NFL teams
David Fleming, ESPN Senior Writer 18y

Quiet Riot

Indianapolis Colts

There are more than half a dozen game balls scattered throughout the modest Indianapolis condo of Colts middle linebacker Gary Brackett. The newer ones are still covered with grass stains and scuffs. Others are painted in blue and white. And the most precious ones are encased in glass. Each one is a symbol of Brackett's ascent from undrafted free agent to centerpiece of the NFL's most dominant defense. And each one is coupled with a reminder of what he's lost.

Brackett's first game ball came during his rookie year, in 2003, after his kamikaze special teams play against the Bills. It is paired over the living room fireplace with a picture of Brackett's father, Granville, who died of heart failure six weeks before the game. Nearby is the ball every Colt was given after the team won the 2004 AFC South title. Next to that is a photo of Brackett's mother, Sandra, who died before that season from a stroke. Upstairs in his bedroom is the ball Brackett earned after the Colts' 2005 season-opening win against the Ravens. Beside that sits a program from the funeral service of his older brother Greg, who passed away last February after a nearly two-year battle with leukemia.

There is a laundry list of clichés that anchor so many NFL success stories: overcoming extreme poverty, surviving heartbreaking loss, turning doubters into believers. And Brackett can lay claim to them all. In his life, tragedy and triumph are inextricably linked, like the double helix of DNA. But his story does not lie just with football trophies or family tragedies. It's somewhere in between—much as you'd expect from a middle linebacker. "When you make it through the worst storms, there's supposed to be a rainbow waiting for you," says Brackett. "For me, I guess the rainbow has been football."

SANDRA AND Granville Brackett had always played good cop/bad cop with their five children. Granville was the never-satisfied Vietnam vet. After a heart attack in 1982 forced him to retire from driving a truck for a natural gas company, he ran the Brackett's Glassboro, N.J., household like a benevolent platoon sergeant. His response when he spied Gary, the second youngest of his kids, wearing too-baggy, low-riding jeans: hoist the pants up to his son's stomach and silently walk away. While the family celebrated Gary's 14 tackles against Boston College in his senior year at Rutgers, Granville asked about tackles 15 and 16-the two he saw Gary miss. If Gary wanted to hear his father's praise, he had to eavesdrop on the old man's phone calls to friends.

Sandra was the opposite. She supported the family by working 10 hours a day as a nurse and preaching at Mt. Pisgah church on weekends. She believed that Gary was the smartest, toughest football player who ever lived, and she shared her opinion with everyone. It didn't matter to her that very few people agreed.

Gary was a pudgy kid who had to lose weight before being allowed to play midget football. And he's never shed that Cartman physique. Even now, at 5'11'', 235 pounds, Brackett appears nearly as wide as he is tall. It's a shape that caused most scouts to automatically reach for the eject button on the VCR. While Gary earned All-South Jersey honors at Glassboro High, recruiters couldn't get past his body type. "I know what size I am," says Brackett. "I just needed someone to look deeper."

No one did. Instead of a scholarship, the Bracketts paid Gary's $14,000 annual fees to Rutgers by twice refinancing their house. They didn't care if he played football. Gary's three older brothers had failed to graduate, and the Bracketts only wanted their son to finish school. But Brackett wasn't ready to quit the game. He walked on as a freshman and as a sophomore walked away with the team's 12th Man Award for his special-teams contributions. By the next season, he was on scholarship, a starter and team captain. He went on to win back-to-back team MVP awards and finish his senior season as the Big East's second-leading tackler, only to be completely ignored by almost everyone outside of Piscataway.

Bowling-ball linebackers whose college teams go three years between conference wins don't burn up draft boards. But Indy GM Bill Polian has a knack for discovering undrafted free agents (the Colts have 15, tied for ninth-most in the league). And during his first rookie camp, in 2003, Brackett proved he could be invaluable on kickoff coverages. With his low center of gravity and with 20 yards to build momentum, he was impossible to knock off balance. When he called home after training camp to say he'd made the team, it seemed as though half of Glassboro celebrated.

Everyone in town knew the Bracketts needed a lift. Early that summer, Greg, just three years older than Gary, visited the doctor complaining of chest pains. Blood tests revealed leukemia. Brackett can remember doing only two things after hearing the news: "Praying and crying," he says. "Your heart just feels so heavy, like it's pulling you to the ground."

The news also sent Granville reeling. At 57, his health had been declining for more than a decade. He had had two heart attacks and surgery in both legs for poor circulation and he was battling a depression that required a yearlong hospitalization. On Oct. 14, 2003, he died. Brackett says dealing with his father's death may have been the easiest part of the ordeal; it brought peace and closure to Granville's pain. But the memories of watching his dad suffer still keep Brackett awake at night. That, and the helplessness he felt knowing his mother wouldn't survive without the love of her life.

Four months after burying her husband, Sandra checked into the hospital for a hysterectomy. The operation went fine, but while leaving surgery Sandra suffered a massive stroke. She had limited brain activity and was dependent on a ventilator. Even though Sandra's mother and all five children were at her bedside, the family looked to Gary to decide whether to keep her on life support.

