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one of them for a touchdown. By defensive coordinator Jim Haslett’s estimate, he could have four more. The fumble he returned for a touchdown in the season opener against Dallas was the difference between the Redskinswinningandlosing,and his four-pick day at Chicago provided another victory. “There’s some things that he
could do that he doesn’t feel comfortable doing,” Haslett said. “But I think he could do almost anything he wants.” What he wanted to do, after
that fourth pick against the Bears, was exactly what he had done after the first three: Find his mother in the stands and hand her the ball. It made for a nice narrative that day, because Joan Hall had traveled to the game — as she has for each of DeAngelo’s games as a pro — with three family friends, and bygame’s end, each of them had a football. The exchange between mother
and son was captured on film. Their story, though, couldn’t be. “Everybody’s been through
something,”Hall said. But not everybody knows what
Hall has been through, why a flashy cornerback with a reputation for seeking attention falls to his knees and looks to the sky.
‘The real world is crazy’ On the night that changed the
Hall family forever, 10-year-old DeAngelo— the youngest of Joan Hall’s six children — was in his bed, sleeping, at home in Chesa- peake, Va. Joan Hall watched the television news and saw a report about a shooting in neighboring Norfolk. She shut off the televi- sion, feeling uneasy. She went to sleep, still unsettled. At 1 a.m., the phone rang in the
Hall household, and in no time, JoanHall’s chilling screams woke DeAngelo and his brother, Ty- rone, then 12. Things began mov- ing quickly. DeAngelo’s oldest brother came over immediately, then other people began arriving. Nosy little DeAngelo, always able tohangoutandhold hisownwith the grown-ups, had a firm grasp of what was going on: Kevin
Smith, JoanHall’s 25-year-old son and DeAngelo’s confidant, had been out watching a basketball game on television. Somehow, he had been shot. The police told Joan Hall over the phone: “I’m sorry,butyoursondidn’tmake it.” There is no describing the ef-
fect such an event can have on a family. DeAngelo Hall’s word — “tough”—is no doubt accurate. “We don’t have answers for the
tragedies of life,” said James Smith, who, at 49, is Joan Hall’s oldest child, a government work- er during theweekanda preacher in Aberdeen, Md., on the week- ends. “We sometimes throw out quick solutions and quick an-
swers, but they don’t soothe your pain.” For so long, it was the pain that
defined JoanHall’s existence. She was a schoolteacher for whom nothing — nothing — was more important than her children, the first ofwhomcame when she was still a teenager, the last when she was in her late 30s. The circum- stances surrounding Kevin Smith’s death — the killer, who pleaded self-defense, was acquit- ted, though his family believes to this day that Kevin was set up — sent her into a tailspin. Though three of her surviving children, all from her first marriage, were grown, she still had DeAngelo
and Tyrone at home. Their father was a non-factor in their lives. How could Joan Hall properly grieve and still stand strong for her kids? “I did a lot of my crying when
they were at practice or nobody washomebut me,” JoanHall said. “I just kind of wore a mask. I tried to make them feel better, and tried to make everybody else feel better. Butmost of those days that followed, I did a lot ofmy grieving in private because my sons, the younger ones, they are socompas- sionate. I thought that would just tear them apart even more, to deal with their own grief and to deal with me, with mine.” To the older children, Joan’s
misery was obvious. “My mother was almost going to check out of this world,” JamesSmith said. But DeAngelo had his own loss to handle. Though James was his most forceful father figure — “Strict Pops,” DeAngelo said — it was Kevin who was closest with DeAngelo, “kind of a cool father figure.”Tothisday,whenDeAnge- loHall performs a back flip on an NFL field, it is because Kevin Smith taught him the trick when Hall was a precocious kid known to his family as “Speedy Dede,” always able to outrun the older boys. “I don’t think he’s really ever
gotten over it,” JoanHall said. DeAngelo Hall believes, though, that Kevin Smith’s death altered his own course. He be- lieves the loss somehow ground- ed him.
“Growing up, you always feel
invincible, especially as a kid,” Hall said. “You feel like can’t nothing hurt you, can’t nothing harm you. To see that happen, it was kind of like, ‘Man, this is crazy. The real world is crazy.’ “It kept me, I guess, out of the
streets. It kept me listening tomy mommore, more than I probably would have had I not went through that. And it kept our family tight.” Tight enough that, to this day,
when DeAngeloHall heads home toChesapeake—to the newhome he built for his mom, where she keeps a room for each of her kids — if he chooses to go out with friends, his mother waits up for him. If he goes out when he’s at home — or on the road, or on vacation, or anywhere — Joan Hall expects a call or a text saying he’s back safe. So that is precisely what JoanHall gets.
Confident and cocky On the Fox broadcast of the
Chicago game, former Dallas quarterback Troy Aikman criti- cized Hall for showboating after oneof his interceptions, saying he should have been penalized for excessive celebration. “Who cares what Troy thinks?”
Hall said. “He’s nothing but a Cowboy guy anyway.” This is the Hall dichotomy.
