Heart of the Marleys

Heart of the Marleys BY MICHAEL MCKNIGHT

How would Bob Marley feel about his grandson’s playing on a team whose first string has as many white guys on it as black guys, a team where everyone is given a shot and size is insignificant? (Beginning with Nico, Tulane’s starting linebackers go 5' 9", 5' 10" and 5' 11".) A team that had the most takeaways (and, ahem, the most penalties) of any team in Conference USA last year? A group that plays in New Orleans, whose harbor imported more slaves than any other in the U.S., with a culture where amalgamation is the rule? You’ll forgive Rohan, who went to every one of his son’s home games last fall, if he says that the whole picture reminds him of the song “War,” whose lyrics are an almost verbatim transcription of the speech the late Ethiopian emperor Haile Selassie, revered among Rastafarians, delivered to the U.N. in 1963: Until there are no longer First-class and second-class citizens of any nation; Until the color of a man’s skin Is of no more significance than the color of his eyes: Me say war. ***** For Curtis Johnson, taking what had been a 2–10 team in 2012 to the New Orleans Bowl last year, even though they lost to Louisiana-Lafayette 24–21, felt the same as it felt for Rohan to push the last branch aside and lay eyes on the waterfall whose sound had lured him deeper into the property where he would find his life’s work. It is part of the Spanish River, this waterfall he now “owns,” and it runs clear and relentless, formed by house-sized boulders of metamorphic rock left here by long-dead volcanoes. “I could see Nico getting a shot at the next level as a special teams player,” Johnson says, “but if that doesn’t work out for him, he’ll be a multimillionaire doing something. You don’t see aggressive, smart guys like him, with that kind of personality, very often.” “I always wanted to make something for myself,” Nico says. “I’ve never said, ‘I’m gonna do it like my dad did it,’ or ‘I want to be like my grandfather.’ Every individual is supposed to have something he wants to go get, something he wants so bad he don’t need anybody’s help. That’s what I get from my father and grandfather.” “No one has handed Nico anyt’ing in life,” says Warren Marley. “That’s Rohan’s way. Just like no one gave Ro anyt’ing.” While we’re hypothesizing, what would Bob think if he could see his nephew, his son and his grandson -- their skins ranging from white to bronze to brown -- standing on former slave land raising ceramic cups to toast the thriving, earth-friendly business that bears his name, the youngest among them attending one of America’s finest colleges on an athletic scholarship? For this, Brenton needs just two whistles: “Him would smile and say, ‘Good.’ ” www.ganolifevo.com/ganoforlifeusa