As Derrick Lewis drove through the pelting rain in early September of 2005, he yearned for just one thing: a phone call. It was the only thing that would alleviate the anxiety of the father of five frantically hoping against hope that the worst didn't happen to two of his children.
He just wanted to know if his two oldest, Derrick Jr. and Dominique, had survived Hurricane Katrina.
For two weeks, Lewis, a second-year receiver with the Arena Football League's Austin Wranglers, stopped at every shelter from Louisiana to Texas and scoured every list with names and photos of Hurricane Katrina evacuees in search of Derrick Jr. and Dominique. Lewis had not heard from them since they tried to ride out the storm at home in New Orleans with their mother from a previous relationship, Nicole Miller. Lewis' other three children went with his wife, Demetrice, to Lafayette, La., the day before the storm hit.
Eventually Lewis, 31, arrived in Houston, where he walked through the Astrodome, his eyes making contact with each child who passed, because "every kid looks like your kid when you can't find them," he recalled. Then his cell phone rang. He looked down at the screen, but didn't recognize the area code.
The voice on the other end quickly blurted out, "Hey, Dad, guess what, I got to ride on a helicopter."
It was Derrick Jr.
Lewis fell to his knees. He didn't know whether to laugh or cry. So he did both. He listened intently as Derrick Jr. told his father how he climbed out onto the roof of his mother's two-story house and flagged down a National Guard helicopter by waving his T-shirt in the air. About an hour later, Derrick Jr. and Dominique, along with their mother and grandmother, were airlifted by helicopter to safety and then relocated to Salt Lake City.
The family was finally reunited in Lafayette a short time later.
"There isn't a word to describe what those two weeks were like for me," Lewis said. "I always try to make the best of everything, no matter what is it. I was trying to stay upbeat and not negative during the time I was looking for Derrick and Dominique. I didn't want to think anything bad during that time, but nothing mattered.
"Football didn't matter. We make so much about this game, but something like that happens to you, you don't care about anything. All those times my son would call me on the phone and I'd push the calls aside when I wasn't really doing anything. I just wished I never did that."
Growing up in New Orleans
The Saints are a way of life in the Big Easy. They certainly were for a young Derrick Lewis. He was born and raised in the Sixth Ward housing projects, within walking distance of the French Quarter and the Superdome. He lived so close to the Mississippi River, he could hear the boat horns from his house on Dumaine Street. The family would throw Saints parties each Sunday. Everyone dressed in black and gold. Win or lose, it was a celebration.
It only seemed natural that if Lewis left, he would eventually return to his roots one day.
Finding the way out, however, was going to be a struggle. Lewis became a father at a young age, and dropped out of Joseph S. Clark High School his sophomore year to make some money as a valet parking cars at a local hotel.
But Lewis saw too many examples of what he didn't want to be surrounding him. Many of his friends were hustling. Some wound up in jail. He didn't want to go that route. So at 19, he enrolled back in high school, this time determined to graduate.
He took up track, where he excelled enough to garner the attention of Sacramento City College, a junior college in Sacramento, Calif. He drove there without even knowing where he would live. He slept in his car the first three weeks before some teammates from the track team took him in and let him sleep on their dorm floor. He once again starred in track and earned attention from Division I schools like Kansas State.
It was during an official visit to Kansas State that Lewis first saw football as his ticket to a better life. The next fall, he gave up track to concentrate on football at Sacramento CC. In 1998, his first year of organized football, he caught 34 passes. That was enough to earn him a scholarship at San Diego State.
"It was a hard decision to give up track, but in America, you can't make a living in track, and football was so new for me," Lewis said. "I saw all these people at the Kansas State football game. So I took a chance. No one thought I could play football."
With only one season of football at Sacramento CC on his résumé, it's easy to see why. His previous experience before that was two-hand touch games with friends in the street. He went to San Diego State without a safety net. The school didn't have a men's track program if football didn't work.
Fortunately, it did.
Lewis played three seasons for the Aztecs. His junior year he started all 11 games, catching 31 passes for 782 yards and three touchdowns. He averaged 25.2 yards per catch, which ranked in the top 100 nationally. His game-breaking speed was evidenced by his impressive average of 58.9 yards per touchdown reception. For his career, he caught 85 passes for 1,731 yards and seven touchdowns.
