First and Four Hundred Forty-Four

by Chris S.

Bruce

November 2nd 1979 15:30 EST

I opened my eyes, greeted by a loud ringing in my ears. The smell of freshly cut grass buried in my face after Andre hit me. I got up, readjusted my shoulder pads and lined up for the next play: I-formation 36 sweep to my territory. My man to block was Andre, and I sure as heck was going to hit him. Hard. Mike, the quarterback, snapped the ball, then faked a handoff to the left, turned, and gave it to Terrence. I dug my back foot into the grass and then pushed off. Andre came at me like a bull, but I'm a freight train. I sprinted towards him and lowered my shoulder into his upper chest. He went down hard, and Terrence slipped through the defensive for the first down. The grass never smelled so good.

There is a beauty of a football field in the fall, the white lines, the yellow goal posts, the green grass, and there is no better feeling than coming off the warfield of gladiators successful. Something that isn’t a great feeling is being shoved from behind. I turned to see Andre with his fists clenched, staring at me. Sweat dripping down his face, shiny off his dark skin gleaming in the sunlight. Andre is a cocky, 6’2 cornerback for the Northern Potomac Cougars (the same as me, though we don't treat each other as teammates). He’s also one of the most talented cornerbacks in the state and the reason college scouts started noticing me, the 5’11 wide receiver. He has got one of those sideburn to goatee beards. He’s got a closely shaved head with his initials shaved in them. On his right bicep he has a tattoo of the date “8.25.77.” It probably is the date of his first pick or something stupid like that. Meanwhile, Andre was not happy with me and there needed to be something done about it. I took a step towards him to see how he would take it, and it turned out that he took it badly.

“What the hell was that, man?” Andre shouted at me.

I shot back, “Me making you look stupid.”

“Shut up! We both know who's better here. It’s me.” He made this statement along with a step towards me. The rest of our team started making a circle around us. There was no going back. I suddenly felt the eyes of every single player on me. I took two steps toward him to show him that I wasn’t going anywhere. I was face to face with the 6’2 195-pound Andre Coleman. I breathed in and felt the quick shot to the chest I was expecting. The entire team erupted into the classic offense vs. defense fight. Terrence was the first one in and threw a punch, hitting a lineman in the gut. In all this chaos somehow Coach Anderson broke through and pulled me and Andre apart.

“What do you think you're doing?” Coach questioned. Complete silence ensued, and Coach answered himself by stating, “Whatever it was, I don't want that on my football team. I want a group of guys that doesn’t fight each other and both lose. Instead, you should be fighting the opposing team and both winning. Let’s go. Sidelines.”

James Wallace

November 4th 1979 6:30 UTC

The Iranians were not happy with the United States, which meant trouble for us in the United States embassy in Tehran. My coworkers and I looked out our window over the pavement and driveway to the fence where Iranian students had been chanting “Death to America!” for the past fifteen minutes. They were insane and intimidating, hundreds of Iranians gathered, all wanting to take off the heads of the next American they saw. They were burning our flags and had photos of their new leader Ayatollah Khomeini on their chests. I knew those ten foot steel fences wouldn’t hold up forever, so I made my way down to the burner past the frantic workers, bumping into them as they ran by. It was vital that every paper document was burned before they got inside. I stuffed all of my files in and watched as years of work went up into flames.

Demonstrators at the U.S. embassy in Tehran

I had been hearing the scattered chants for months, reporting them to security, but no one listened. I told my son Bruce back home, and he listened, but that got me nowhere. I suddenly heard another sound from close by. I panicked, thinking that it was the Iranians getting into the building, but it was a Marine yelling at us to get to the second floor of the building, the max security floor. In life you get scared when you see the faces of other citizens around you in fear, but when you see fear in the face of a Marine, you get terrified. I frantically sprinted up the stairs, seeing and hearing the roar of anger from outside. I stepped into the conference room and was immediately hit by frantic prayers from all languages: Arabic, English or whatever. Everyone was saying the same thing: “Get me out of here, fast.” I maneuvered my way to my desk, and looked out the window and saw a large banner being put up by the Iranians saying, “We just want to talk. No one will be harmed.” BS, I thought. Then I saw what I had feared to see for so many months. The Iranians were inside the campus. I sat down and came to my senses. I realized I was about to die.

The Marines held them off for a few hours. But then the doors opened and it was over. The sounds of yelling got louder and louder until they burst through the office doors and saw us. There was some sort of excitement in his eyes. I said one last prayer, stood up, and faced whatever was coming next.

Bruce

November 12 1979 20:53 EST

When I heard the news about Dad, I broke down. I couldn’t handle the stress of it. Every night I would pray and pray and pray until I couldn’t pray anymore.

Just a week after the start of the crisis we played our first playoff game. Both Andre and I had our dads in the embassy, so we were both shaken by it. If a team's best two players are shaken, the team is shaken.

We played horribly and there was no excuse for it. My heart for the game just wasn’t there. My heart was with my dad. What made it worse was that Andre was actually with his dad.

About two weeks after the start of the crisis, they released about a dozen women and African Americans because the Iranians believe in the struggle of other minorities. During our last football practice I couldn’t keep it together anymore. After a quick run play, I hit Andre with a chop block, and it was late. He turned on his back, looking up at me like I was crazy, which I had felt was true in the past weeks.

