Walker didn't go back to school. He continued working instead, and he continued to get in fights like the one that night at the party. Nevertheless, I was stunned this March when I found out that he had been arrested for assaulting a young woman in an apartment and stealing $12.

Apparently, so was Walker. He was angered by the manner of his arrest, especially the identification where he was handcuffed in the line-up. He explained that he had a full-time job, and that the next day was payday. Why, he asked them, would he rob a woman of twelve dollars. They shook their heads, failing to understand this young black. Why, they asked him, did he rob a woman of twelve dollars.

I saw Walker while he was awaiting trial, and he told me he expected to be acquitted. They had a good idea of who really did it, he said. It was a heroin addict who had left for the South, someone who looked a lot like Walker. He told me he had been forced to give up his job after the arrest, but that he planned to go back to school this September. He was giving up football. He wanted to teach and coach at Nether Providence.

Shortly after I got to Cambridge for summer school, I heard from home that Walker had been convicted, but his attorney was appealing the case. A few days later, I received a call telling me he had been killed, caught breaking into an apartment and shot running away. Another assault had been pinned on him, and after his death, a resident of the apartments accused him of having raped her. The local paper identified him as "The former star athlete."

Now, I doubt that the team can ever get together again. Our MVP is dead, an old washed-up athlete at 20. And just, like George Allen, as we used to think that "Life is like football...," it is clear that things can never again be as simple as they were that fall. Then the goals were only 100 yards distant, the rules and demands exacting and unwavering. But most important that fall we always won. It is easier to follow the rules when you are a winner.

I don't know if we can win again at all either. The stakes are much greater, and we can't afford to lose. So we play for ties, for kisses from our sister. No game is as crucial as Walker's last; and many of his teammates are only going through the motions now. It is as if those unlucky athletes who fail to die young, are fated to be so unlucky.