He signed as an undrafted rookie free agent in 2002 with the hometown Saints -- a dream come true. He spent time on the practice squad and was signed to the active roster later in '02. He continued to play for the Saints in 2003, seeing limited action.
Following his stint with the Saints, Lewis played in 2004 for the Frankfurt Galaxy of NFL Europe. He caught 35 passes for 537 yards and became noted for his celebratory backflips after each of his five touchdowns. Lewis then latched on for two years to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers practice squad.
Then came August 29, 2005.
"The day I was cut [by Tampa Bay] was the same day Katrina hit New Orleans and I was getting ready to go back home, thinking nothing about it," said Lewis, who first saw the devastation on his hotel TV while he was packing. "A lot of people I knew were giving hurricane parties, because there were countless times we heard hurricanes were about to hit, and at the last second, it would turn and hit Texas or something. We started to think we were indestructible; we'd always thought the storm would never hit us."
A blessing in disguise
Lewis was like so many others. He lost his house. He lost his football and track trophies. His ceiling fans drooped down like melted candles. His house reeked of dangerous toxins.
"I lost everything, I mean everything," Lewis said. "But in many ways I gained. Playing in the NFL is not my main goal anymore. Being with my children is. You don't really have a full appreciation of things until God makes you appreciate them. If my son calls now, I have to talk to him right then and there, and everything goes by the side. I was so focused on being a football player and trying to get that money, but the greatest motivation of all, I've found, was recovering my kids. You always think your kids will be there. I found out otherwise."
For a short period, Lewis and his family lived in a three-bedroom hotel suite in Lafayette with eight people to a room, all sleeping where they could. Former Saints teammates Joe Horn and Michael Lewis helped. Michael Lewis would turn up unannounced and find Derrick odd jobs, or just drop by with money. Horn would ask Derrick to mix CDs for him, then pay him $400 for each.
Shortly after, a friend hooked Lewis and his family up with a place in Atlanta for three months. It was there that he received a call in January 2006 from the AFL's Austin Wranglers.
"It really gave me my life back," Lewis said of his chance to play for Austin. "One thing that kept me playing football was that it brought my family together. They gather around the TV and watch me play. I felt like I owed it to them to play, to make things normal again, and make some money, too. I have five mouths feed."
So Lewis found football again. He started as the offensive specialist for the Wranglers in '06, broke the record for single-season rushing and was considered a major reason for the Wranglers' first playoff berth in franchise history last season.
Lewis impressed the Houston Texans, who signed him on May 30, 2006. But the 6-foot-2, 185-pound receiver with explosive speed and good hands wound up on the practice squad. Again.
"No matter what I did, it still wasn't enough. ... As the year went on, I was hoping to get cut by Houston, so I could go back and play for the Wranglers again," Lewis said. "The AFL has given me an opportunity. I was playing football again for a reason, a good reason this time. My family needed to see me playing. The NFL took the fun out of football. The AFL is like playing in your backyard. I found I could laugh and joke playing football again. Football is fun again.
"But facts are facts. I wasn't drafted [coming out of college]. There are numbers games and politics in the NFL. In the Arena League, if you're good, you'll play. The inside game prepared me better for the outdoor game much more than the outdoor game prepared me for the indoor game. You have no time to react in the Arena League; you have to make split-second decisions. You make one wrong move, you lose."
Lewis spent the entire '06 season with the Texans, but is happy to be back with the Wranglers. He keeps a watchful eye over his five children: Derrick, 11 and Dominique, 8; Demanté 7; Darius, 4; and DeJon, 2. Lewis' three oldest boys -- Derrick, Demanté and Darius -- live with him in Austin while Dominique and DeJon live in New Orleans with their mothers. During each game, they can be seen behind the Wranglers bench, cheering on their father.
"This is a good time in my life," said Lewis, who calls Austin home now. "I look back at Katrina and a lot of people lost their lives, but I saw changes in people that I never thought would change. It showed people there was more to the world than just New Orleans. I still love New Orleans. A part of me will always be in New Orleans. Everything I learned there will always come with me, from flipping in the French Quarter to flipping in the end zone, everything I experienced in New Orleans made me who I am."
Joseph Santoliquito covers the Arena Football League for ESPN.com. He can be contacted at Jsantoliquito@yahoo.com.