MOUNTULLA— Football and healing are two words that don’t often go together.
Especially when talking about players like West Rowan’s James Francis, a ferocious linebacker whose job is to inflict pain on opposing offenses.
But that’s physical pain and physical healing. For Francis, football has served as a refuge from the mental pain and anguish assaulting his family following the death of his sister, Lakeina Monique Francis.
Last Thursday night, the family learned that Lakeina was missing following the bombing of the USSCole in Yemen. James Francis attended school Friday but spent the day glued to news reports with coaches, teachers and counselors.
The Falcon football team waited for news of another sort: Would James be with them when they traveled to Concord that night?
“I knew I was going to play, but everybody didn’t know where my mind was at,” Francis said. “All I had to do was go out there for 48 minutes and put my mind on something else.”
A week has passed since Francis led West to a 17-3 victory. A week in which he traveled to Norfolk, Va., to meet with President Clinton at a memorial service for the bombing victims; a week of waiting for Navy personnel to finally recover all the bodies from the ship’s wreakage; a week in which James Francis found very little to smile about.
But in football, Francis found his escape. He recorded 18 tackles, two sacks and a fumble recovery in his quiet, determined mission against Concord. The win put the Falcons alone in first place in the 3ASouth Piedmont Conference, just two victories away from their first league title.
“We’ve put a lot into this season. The players knew what was going on, but it was a big game, for the conference championship,”
Francis said. “I wanted to be there. I didn’t want to let them down.”
Francis, already regarded as one of the top defenders in Rowan County, far exceeded his coach’s expectations considering the circumstances.
“We were very concerned about how affected he would be mentally,” Scott Young said.
“For him to be able to play that kind of game against a very good team like
Concord — that’s something that Ithink very few people would have had the will power to do.”
Young rewarded Francis’ efforts in the game’s closing minutes. After West scored the clinching touchdown to take a 15-3 lead, the Falcons gave Francis a chance to attempt the two-point conversion run. In storybook fashion, the play succeeded.
“We always talk in practice about why we can’t run the ball, ”Francis complained with a smile.
“That was for James,” Young said. “That’s the only time we’ve let a defensive player carry the ball the last two years. He deserved it.”
More rewards, from other sources, followed. Local television stations honored Francis as the player of the week. He was merely mad that West Rowan, the team, wasn’t getting the same recognition that Francis, the player, was.
“We should be ranked and we’re not even in the APpoll,” he said.
It’s hard to disagree with that sentiment after back-to-back wins over A.L. Brown and Concord. Young acknowledged that much of the praise heaped upon Francis this week hasn’t come solely from Friday night’s performance.
“The way he played makes him deserving, and I’m glad he got the recognition,”
Young said. “But I think it would have been a lot more difficult without the other circumstances. Defensive players don’t get many of those awards.”
When Friday’s night’s game ended, Francis had earned an award whose value can’t be measured. To a player, the Falcons rallied around their wounded hero. In a
post game huddle that normally would have been raucous, they presented him a game ball, signed by every member of the team.
Many of the Falcons knew Lakeina as an important member of the football team last year — James didn’t have his license yet, and his older sister would drive the players wherever they needed to go after the games.
“She was always there watching. Usually my sister would be in the middle of the huddle with us,”Francis said. “She’d always come down on the field with my dad and brother after the games.”
With Lakeina gone, Francis’ teammates took care of him instead. As the huddle broke up, Ben Hampton and Horatio Everhart hoisted him up on their shoulders and carried him off the field. The emotional moment nearly got the best of Francis.
“I didn’t want to be up there in front of everybody, but I didn’t want to disappoint them,”he said. “I don’t like crying in front of the cameras. Don’t catch me on TV doing that,”he added with a laugh.
Then, just as quickly, the reason for those tears rushed back and the smile faded. The healing process has just begun.
Tonight he’ll get 48 more minutes of peace and solitude in the most unlikely of places: a stadium filled with screaming football fans.
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