1,000-yard rusher during his rookie season with the Houston Texans, is from Breaux Bridge. So were a few players on LSU's national championship team. "Tell me what time to be there, and I'll be there," Delhomme said, sounding resigned to his fate.

"The parade isn't Jake's kind of deal," explained his father. "He told me he was put on earth to play football, not ride in parades. I said to him, 'Jake, you've given the community something to be proud of. The Cajun people love you. This is their way of giving back to you. You've got to accept it with a good heart.'"

The town decided to call it the Parade of Stars, rather than the Jake Delhomme Parade. Two weeks had passed since the Super Bowl, but the signs saying we love jake were still everywhere, the shop windows still painted Carolina blue. Delhomme showed up wearing his Panthers jersey pulled over a hooded sweatshirt, blue pants and a baseball cap. He didn't look like a famous football player. He looked like any other guy from town. That, of course, made them love him all the more.

First came a police cruiser with flashing lights and cops on camouflaged ATVs. Next through were the Baton Rouge Young Marines and the Breaux Bridge High marching band. The men of the Marine Corps League, decked out in red blazers, followed. And the handsome fellow behind them was the mayor of a nearby town. The LSU players rode in the back of a pickup, and fast on the truck's bumper rolled an antique fire engine loaded with people throwing candy. Davis came along seated in the rear of an Olds Ninety Eight convertible. He was dressed in nice clothes, and he had about him a regal bearing that made some of the girls along the parade route swoon.

Finally there was Delhomme, riding in an open-top Ford Mustang with a license plate that read my pony. People tugged at his jersey, many of them children wearing T-shirts decorated with the words carolina cajun and an illustration of the quarterback.

Estimates by town officials put the turnout at 6,000, nearly the entire population of Breaux Bridge, but a small number compared to the crowd that attended the parade in Boston for the Patriots. Delhomme rolled across the old bayou bridge with the sign overhead showing a crawfish set against the American flag. He rolled down Bridge Street past high school football players who'd come out wearing their jerseys, sleeves turned up to show off their muscles. He rode past the downtown shops and the café and he came at last to where Bridge Street intersects with Main Street.

The procession came to a halt, and Delhomme lifted both arms above his head and gave a mighty wave. He was smiling the smile of a man who'd been away a long time but who'd finally found his way home. On the second-floor balcony of a corner store were members of his family, the Delhommes and the Bienvenus and the rest, all of them on their feet as the parade lurched forward again and moved on, everyone calling the quarterback's name.

Issue date: March 8, 2004

[RaginFan2]

"... the state's major colleges were more impressed by a pair of juniors, Josh Booty of Shreveport and Peyton Manning of New Orleans. With few options available Delhomme went to Southwestern Louisiana, now called Louisiana-Lafayette."

How many "major colleges" is Mr. Bradley implying are in the state, I wonder. Certainly, he points out how "small-time" "Louisiana-Lafayette" is, in his opinion. Of course, as a former LSU player, I'm not surprised. Actually, I am surprised that he thinks there is more than one "major college" in this state. I guess I shouldn't nit-pick too much, It IS overall a good article on Jake. It is just very annoying how little respect the article gives to UL, with just that one, negative sentence.




But Geaux Jake!!!!

[AirBill]

Thanks, RaginCajun08! If you're ever in St. Louis, you'll get a beverage of your choice from me.

RaginFan2: I wouldn't get too worked up by the major colleges point. I understand what he was trying to say, even if the point was made rather weakly. I don't know why Peyton Manning is even mentioned in this context, as he didn't attend a Louisiana college. Jake's competition for attention in the Lafayette area was Jamie Howard, who ended up going to LSU and struggling like Booty did.

[NewsCopy]

Louisiana La. is the alma mater of Carolina Panthers quarterback Jake Delhomme, who has stayed connected to the Ragin' Cajuns athletic program.

"He throws passes but with an ugly-shaped ball," Louisiana-Lafayette coach Jessie Evans said. "But he completes more passes than we do.