“What are you doing, man?” Andre burst out.

“I’m playing football. That’s what,” I shot back and then muttered, “Don’t go crying home to your daddy.”

“So that’s what this is about. Well let me tell you something. At least you have two parents, even though one might not be here right now.”

“What are you talking about?”

“What do you think this tat is for?” Andre asked while pointing at his bicep.

“I don’t know.”

“It’s the date my mom died. So next time you talk about my family like that, keep her in mind.”

I had nothing to say. I couldn’t think of anything to say to heal what I had just said. Andre was still face to face with me and he had tears of anger and sadness in his eyes.

“I-- I’m sorry, bro.” Then I turned and walked back to the huddle and demanded, “All right, next play, leggo.”

James

June 15 1980 19:35 UTC

We had been through hell over the past months. I had been beaten, scared to death and starved. My roommate was as skinny as a toothpick. I kept thinking about the attack on the embassy and what happened. I couldn’t sleep at night. When I would think about the attack I could see the Marines passing out the gas masks as they fired their tear gas guns at the Iranians. They couldn’t fire real bullets at them because then they could have killed each and every one of us. It was scary. Everyone was scared.

Bruce

January 13 1981 16:17 EST

The next football season had been going great. We went 12-1 in the regular season and had gotten to the championship in the playoffs. It was just a week before the inauguration of Ronald Reagan, the soon to be 40th president of the United States. We were playing the Alexandria Wildcats, who had been 13-0 in the regular season, and our one loss.

The mood in the locker room was tense. The only sound was the dripping of the faucet in the showers. It bounced off the tile walls and echoed into our ears. I was staring at my feet, studying each of the stitchings on my shoes one by one.

Andre broke the silence. “This is it, boys. Every second, every minute of every game and every practice has led up to this one game. That’s the same with them gentlemen, and we both know only one of us will come off the field as a winner. I know when you look to the guy standing next to you, you will see a guy who would tear himself apart both physically and mentally for that win. We all know that not all of us get along together. But that doesn’t need to happen perfectly. Families don’t always get along together, and I’m sure as hell we’re a family. You know what families do? They fight together. Even if everything has gone wrong in their lives, they still fight together! Bruce’s dad was taken by the Iranians and he’s still fighting! So let’s fight for him and win as a family, boys, thats all that needs to happen. So what are you gonna do?”

A hostage is publicly humiliated

The locker room erupted from complete silence to the sound of a fighter jet. I gave Andre a hug and then we sprinted onto the field to win the game.

We were down with three minutes to go. The score was 21-17. Alexandria had the ball and their five star recruit quarterback, Ryan Paul, looked like he was about to penetrate our defense again. Andre had been playing well but had not been playing like the superstar he was. It was third and three with the ball on our 25 yard line. This was the most important play of my high school career and all I could do was watch from the sideline. I could almost see the football mocking me. The rain was beating down on my helmet and you could see the raindrops illuminated by the lights shining down. The next play felt like 1000 years.

The Wildcats came to the line of scrimmage with a running back behind the QB and three receivers, the slot on the left side. That meant Andre was one on one with his man. Paul snapped it, did a play action fake to the running back and looked at Andre’s man. He let it fly. Andre saw it immediately, got in front of the receiver, and picked it off. He started running past the 25 line and kept running. He only had one man to beat. He juked to the right and then was cracked. He was down for the count. The offense and trainers hustled onto the field as the defense, minus Andre, jogged off.

I sprinted toward Andre as he was being helped up. “I got you.” I slipped my arm around him and carried him off the field. Meanwhile, there was one minute left and we had ten yards to go. We were running an I-formation 36 sweep. The ball was snapped and handed off to Terrence. I set my feet and hit the cornerback. Terrence broke through for the touchdown. We had just won States.

A week later the news I had been waiting for for 444 days came. My dad was coming home. We met him at the airport in New York along with Andre and his dad. My dad walked down the stairs of the plane and saw us. I saw the smile I missed so much and hadn’t seen for years.

There were hundreds of families standing next to us, waiting to see the smile they knew. We were all staring at the opening doors of the plane with the sunlight reflecting off of the metallic shell that contained fifty-three former hostages. As soon as his feet hit the tarmac, he broke down. I ran towards him through the bitter cold. He was on his knees with his hands on the ground, holding him up. It must’ve been such a relief to have his feet on American soil.

I put my hand on on his back. “Dad, you’re okay. You’re safe now. Don’t be scared. Everything’s gonna be okay.”

             

I hugged him as he cried, “Bruce, I love you. It’s so beautiful.”

“I love you too, Dad. What’s beautiful?”

“America.” I helped him up, with tears filling my eyes.

                       

“Bruce, did you win?” my dad asked.

I buried my face in his shoulder and burst out, “Yeah, Dad. We won. I missed you.”

Andre’s dad shook my dad’s hand and told him, “I never wanted to leave you, James. I wanted to stay there beside you.”

“I know,” my dad replied.  “I’m just glad we’re both safe.”

We drove to a diner to get lunch and to give Dad the sweet taste of a burger, which he had not tasted for so long.

When we arrived my dad inquired, “So how did you guys play?”

“Well, Andre only had one pick,” I joked as I sat down in a worn red booth.

Andre gave me a friendly slap to the back of the head, but this time, instead of being greeted by a ringing in my ears, I was greeted by my dad.

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