Cowboys' Ismail prefers to fly well out of radar range
10/24/99
By Jean-Jacques Taylor / The Dallas Morning News
Raghib Ramadan Ibrahim Hama Sulaiman Iben Ismail has never been an ordinary guy. On or off the football field.
You see, Ismail dances to a melody only he can hear. That's why some call him quirky, others strange.
John F. Rhodes / DMN
Raghib Ismail collects a TD pass in front of Arizona defender Cory Chavous during the second quarter of their Oct. 3 game.
Ismail, a devout Christian, is an introspective man who used to spend his off-seasons sitting on his mother's front porch in Mountain Top, Pa., gently rocking back-and-forth for weeks at a time.
He politely declines interview requests because he thinks the individual attention detracts from his teammates, and he doesn't want it.
"It's to a point people don't even know my name," Ismail once told his brother Qadry, a fellow receiver who plays for Baltimore. "They just know Rocket."
The Rocket - a nickname given to him by a track coach and enhanced by his exploits on the football field - signed a seven-year, $21 million contract with the Cowboys in the off-season.
The Rocket debuted with the best game of his career - eight catches, 149 yards and the game-winning touchdown - in the Cowboys' thrilling 41-35 overtime win over Washington. Through five games, he has a team-high 24 catches for 450 yards and two touchdowns.
He signed with Dallas because he just wanted to be one of the guys. With Troy Aikman, Emmitt Smith, Michael Irvin and Deion Sanders around, he could do that.
It's the same philosophy that led Ismail to Notre Dame, where the program's storied history, Touchdown Jesus and Lou Holtz deflected attention from him.
But Ismail, 29, has never been able to escape the spotlight and the scrutiny that accompanies it for long.
The Rocket's ability won't let him.
It's the same ability that has made The Rocket the center of attention for 14 years, ever since he scored 20 touchdowns as a sophomore at Myers High School in Wilkes-Barre, Pa. The Rocket was treated more like an icon than a student-athlete in his three seasons with the Irish, and he was supposed to be the Canadian Football League's savior when he joined the Toronto Argonauts.
Now, with Irvin out indefinitely with swelling of his spinal cord, Ismail has again been thrust into the spotlight he disdains. The Cowboys need their 5-11, 175-pound newcomer to become the epicenter of their passing offense.
"There's a charismatic way - I still haven't figured it out - that people are just drawn to him," said Qadry Ismail, 11 month's Raghib's junior. "He understands it, but he doesn't fully embrace it because then you're expected to be something that you're not all the time. That's when you become phony."
Wilkes-Barre is a blue-collar city of about 50,000 in the northeastern Pennsylvania Valley, between New York and Philadelphia. It's a city that was built on coal-mining but is trying to make the transition to technology. And it's a city that loves its football. Loyalties run deep for three teams: the Eagles, Notre Dame and Penn State.
Michael Mulvey / DMN
Raghib Ismail runs for a first down against New York's Jason Sehorn during their Oct. 18 game.
Ismail was in junior high school when moved to Wilkes-Barre with his two brothers, shortly after their father died. Phatma Ismail, worried about the guns and drugs in northern New Jersey, sent her sons to live there with her mother-in-law.
Without her husband, a devout Muslim who converted from Christianity after studying in Africa, she feared they would succumb to the temptations of the inner city.
"She saw the environment and she wanted to have an influence on our lives," said Qadry Ismail, who shares a close relationship with Raghib, "but she knew she wasn't in a position to have a great job and support our family. It was real hard on her."
And 78-year-old Laura Baucknight was hard on her grandsons. She used scriptures, prayer and discipline to raise her grandsons in a tidy, one-story home in a middle-class section of Wilkes-Barre.
"She was a little, tiny woman," said Mickey Gorham, Ismail's high school football coach, "but she kept control of those boys. You never worried about them being in the streets because they were at home cooking and cleaning."
At Myers High School, The Rocket became one of the nation's best high school players. As a senior, he totaled 3,144 yards of offense and scored 33 touchdowns before crowds that often reached 10,000.
"He was a typical kid who was no different than anyone else until he stepped onto the football field," said Myers football coach Mike Namey, an assistant in Ismail's senior year. "He captivated people because he was an art form on the field. People came from all around to see him."
The tears came slowly at first. Then a little faster. Finally, they began streaming down freshman Raghib Ismail's face as he waited in the tunnel to play Michigan in the first game of his career.
AP
Raghib Ismail runs ahead of Arizona DB Cory Chavous on a 63-yard scoring run from their game on Oct. 3.
"All the quarterbacks and receivers were at the front of the tunnel holding hands and praying," said former Notre Dame quarterback Tony Rice, "when I saw tears coming out of his eyes because he was so nervous about playing. We were like, 'Wow, let him break down now and not on the field when we need him.' "
They shouldn't have worried. The Rocket became one of the most electrifying players in school history. He averaged 61.8 yards per touchdown and became the first player in NCAA history to return two kickoffs for touchdowns in two separate games.
