CHAPTER ONE
It didn’t matter where Mike Daggett went, he couldn’t seem to get away from him. At home, where he had to write about him. At his office, where people always wanted to talk about him, Even here, in his favorite bar, where the image of J.D. Towne, pro football’s most famous quarterback, the most exciting and popular sports star in America, kept flashing up there, bigger than life, on the huge, flat-screen TV.
“And Downtowne does it again!” shouted the hyper-sounding announcer on ESPN, as the SportsCenter highlights of Towne’s latest four-touchdown, 400-yard game were replayed over and over again.
“Got to make you feel good, doesn’t it, Daggett?” Sal the bartender said. “I mean, knowing you’re the guy who gave him that nickname and all. Man, it really is perfect, you know? Downtowne, for the way he’s always throwing it deep, going downtown. I’ll bet he’s made millions off that nickname, alone. Too bad you don’t get a percentage of the action, huh, Daggett?”
Yeah, too bad, Daggett thought to himself as he took another swig from his bottle of Corona. Too bad you don’t know the half of it. Nobody knows, Daggett realized. Nobody suspects. How could they? Fans don’t want to look behind anything but what they see up there on the screen. J.D. has gotten as big now as Michael Jordan was in the early ‘90s. All by himself, he has elevated the National Football League into some kind of stratosphere that dwarfs every other sport. I mean, it was already No. 1 before J.D. But since he came along, the TV ratings have skyrocketed. So have the advertising revenues. He’s the best thing that ever happened to football and Madison Avenue.
All those products you’d see Jordan and Peyton Manning endorsing, the shoes and the hamburgers and the pizza and the underwear, now you see J.D. doing it. Smiling that Mathew McConaughey-like smile of his all over your screen, becoming the ultimate WASP celebrity role model, the smooth, intelligent, superstar athlete who’s taken over as the face of this country’s obsession with sports.
Daggett was as responsible for his popularity as anyone. He was the L.A. sports columnist who first connected with J.D., the first media guy to interview him at any length after he signed as the overall No. 1 draft pick out of South Texas State. He was the first one to really get into his personality, to showcase his intelligence, his sense of humor, and, of course, his charisma. It was Daggett’s columns, syndicated nationally, that became the blasting off point. That and the nickname. Yeah, even Daggett had to admit, when he started calling him “Downtowne,” that’s when J.D.’s career really took off nationally. The book didn’t hurt, either. J.D. was so damn bright, his insights so remarkable, Daggett didn’t have to do much more with the book than take careful notes and transcribe. The thing was a runaway best-seller, and although Daggett’s agent failed to get him as fat an advance as he would have liked, he made himself a nice little bundle from the book. And J.D., of course, became America’s favorite talk show guest, appearing on 60 Minutes and TODAY and Good Morning America, as well as Fallon and Kimmel and Jon Stewart. Even Ellen gave in, although her producers were ticked off J.D. didn’t go to them first.
They just don’t understand J.D. They don’t