"He's been tremendous. He's been a positive supporter of our team. I told him I was surprised he still knows my name. `You're big-time now,' I told him.

"But he's still the same low-key guy. I can even pronounce his hometown (Breaux Bridge, La.) now. They have some good frog legs in Breaux Bridge."

Guard Brad Boyd said Delhomme attended one home game this season and said, "he brought an extra 2,000 people to the game."

Notes

Most college campuses have a defining physical feature. At Louisiana, it's an on-campus swamp. "It's called Cypress Lake, but it's a swamp," Evans said. "It has alligators and everything. I take recruits over there. If they don't sign with us, I throw them in."

The Ragin' Cajuns opened their season with a 79-45 loss to Georgia Tech in Atlanta, their only meeting with an ACC team this season. "Rocky start, rocky middle, rocky finish," guard Brad Boyd said of the blowout in which Louisiana-Lafayette had only six available players.

The source of the story

[RaginRash]

If nothing else, Coach Evans is always good for some funny soundbites.

[NewsCopy]

CHARLOTTE, N.C. – The Carolina Panthers' quarterback introduced a new cereal brand named after him Tuesday night at Mickey and Mooch Restaurant on Providence Road.

Jake Delhomme finally found his way onto a cereal box, not the Wheaties box -- that may come later -- it's his own cereal line, Jakes Flakes.

And this cereal will do more than just fill you up in the morning ... watch the video for the complete story.

VIDEO

[snote]

smiling..

[NewsCopy]

GASTONIA — Before signing hundreds of autographs for fans during a visit to the grand opening of the Sprint store in Gastonia Saturday morning, Carolina Panthers starting quarterback Jake Delhomme took time out to talk about a number of issues with Gaston Gazette sports writer Steve Reed.

Here is what Delhomme had to say:

Q: Has it been difficult to put the Super Bowl loss to the New England Patriots behind you?

A: “Yes and no. I have put it behind me, but don’t get me wrong, it’s still there. It’s like most of the losses last year, I know what I did right and what I did wrong. That’s just me. I have always been that way. There are losses from college that still stick in my mind and I think, ‘Well I could have done this better or done that.’ But that is football. That is going to happen this year, too. There are times I will get frustrated this year, too. But give the Patriots credit, we lost to a pretty good football team — a very good football team. But we need to get better.”

Q: So have you watched the tape of the Super Bowl?

A: “No I haven’t yet. I have been back in Charlotte now for a couple of weeks (for the off-season conditioning program) but I haven’t watched it. But I will. It’s not that I’m trying to run from it or anything. It is just the off-season and you want to get away sometimes. And I’ve gotten away. But I think now I’m back and ready to go. And in a couple of weekends we will be practicing again.”

Q: What are your first impressions of the Panthers’ 2004 schedule and were you disappointed you will only appear once on Monday Night Football?

A: “Honestly no. You love to play on national television, but I’m just happy we at least have that one Monday Night game at home. I look at it from this aspect - if you play on a Monday night on the road you lose a whole night’s sleep because of travel and you have a day less to prepare the following week. It’s tough. So I look at it as a good thing. We play at home to open the season against a very good Green Bay team. And the next prime time game is on a Saturday night at Atlanta. Hey, it’s one more than we had last year, right? And we have two preseason games on national television, too. So that’s a good thing.”

Q: How excited are you to have your top target last season, Steve Smith, under contract for the next six years?

A: “Oh man, that’s such a big deal, especially for me. He and I really kind of had to learn from each other last year and I’m happy he’s going to be around here a while. He was young and learning and I was young and learning and we developed together, as we did with Ricky (Proehl) and Moose (Muhsin Muhammad). I was glad to see that. In fact, he called me before it became public to tell me it was going to get done. He was pretty pumped up about it. I slept better that night. I remember it well, it was a Sunday night. I can remember it like it was yesterday. I did sleep pretty well that night.”

Q. Where do you stand right now on your own contract situation. Has your agent begun to talk to the Panthers about a long-term deal yet?