“He’s a completely different per- son on that football field,” Joan Hall said. So he carries with him a reputation, from Blacksburg to Atlanta, from Atlanta to Oakland, from Oakland toWashington. He has come off, he realizes, as a troublemaker. Now, as a co-cap- tain of the Redskins defense, he believes he is a problem solver. “When you’re confident, and
then you’re, I guess, a little cocky ontop of it,”Hall said, “I guessyou could tend to rub people the
JONATHAN NEWTON/THE WASHINGTON POST
Hall is greeted by Bears Coach Lovie Smith afterHall’s four- interception day led the Redskins to victory in Chicago last month.
LINDA D. EPSTEIN/MCT VIA GETTY IMAGES
Redskins cornerback DeAngeloHall kisses his mom, JoanHall, who travels to all his games, as he gives her a football, a souvenir from the touchdown he scored at the end of the second quarter of the Redskins’ season-opening victory over the Dallas Cowboys.
wrong way.” So DeAngelo Hall can tend to
rub people — particularly oppo- nents—the wrong way. When he was with the Falcons, Hall had legendary scraps with Carolina wide receiver Steve Smith, the last of which led to a sideline argument with then-Atlanta Coach Bobby Petrino after Hall was penalized for arguing a call against him while he checked Smith.Hall has jawedwithTerrell Owens. Earlier this month, some Philadelphia players accusedHall and safety LaRon Landry of mocking Eagles wide receiver DeSean Jackson—who had been out with a concussion — during pregame warmups, after which the two teams scrapped. “Everybody in the National
Football League has some sort of ego,” said Haslett, the Redskins’ defensive coordinator. “The real- ly good ones probably have a little more confidence and ego — or whatever you want to call it — than the ones who are just aver- age. And DeAngelo’s a good foot- ball player and he has great confi- dence in his ability.” This is no different now, at 27,
than itwaswhenhewasa 17-year- old freshman at Virginia Tech. Hall was well aware that, the previous year, Hokies coaches would all but threaten the other cornerbacks, telling him they had a kid on the way that would take their jobs if they failed to shape up. In his first college game, Hall broke up a pass, made a diving interception and was named the defensiveMVP. “Most freshmen are kind of
tentative and not willing to step out there on their own and say, ‘I can do that,’ ” said LorenzoWard, who then served as the defensive backs coach at VirginiaTech. “But that’s what D. Hall did. That was his goal.” By his sophomore year, Hall
started
everygame.Asajunior,he not only played corner and re- turned kicks but served as a re- ceiver on offense. Hall’s attitude
wasn’t just apparent on the field. Even when he was small, when Joan Hall was overseeing writing tests DeAngelo needed to com- plete for school, he would chal- lenge his mother intellectually. “Oh, Mama, I know that,” he
would say. “I have two degrees, DeAnge-
lo,” Joan would say. “You’re not smarter than I am.” “I am, I am,” he would respond. “I’ve never been able to con-
vince him I was smarter than him,” Joan said. Still, in Hall’s mind, the confi-
dence, the cockiness doesn’t give a glimpse of the whole picture of a young man’s life. After Hall snared that fourthandfinal inter- ception against the Bears, he took another ball to the stands, to Joan Hall and her best friend, Beverly Felder, who is close enough to DeAngelo that he considers her an aunt. Two other friends, close enough that DeAngelo calls them cousins, were there, too, and each member of the Hall party had a
football.That was apparent to the Bears fanswhosurrounded them, some of whom snapped pictures. “They were just so nice,” Joan
Hall said. But they did not, they could
not, know why DeAngeloHall fell to his knees after the intercep- tion, why he looked skyward. They did not and could not know that on his left arm, he has, tat- tooed, a pair of praying hands draped with rosary beads, with two dates and one name, that of his late
brother.Thedates are July 1, 1968, when Kevin Smith was born, and Feb. 1, 1994, when Kev- in Smith died. So neither those Bears fans surrounding Joan Hall nor Troy Aikman, nor, frankly, most of DeAngelo Hall’s teammates and coaches could know he thinks of his late brother at such moments. He then, invariably, turns to God. Falling to his knees and looking toward the sky?He has done it, he said, since middle school.He does it still, he said, to praise the Lord. “They think I’m just, ‘Look at
me,’ ” Hall said. “That ain’t what I’m doing. I never explained it to anybody, though. I ain’t never really seen the point to.” The best explaining, he be-
lieves, is how he lives his life. He may stir controversy on the field, but he has never been in trouble off it. He has never really ex- plained that, by high school, he was talking about marriage, about having his own family. So few people know that by 20, he did, because he married the cheerleader he first saw on a recruiting trip to Virginia Tech. Jada Hall, his sweetheart all through college, is now the moth- er of his four children: Tyrel, 8; Mya, 4; Ta’lia, also 4; and Breana, seven months. “That wasn’t by coincidence,
that he has hisownfamily,” James Smith said. Nor is it by coincidence that,on
Sunday morning, before the Red- skins face the Vikings, DeAngelo Hall willgetonthephonewith his mother, and he will pray. He will get on the phone with his brother James, and he will pray. He will get on the phone with his brother Tyrone, and he will pray. And if he makes an intercep-
tion against the Vikings, he will fall to his knees and look to the sky. The fans at FedEx Field just might think he is seeking atten- tion.Hewon’t care.He will look to heaven. He will think of his late brother. And he will find his mother in the stands, because only they truly know what it took to get to that point.
svrlugab@washpost.com
SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 28, 2010
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