The Curse of Lester Hayes

By Bob | Permalink | No Comments | October 15th, 2006 | Trackback

The Superdome in New Orleans conjures up a lot of distressing memories for Americans. While I would never minimize the horrors of what took place there in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, as a Philadelphia Eagles fan the building represents one of the worst days in a lifetime of miserable days.

In January 1981, the Eagles met the Oakland Raiders in the Super Bowl. At the hardened age of 6, I was a diehard Philly fan. I watched every game that season. I knew the tendencies of the linebacker corps. If my parents had let me have a dog I probably would have named it after my favorite player, the lithe wide receiver Harold Charmichael.

Memories fade over time, but no matter what happens in my life I will always remember the night of that Super Bowl. The Raiders were the perfect villains. They were led by the talented, yet annoying quarterback Jim Plunkett. On the defensive side of the ball there was the one of a kind character Lester Hayes. The defensive back was most famous for smothering his hands in a mysterious substance known as stick-um. It is now banned, but at the time Hayes’ uniform and the uniforms of his opponents would be covered in the stuff that helped him snag interceptions. Even though I was a young boy, I was quick to observe that Hayes’ exposure to the toxic goo might have had something to do with his utter lack of intelligence. The guy couldn’t form a sentence if you spotted him a subject and a verb, but boy could he play.

The game began and almost immediately the Raiders went on top. With each point scored and each Eagles’ mistake, my body temperature went up another degree, literally. By halftime, the Raiders had the game under control and my parents forced me to go to bed because I was running a temperature of 103. If I stuck around to watch the second half I probably wouldn’t be here today. In fact, I have never watched the second half of that game. I can’t bring myself to do it. Maybe I will on my death bed, but the sheer disappointment of watching my heroes fall so abysmally short has shaped the love-hate relationship I have with being an Eagles fan.

On Sunday, Philadelphia returned to New Orleans. There was no Lester Hayes and there was no stick-um, but there was heartache once again. In a game that featured two solid and equally matched teams, the Saints came away the winner on a last second field goal.

Perhaps it is a mark of maturity or maybe it is just the experience of being kicked in the balls on so many Eagles Sundays in my lifetime, but I didn’t make myself sick over this one and I managed to avoid breaking any windows or bones in my fist. I’ve come to accept the disappointment of a loss and perhaps to my detriment I’ve come to expect it. Even with a team coming off the high of beating the Cowboys and even with Donovan McNabb playing out of this world, I dreaded this game from the get go. The Saints are a well coached team, perhaps a bit short on talent, but solid enough to not make the mistakes that would cost them a win at home. The Eagles aren’t talented enough to get a win against a good team on the road unless they play their best game. They did not. The result of the game was the fair one and the right one and it still was impossible to watch.

The Superdome has gone through a lot since that fateful night in 1981 and the horrors we saw last year will haunt us all for a long time. But there is another kind of horror that still haunts me and probably always will. Somewhere in that cavernous, soulless building roams the ghost of Lester Hayes. It is covered in stick-um and it helped to guide that last second Saints field goal through the uprights and it made me feel like a 6-year-old boy all over again.

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