Delhomme: “Well, I have one year left on my deal. But I think there’s a good chance my agent Rick Smith and (Panthers general manager) Marty Hurney will sit down and talk after the draft and talk. Certainly I would like to get something down long-term so I can wrap it up and be done with it. Carolina is the place I want to be. But honestly I don’t think about it. I don’t worry about it. I think Rick and Marty have a great relationship. You know, you want to get what you’re worth, but you want to win, too_. If you handcuff your team with a big salary you aren’t going to win. And that’s a big thing for me. They are going to sit down and talk soon and hopefully they can knock something out.”

Q. Talk about the offensive line you’ll be playing behind. Jeno James left via free agency, Kevin Donnalley retired and Todd Steussie was cut. Jordan Gross is moving from right to left tackle and center Jeff Mitchell is the only guy who will be playing the same position as last year. Does that concern you?

Delhomme: “You like to have continuity and everything, but I think we will be fine. Jeff Mitchell, he is where it starts. Moving Jordan from right to left, we’ll be fine there. He’s shown he’s a pretty darn good young player. Certainly we would love to have Kevin back, but he had a great career and I guess he knew it was time. He wanted to hang them up. Bruce Nelson, in the two games he started last year, he played against the Giants and Shawn Rogers of the Lions, so he went against some decent players and did well. So I think he’ll be a good one. I think with (offensive line coach) Mike Maser and what we do with our offense, we’ll be fine, especially with our running backs. At the other guard spot, I think we will have a number of guys competing for that spot and I think that is what you want.”

Q. What do you know about Adam Meadows, who will likely be the starting right tackle this year?

Delhomme: “He’s a proven starter in this league and a good player. I’ve talked to Peyton Manning and Brandon Stokely (of the Indianapolis Colts) about him and they have had nothing but good things to say about Adam Meadows. So I’m not worried at all.”

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Steve Reed
Freedom News Service

[Turbine]

Obviously Jakes success has had zero effect on NFL teams going out and drafting marquis names in the draft to lead their teams. I think some of that is to garner fan support. It still seems to be status quo in drafting quarterbacks.

What I am askisg is based on how in the past a lot of quarterbacks seemed to be emotional dead heads, like they couldn't show their emotions or they wouldn't look like leaders. It seemed that way to me, and I think Jake Delhomme broke the mold.

I was wondering if you think Jakes openness would affect other quarterbacks ability to relish wins and agonize over losses, the way I do.

[NewsCopy]

CHARLOTTE -- On a Wednesday morning in March, a film crew shooting a commercial in Atlanta found out what the Carolina Panthers already knew about Jake Delhomme.

Despite his lack of any kind of familiarity with the process, the Panthers quarterback surprised the director and new teammates with his quick grasp of the script and his incredible poise in a situation he had never been in.

"He just seemed like a natural," said Randy Poindexter, the senior vice president of marketing for Bojangles' Restau- rants Inc., who oversaw the shoot. "That's the exact word I'd use. He was just extremely comfortable, and very easy to direct and get along with."

Just as last season brought a bevy of new experiences for the 29-year-old quarterback, this offseason has been a revelation for Delhomme as well.

Prior to taking over the Panthers' starting job last year and leading his new team to the Super Bowl, Delhomme's offseasons were quiet affairs spent with the family back in Breaux Bridge, La., tending to the horses on their farm.

This spring has been filled -- but not over-filled -- with things the former New Orleans Saints backup never dreamed of.

In addition to shooting the commercial for Bojangles', Delhomme recently participated in the made-for-television Quarterback Challenge competition, did a photo shoot for the "got milk?" ad campaign and appeared at a motivational seminar alongside speakers including former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani and self-help guru Zig Ziglar.

Most were chances he never thought he'd have and wouldn't have if he hadn't led his team to their surprising playoff run.

There were other occasions he could have made a few extra bucks or played in more celebrity golf tournaments. But Delhomme passed, preferring something more akin to the old offseasons he had.

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Buzzfans.com
Darin Gantt
dgantt@mindspring.com