"The best Notre Dame football player ever was Paul Hornung," said Roger Valdissari, who spent nearly 38 years working in Notre Dame's athletic department. "He played fullback, quarterback, defense, kicked extra points and punted.
"But as far as pure excitement, Rocket was the man. Rocket had a flair about him and because he was so small, people really pulled for him."
Ismail and his mother shared a close relationship with Valdissari. He frequently used Valdissari's office as a haven. They talked about academics. And football. And religion. And politics.
"I just love the kid. I could have taken him home and adopted him," Valdissari said. "I don't know if he ever had down day."
Ismail, though, didn't have the typical collegiate experience. The Rocket wouldn't let him.
As a freshman in 1988, The Rocket led the nation in kickoff returns with a 36.1-yard average and two touchdowns as the Fighting Irish won the national championship. The attention only increased the next two years.
Students and professors asked for autographs and other memorabilia. After games, hundreds would wait at Notre Dame's dressing room door for a glimpse of Ismail.
They just wanted to pat him on the back. Or shake his hand. Or snap a picture.
"In four years, I played with a lot of great athletes like Tim Brown and Jerome Bettis," St. Louis cornerback Todd Lyght said of his Notre Dame career. "But there's only one name I heard the people chanting in the stands, and that was Rocket's."
Raghib Ismail never wanted to be the CFL's savior. He simply wanted to play football and build his mother a house.
Louis DeLuca / DMN
Raghib Ismail scoring the biggest TD of the season thus far for the Cowboys in the season opener against the Redskins.
But the CFL had financial problems, and the Toronto Argonauts new owner Bruce McNall and his partners, comedian John Candy and hockey superstar Wayne Gretzky, wanted to make a splash. McNall had done the same thing when he bought the Los Angeles Kings and immediately traded for Gretzky.
The Rocket became the highest-profile college player to join the CFL when McNall signed him to a four-year personal-services contract and a one-year contract with Toronto with a one-year option.
The Rocket was ready for the CFL. Ismail wasn't.
The Rocket gave the CFL instant credibility because he was recognized as college football's most charismatic player. And its best.
But the contract Ismail signed also called for him to make personal appearances for the team, the CFL and corporate sponsors. "He was just a baby," said former Toronto general manager Mike McCarthy, "and we put him in the limelight."
The stress of being a savior took its toll on Ismail. One day, Qadry Ismail saw its effects.
"His whole back was covered with stress bumps," Qadry Ismail said. " . . . It was too much for my brother to handle."
Equipment manager Danny Webb, who has been with the Argonauts for 15 seasons, said Ismail never adjusted to The Rocket's fame. Webb recalls The Rocket taking off his equipment after open practices. As his teammates would sign autographs, Ismail would slip on a trainer's shirt and sneak away unnoticed.
But on the field and in the financial ledgers, The Rocket was everything the league had hoped for.
McCarthy said Toronto's attendance jumped from 21,000 in 1990 to 38,000 in 1991, when The Rocket became the second player in CFL history to gain more than 3,000 yards in total offense. In the Grey Cup, The Rocket returned a kickoff 87 yards for a touchdown and was named the game's MVP.
"It was like a traveling circus. It was like barnstorming with Red Grange in 30s," McCarthy said. "All of the TV ratings went up, and everywhere we went was a sellout or the best house of the year."
The Rocket's fame, though, suffocated Ismail.
He left the CFL after his second season to join the Los Angeles Raiders, who owned his NFL draft rights.
In a Monday night game this season against Atlanta, The Rocket aggravated a left-shoulder sprain on a 38-yard reception in the first quarter, when he was slammed into the artificial turf.
He left to have X-rays, then returned before the end of the half.
"Tim Brown and I saw that and we started laughing," Oakland receiver James Jett said. "That would have never happened here. He would have never come back in the game."
The Rocket joined the Raiders in 1993 but never made an impact in three seasons. The Raiders traded him to Carolina for a fifth-round pick.
"All of a sudden, he was being covered by guys who didn't fall for any okey-doke moves," Qadry Ismail said. "That's where that different level of maturity came in, and he decided to get his act together and learn the position."
The Rocket caught only 48 passes in his first two seasons with Carolina, which considered releasing him before last season.
But first-round pick Rae Carruth sustained a season-ending injury, and The Rocket moved into the starting lineup. He responded with an NFL career-high 69 catches for 1,024 yards and eight touchdowns.
"He didn't understand what pro football was about, when he joined the Raiders," said Washington receivers coach Terry Robiskie, who coached The Rocket in Los Angeles. "He didn't understand the intensity, and he was like a high school kid in terms of running routes.
"He was in awe when he came into the league. Evidently it all went away because he's doing a good job for Dallas."
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