After three days, a family meeting was scheduled for the next morning. It was a bitter cold February night, the kind that makes spring seem like an impossibility. Brackett went for a drive around South Jersey, listening to music, remembering his mother's sermons and praying for guidance. He knew her faith had prepared her to go at any moment. And before surgery, Brackett recalled, she'd begun talking about the house she was going to live in. It had chandeliers, marble hallways and ornate gold fixtures. Brackett had just moved her into a new house, a gift to cheer her up after Granville's death. But it was nothing like the palace his mother kept describing.

He'd been driving around for most of the night when suddenly, he slammed on the brakes. The car idled in the middle of a deserted street. Heaven, he thought. She wasn't describing a house here on earth, she was talking about living in heaven with her husband.

The next morning, Brackett drove to his aunt's house. The words burst from his mouth: "We're being selfish," he said. "She's alive to you because you can see her, but the choice should be made from her perspective. It's time. It's time to let her go."

No one objected, and Sandra died the next day.

"I've been through something similar, but I was 49, Gary was 23," says coach Tony Dungy. "He's got an instinctive strength and leadership quality, the way he always does the right thing. It's been awesome to watch how that's influenced people around him."

By the time the Colts regrouped for minicamps in June 2004, Brackett was expected to challenge starting middle linebacker (and 2000 first-round pick) Rob Morris. But in the spring, just a few weeks before minicamp, Gary learned that chemo hadn't stopped Greg's cancer. He needed a bone-marrow transplant, and Gary was the only one of his siblings who matched. The prep for the procedure required him to inject his stomach with drugs that induced flulike symptoms for days on end.

When he returned to Indy for minicamp, Brackett barely made it through practice. He lacked his normal speed and pop. He was hesitant and quiet. When coaches wondered where his extra gear had gone, Gary made no excuses. He told almost no one that it was in an IV bag back in New Jersey, waiting to be pumped into his brother's arm.

Gary couldn't beat out Morris and became the team's nickel linebacker in passing situations.

Meanwhile, Greg's condition worsened throughout the season. Early one December morning, Gary was sitting in a linebackers meeting when his cell phone rang. He heard his brother's scratchy, garbled voice struggling to speak. Looking for privacy, Gary bolted out of the room, down a dark hallway and into the parking lot, where he was temporarily blinded by early-morning sun. "I'm dying," said Greg. "I'm dying. This is it. Take care of my kids. Promise me you'll take care of my kids."

Gary screamed, "No no, hold on, hold on … " Then the line went dead.

He went through the rest of the morning attending meetings—even practicing with the team—believing his brother had died. He couldn't face the prospect of talking with his family at that moment. When he called home later that day, he learned that Greg had held on.

Dungy told Brackett to return to New Jersey and take as much time as he needed to say goodbye, his job was safe. Afterward, the coach closed the door to his office and prayed for Brackett's heartache to end. "When Greg got really bad, the situation finally got to Gary—and to everyone else around here," linebacker David Thornton says. "We were all like, Are you serious, God? How much is one person supposed to take before things start to get better?"

Two months after that phone call, Brackett buried Greg, his third funeral in 16 months. But that spring, when he returned to the Colts, coaches and players saw no sign of the burdens he had carried his first two seasons. He played as though he were worry-free.

While trying to change the mentality of their 29th-ranked defense, Dungy and defensive coordinator Ron Meeks had settled on a single code word: cobra. Be decisive, then strike fast and with overwhelming force. Brackett was the embodiment of the Colts' new philosophy. "Football and grief merged for me," Brackett says. "They're both a mentality. You deal with them the same way: you attack 'em at full speed."

At the team's minicamp last May, with Morris an unrestricted free agent (he eventually re-signed with Indy as a backup), Dungy inserted Brackett as the starter. Compared to what I've just been through, Brackett asked himself, how tough can it be to run this defense? Football wasn't as much a job anymore as it was a release. His new attitude was contagious. "Linebackers are the heart and soul of a defense, and on this team Gary is clearly at the center of that," says Thornton. "Everything we do radiates outward from the light he provides in the middle."

With Brackett directing them, Colts defenders like defensive end Robert Mathis (eight sacks) and linebacker Cato June (five interceptions) have come to realize how useful lining up in the right place can be. And, like Peyton Manning on offense, Brackett has the freedom to call the plays himself in a hurry-up situation. As a result, the Colts have been winning more presnap chess matches, which has left them far less susceptible to the mismatches that once created big plays for opponents. Indy is only the third team since the merger to hold its first five opponents to 10 or fewer points.

Brackett set the tone for the Colts defense on the season's first drive. The Ravens took the opening kickoff and began marching down the field. On a third and nine from the Colts' 45-yard line, Kyle Boller's pass 22 yards downfield was tipped by Indy defensive back Nick Harper. As the ball floated toward the turf, Brackett dived for it. In what Dungy describes as Brackett's "nothing is ever over and I will never stop" playing style, the linebacker came up with the pick. He finished the game with nine tackles, two picks and AFC Defensive Player of the Week honors.

Afterward, inside the Colts' locker room, Dungy awarded Brackett a game ball as his teammates exploded in celebration, pounding on his shoulder pads. Brackett took the ball and walked slowly back to his locker, where the oddest thing overwhelmed him: the sight of his cell phone.

Brackett looked around at his teammates. Most were already on their phones and two-ways, dialing up family and friends. Brackett glanced back at his own phone sitting unused in his locker. One of his greatest moments as a football player suddenly felt horribly incomplete. Recalling the moment, he can only whisper:

"I didn't have anyone to call."

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