The baby came 10 days late, weighed 2.1kg and had to be rushed to a neonatal intensive care unit. But through all the chaos here in this lush upstate town, Freddie Edwards predicted that his boy, born without breath, would someday take the country’s breath away.
He told his girlfriend, the baby’s mother, Deborah Anderson: “That boy is going to make somebody a whole lot of money someday. His name is going to be Money.”
The boy was Armanti Edwards. And although Money never made it on the birth certificate 20 years ago, Edwards has earned the nickname one believer at a time on the football field as the left-handed, dreadlocked starting quarterback at Appalachian State. Last year as a sophomore, he fulfilled his father’s prediction by leading the Mountaineers to an axis-shifting upset of Michigan and to the program’s third consecutive Football Championship Subdivision national championship.
But Freddie Edwards was not around to see it. He has been in prison for two years after being convicted of killing a man over US$2 in a poker game.
Edwards’ journey from struggling infant to college football star is as fascinating as it has been improbable. He was to take the field yesterday at No. 7 Louisiana State as the first legitimate Heisman Trophy candidate from this level of college football since 1994, when Steve McNair was the quarterback at Alcorn State. He will also be an underdog.
It is a familiar role, though he knows that his father — his biggest believer — will be following the game from South Carolina’s McCormick Correctional Institution.
“He always believed in me,” Edwards said.
Interested in playing quarterback for a major-college program, Edwards received his first recruiting letter from Harvard. He was not interested and promptly threw it away. Only Appalachian State, the Citadel and Elon offered him a scholarship at quarterback, according to his mother.
At South Carolina, coach Steve Spurrier, one of the country’s pre-eminent quarterback gurus, told Edwards and other recruits that none of them would be offered scholarships at the position, Anderson said. That news from Spurrier. Clemson coach Tommy Bowden did not offer him a scholarship because there were bigger, faster and stronger quarterbacks. “I’d take him in a heartbeat now,” Bowden said in a telephone interview. “I just made a mistake earlier.”
As Edwards was figuring out the recruiting process, he was also dealing with the case against his father.
Freddie Edwards, 60, has not attended one of his son’s games since Armanti was a high school junior. In September 2006, Freddie Edwards was convicted of murder and a weapons charge in the shooting death of a man named George Freeman. He was sentenced to 30 years in prison and given a projected release date of August 2036. He is appealing his case, Anderson said.
According to a police report and a local prosecutor, Freddie Edwards and two other men were playing poker in a building behind his home on July 16, 2005.
During the game, Freddie Edwards made a new rule that if a player folded out of turn, he had to put US$2 into the pot. That upset one of the men, Freeman, who said he would not abide by the rule. An argument ensued between Freddie Edwards and Freeman.
Freddie Edwards then went inside his home, emerged carrying a silver revolver with a wooden handle and began chasing Freeman. Freeman fell while fleeing, and Freddie Edwards ran up and shot him once in the head, the third man told the police.
Freddie Edwards provided a different account to the police. He admitted to arguing about the new rule, to retrieving a gun and to chasing Freeman. He told them that Freeman had asked him, “Please don’t shoot me, Freddie.” He said he told Freeman, “I’m not going to shoot you.” But he told the police that Freeman had grabbed the gun’s barrel and that the weapon had discharged.
Through the years, Freddie Edwards had experienced run-ins with the local authorities, including a gambling charge, an assault-and-battery case and a weapons charge. But Jerry Peace, chief prosecutor for Greenwood County, said Freddie Edwards was respected in the community.
“Sometimes you prosecute good people who make stupid mistakes,” Peace said.
Armanti Edwards had left his father’s house just before the shooting. Upon hearing of it, he collapsed on the floor and cried, his mother said. Anderson said her son struggled to cope and blamed himself. “He was ready to quit everything,” she said.
He persevered with the help of his coaches. While his father was under house arrest, Edwards passed for more than 2,000 yards, rushed for more than 1,100 yards and accounted for 29 touchdowns his senior year.
At Appalachian State, the Mountaineers opened with a loss at North Carolina State during Edwards’ freshman season. He did not start and played only in the waning minutes.
Afterward, a police officer escorted Anderson and her daughter under Carter-Finley Stadium, where they informed Edwards that his father had been sentenced to prison.
“He just fell apart again,” Anderson said.
Edwards sat on the team bus and cried. As he did, coach Jerry Moore consoled him and promised to take him to visit his father anytime he wanted.
Edwards has never made such a request, but Moore has been cleared by prison officials to visit Freddie Edwards.
“If he called me at 3 o’clock in the morning and wanted to see his daddy, we’d go,” Moore said. Two weeks after his father was sentenced, Edwards started his first game for Appalachian State. He was responsible for 252 yards of total offense, tossed a touchdown pass and rushed for another in a 41-0 victory. He is now 22-2 as a starter for the Mountaineers.
“Adversity has brought out the very best in him,” Moore said.
But Edwards still aches. He dreams about the release of his father, who predicted his stardom so long ago.
“I’m just ready,” he said, “for him to see me in person.”
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