Awakened by the phone, the Morgan State football coach fumbled to answer it and peered at the clock. It was 1 a.m. This can't be good news, Donald Hill-Eley thought.
The caller, his quarterback, was crying.
"Coach?" Carlton Jackson asked, voice aquiver.
"What's going on, son?"
"Thank you for not giving up on me."
Hill-Eley yawned, smiled and yawned again.
"I always had faith in you," the Morgan coach said. "Now let me go back to sleep."
Since that conversation in June, Jackson - once moody and mercurial - has been a different quarterback. Just how much he has changed, Morgan learns today in its opener at Akron.
In practice, at least, the Bears sense a newfound stability in Jackson, a transfer from Akron, of all places. Morgan hopes he has matured in time to tame the Zips, the team against which Jackson has plenty to prove.
"It's indescribable, a once-in-a-lifetime deal to play against your old school," said Jackson, 22, a senior in his second year at Morgan. "It'll be a hostile environment - I expect the boos - but it's a chance for me to go in and show that I can play."
Likewise, Morgan, which was 6-6 last season despite a defense that ranked among the best in the Division I Football Championship Subdivision. While the Bears will begrudge yards again, it's their fresh attack that makes Akron anxious. With new offensive and defensive coordinators, Morgan remains a mystery until kickoff.
"What do you prepare for? We're in there chasing ghosts," Akron coach J.D. Brookhart said. "That's an uneasy feeling, to say the least."
Akron, coming off a 31-7 loss to Penn State, is hyped to christen its new $61.6 million complex, and woe to the team that gets in the way.
"This is the day we've been waiting for," Akron quarterback Chris Jacquemain said. "We'll be excited to get out there and protect our own stadium and play before a crowd [30,000] that we've never had."
For no one are the stakes higher than Jackson, who'll face his old teammates, coaches and the quarterback who beat him out for the job. Jackson decided to transfer after coaches approached him about changing positions.
In the stands rooting on Morgan will be Jackson's girlfriend, Jamella Foster, an Akron student, and their 6-week-old son, Carlton Jackson III. They'll be the two wearing orange and blue.
Imagine Jackson's thoughts as he trots onto the field - the prodigal son who, as an Akron sophomore, had come off the bench to defeat Indiana, completing 11 of 15 passes for 200 yards and two touchdowns.
