Beaux Bridge's Delhomme has been overlooked most of his career, but now that he's Super Bowl-bound, the QB has many believers
HOUSTON -- The believers aren't confined to Breaux Bridge anymore.
They're everywhere. Their legion stretches from Lafayette to Charlotte, N.C., to Frankfurt, Germany. And the numbers multiply daily.
In the past two weeks, the Jake Delhomme story has been spread to the masses, past the St. Martin Parish line, beyond Acadiana, from sea to shining sea.
Tuesday at Reliant Stadium in Houston, the site of Super Bowl XXXVIII, a 10-deep throng surrounded the pulpit to hear firsthand from the mop-topped Cajun with the funny accent and the name that translates loosely as "The Man" in French. When he spoke, the cameras whirred, the microphones were craned, and the audience nodded their heads with delight and drank down every syllable.
"This is kind of funny, especially to a guy like me," Delhomme said five days before the biggest game of his life. "This is the Super Bowl. I'm having a good time with it. But it's not going to change me. I just want to go back (home) being the same old Jake. People knew me before I started playing football, and they knew me while I was playing football. Nothing has changed about me since I left (Breaux Bridge) in July. I am still the same guy."
Delhomme hasn't changed, but his world has been altered dramatically. That was apparent when "Good Morning America" and The New York Times called last week, when the satellite TV trucks crammed into his parents driveway, when the writer approached him about the book deal and when PR reps had his picture shot for the "Got Milk?" ad campaign. Not since the St. Louis Rams' Kurt Warner went from grocery clerk to league MVP has such an inspiring Super Bowl story come along.
Win or lose Sunday, Delhomme will spend his offseason as he always does: in Breaux Bridge, visiting family and friends and tending to the stable of thoroughbreds in his father's barn. But Delhomme will come back as more than just a local boy done good. He's a hero. And not just to the good folks along Bayou Teche. He's America's story now. The Cajun Kurt Warner.
"Jake Delhomme is the story of the Super Bowl," said Delhomme's agent, Rick Smith. "This could not have happened to a better person. He is just an unbelievable human being. His story is genuine."
Defied all odds
Just to be where he is today, Delhomme has defied all odds, said former Tulane University assistant coach Frank Monica, now the head coach at St. Charles Catholic School in LaPlace.
"He wasn't supposed to succeed," Monica said. "He came from a small school and a small town. He's kind of the Seabiscuit of quarterbacks."
For most of Delhomme's football career, few outside of St. Martin Parish believed in him.
He started at quarterback as a freshman at tiny Teurlings Catholic High School, led the Rebels to the state semifinals and rewrote the school record books before he left.
Monica remembers the first time he saw Delhomme. It was spring 1992, the end of Delhomme's junior year. Monica, then the running backs coach at Tulane, and Green Wave head coach Buddy Teevens went to scout Delhomme at a spring practice.
Monica said he had doubts about "the narrow-butted, pencil-necked kid" and the competition he faced at Louisiana's lowest level of prep football. But he also remembers Delhomme's flair and infectious enthusiasm.
"There was something about the kid, an intangible there that you don't coach," Monica said. "When he got in the huddle, he was clapping his hands, talking to players, directing them. He was a general on the field."
Monica was sold. But Teevens wasn't.
The Green Wave already had targeted their quarterback for the Class of 1993: Jonathan Quinn, a rifle-armed 6-foot-6 prospect from Nashville, Tenn., and a prototypical drop-back passer.
Still, Monica persuaded Teevens to bring Delhomme on an official visit to campus. Delhomme was ready to pledge a commitment to the Green Wave. But Teevens told him during his exit meeting that the school was not prepared to offer him a scholarship.
"I'll never forget Jake's face when he left that meeting," said Delhomme's father, Jerry. "He was ashen-faced. He was really down."
LSU showed even less interest.
Only a year earlier, the Tigers had signed Jamie Howard, a star from St. Thomas More High School in Lafayette. Howard was everybody's All-American, a 6-1, 195-pound athlete so talented he was picked by the Atlanta Braves in the second round of the Major League Baseball draft.
Howard started six games as a true freshman and showed great promise. The following spring, the only quarterback LSU signed in its 25-man recruiting class was Casey Taber of Schulenburg, Texas.
"Jamie Howard was really popping the ball around and was having some individual production as a freshman," said former LSU quarterbacks coach George Haffner, who recruited Delhomme. "It came down to kind of a consensus, and Jake kind of slipped through the cracks."
With no other Division I-A scholarship offers on the table, Delhomme signed with the nearby University of Louisiana.
Cajun conqueror
The Ragin' Cajuns had a logjam at quarterback during Delhomme's first year, so the coaching staff planned to redshirt the lanky freshman.
But after the team had a miserable first half in the season-opener against Utah State, Delhomme was called on to kick-start the offense. He led a mild second-half comeback in a 34-13 loss and was named starter for the rest of the season.
Four games later, with Monica and Teevens on the other sideline, Delhomme threw three touchdown passes and ran for another score to lead USL to a 36-15 rout of Tulane in the Superdome.
"He made us pay," Monica said. "We had gone through a litany of quarterbacks at that time. What we would have given to have had a guy like Jake. When he came back and beat us, it made us look sort of silly."
The rest of the story
Time Picayune
By Jeff Duncan
Jeff Duncan can be reached at jduncan@timespicayune.com or (504) 826-3405.
Team effort defeats Tulane Paul Angelle photo
Rags to riches, and proud of it
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That's Duh-lome, not Del-home
