Former Saint's life undergoes huge changes in last 12 months

Gannett News Sevice

July 9, 2004

LAFAYETTE - Ask Jake Delhomme if he could have predicted the changes in his life during the past 12 months, and the customary big grin spreads wide.

"That would mean that I was starting at quarterback for a good football team," he said. "Everything else is just gravy."

The gravy bowl has spilled over, enough to cover Breaux Bridge and much of Acadiana since last September, and the flow hasn't slowed down even though Delhomme is five months removed from a stellar performance in the Super Bowl.

His Carolina Panther team fell 32-29 to the defending champion New England Patriots, but the Teurlings Catholic and Louisiana-Lafayette product was the game's breakout star with a 323-yard, three-touchdown performance.

As no surprise to local fans, Delhomme was at his best in the fourth quarter, hitting 10-of-14 passes for 216 yards and two scores in leading a late Panther rally.

His team, two years removed from a 1-15 2001 debacle, sprinted out 5-0 and clinched the NFC South division well before the end of the season. Two playoff wins, one in double overtime, put the Panthers into the nation's most-watched sports event.

"It's been exciting," Delhomme said Wednesday after doing a live satellite television interview with ESPN's Dan Patrick from Cypress Lake on the ULL campus.

"Maybe I didn't realize what we were doing during the season because we got out 2-0 before the bye week and clinched early. I just kind of rolled with the flow."

Delhomme was well known in southern Louisiana after a storied career with the Ragin' Cajuns (upon graduation, he was the state's all-time leader in career passing yardage) and four years as a backup quarterback for the New Orleans Saints. But he was still well off the national radar, even after signing a contract with the Panthers last spring and heading to Charlotte for little more than a chance to compete for a starting slot.

"The people in Charlotte had a bitter taste in their mouths with the Hornets leaving," Delhomme said, "and the Panthers had gone through a rough spell.

"But (owner) Jerry Richardson and (coach) John Fox are class people, and the people there embraced us like you can't believe."

It helped that the Panthers started winning. And once they reached the Super Bowl, the frenzy hit a peak.

"Kris Mangum (a tight end from Ole Miss) and I were leaving a restaurant and people gave us a standing ovation," Delhomme said. "They were hollering and screaming. We were talking about it in the locker room, and some other guys said they'd had the same thing happen to them."

With the focus on the game, Delhomme was insulated from the football fever that enveloped his Breaux Bridge hometown during Super Bowl week.

"But I heard about it," he said. "It was the first time my family had been through something like that, but they handled it great. They and my wife shelter me pretty well. I told them to enjoy it."

Since the Super Bowl, the Panthers rewarded him with a $38 million contract extension, and he's nominated for an ESPY Award next week as the year's breakthrough performer. He even has a Web site dedicated to him (http://www.thecarolinacajun.com), one that includes information on an upcoming action figure doll and "Jake's Flakes" cereal, his commercial for Bojangles fried chicken and a clip of "CSI" actress Marg Helgenberger wearing a Delhomme jersey on a talk-show appearance.

But the new-found fame, money and the honors haven't been nearly as important as what they represent - an affirmation in the exclusive club of NFL starting quarterbacks, and the opportunity they provide for him, his wife Keri and 18-month-old daughter Lauren.

"For the guys I run with, it's no different," he said. "I remember getting that first practice-squad check (with the Saints) and thinking it was more money than I'd ever had in my life. But I know what got me here and I can't forget that, because you can never think you're bigger than what you are."

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