FROM CHAPTER 1: THE DELHOMME FACTOR ICE, ICE BABY For his 2003 Christmas party, Panthers center Jeff Mitchell was trying to figure out something unique. He was going to invite most of the offensive players, and he wanted them to have fun. "Kevin Donnalley told me we had to have karaoke," Mitchell said. "And I was like, ‘You’re either crazy or on crack, Kevin. We’re not having any karaoke." Donnalley persisted, though, and Mitchell eventually came around. He hired a deejay who specializes in karaoke to come to his house. And who was the eventual star of the Panthers’ karaoke show? Quarterback Jake Delhomme. "Not only does Jake know know every single word of ‘Ice, Ice Baby’ by Vanilla Ice, but he also knew every dance step," Mitchell said. "It was amazing. And somewhat scary." Donnalley filmed Delhomme’s performance with the video camera he carried around for most of the 2003 season, making sure the moment was saved for posterity. While most of the reviews of Delhomme’s performance were good, wide receiver Steve Smith also saw it. Smith offered a differing opinion. "Remember that Asian guy on ‘American Idol’ who was so terrible that they kept playing the clip over and over?" Smith said. "That was Jake." FROM CHAPTER 6: THE WORLD ACCORDING TO STEVE SMITH THE WALKING MAN Wide receiver Steve Smith has one of the NFL’s strangest pregame routines. Every NFL team is transported by bus to the stadium. That’s true even for home games. Saturday nights are spent at a local hotel, so that the home team can make sure its players are focused on the game and not out carousing. But Smith -- who spent much of his early life on buses -- walks to the games instead. The Panthers have stayed at two different uptown Charlotte hotels the night before home games during Smith’s tenure with the team, and he has walked about 20-30 minutes to the stadium from each one. Smith has always been an early riser. As a kid, he would sometimes go to bed at 6:30 p.m. and get up at 4 a.m. He usually awakes on game days by 6 a.m. “By then, I have no more sleep left in me,” he said. He eats breakfast at the team hotel, talks to his wife on the phone and then packs his Reebok backpack. Inside, he carries a change of clothes and his Bible. “For a 1 p.m. game, I usually leave around 9 or 9:30,” Smith said. “I just wear jeans and a sweater or sweatshirt, and I always walk by myself.” “See,” Smith continued, “back home in L.A., I used to walk all the time. The bus system was never on time. So what I’d do is walk to the next bus stop and look. If it wasn’t coming, I’d walk to the next one. And I’d just keep walking until the bus came. “Those were the walks where I used to dream of playing in the NFL. I used to dream about doing exactly what I’m doing now. So now, on each of those walks before games, my mind goes back to it. That’s what I think about – how I made it here.” FROM CHAPTER 7: GAME OF A LIFETIME (Note: This chapter goes into behind-the-scenes detail about the most interesting parts of the Panthers/St. Louis double-overtime playoff game) ‘I DON’T EVEN KNOW YOUR NAME’ The overtime coin toss in St. Louis was critical. In the NFL’s sudden-death format, the first team to get the ball usually wins. Each team sent several players out to midfield, and St. Louis defensive end Tyoka Jackson immediately started talking smack. Jackson and Carolina’s champion trash talker, Mike Rucker, had already had words earlier in the game. They had passed each other on the field after a special-teams play. “We had a run-in,” Rucker said. “They were going off the field, we were going on and I started jawing at him. He started yelling, ‘We’re going to come back. We got you! We got you!’ He was the kind of guy that if they had won he would have talked about it forever in the newspapers.” But the Rams had come back. Now Jackson was exultant – and disappointed that Rucker wasn’t out there for the coin toss. He turned his mouth on Buckner instead. “You tell Rucker it’s not over,” Jackson said. “He thought it was, but it’s not. You give him that message.” Buckner looked at Jackson venomously. “Man, who are you?” Buckner said. “I don’t even know your name.” “Your quarterback does!” Jackson replied. “All right! All right!” the official said, trying to quiet everyone down. Buckner got to call the toss since the visiting team always has that right. He called “Heads” and it was “Heads.” Buckner may have helped his own cause by giving the coin a lucky blow while it was in mid-air that made an audible “Whoosh.” “We’ll take the ball,” Buckner said, glaring once more at Jackson before the players returned to their sidelines.