Several nights after the team returned home from Texas, there was a double shooting on MLK Boulevard that left a thirty-year-old barber named Adrian Brown dead. The day after the murder, it was revealed at practice that Brown was a former quarterback for the Raiders and a distant cousin to both Coach Q and a sophomore running back named Aaron Baker. The young woman who carried water for the team had sat with Brown while he died. The shooting revealed just how closely violence touched every player. Those living downtown knew well the sound of gunfire in the night and the thumping blades of the Trauma Hawk, whipping through the dark to save someone in their golden hour. Nearly every player on the Raiders’ roster had lost an immediate family member to violence, drugs, or illness. Heart disease was chronic in the Glades, as were diabetes and the organ failure that ensued. Coach Q had recently lost a daughter to kidney disease. Baker had lost his mother to drugs. Robert Way’s stepfather, Xavier Evans, had watched his mother, four uncles, and a sister slowly die of AIDS.
