DAVIE, Fla. — Someday, Dolphins defensive end Kendall Langford might thank his father for saying the fateful words that all but ensured he would be born to play football.
On Super Bowl Sunday in 1986, Calvin Langford kissed goodbye his very pregnant wife, Ardee, and headed for a party he had spent weeks organizing at the Fraternal Order of Police Lodge in Petersburg, Va. Just before he closed the front door, he turned, smiled, and said: "Now don't have the baby until after the Super Bowl."
The first quarter hadn't ended when the phone rang at the lodge. Calvin, a detective in the Petersburg Police Department, was watching the Chicago Bears dismantle the New England Patriots when he was told his wife was on the other line.
It's time, Ardee said.
"He tells me, 'Hold on as long as you can,' " Ardee said. "So I did."
Having gone through two childbirths, Ardee figured she'd be all right. But when Calvin walked into the house long after the game, he found his wife in labor.
"I thought she was messing with me," Calvin said. "I drove home to find out she was really in labor."
By the time they reached the hospital, it was too late for an epidural. so Calvin held Ardee's hand — "She nearly broke my fingers off'' — and two quick pushes brought 8-pound, 3-ounce Kendall into the world on the morning after Super Bowl XX.
"That's why we call him our Super Bowl baby," Calvin said.
For a franchise that hasn't been to the Super Bowl in nearly 24 years, the Dolphins couldn't have selected a more fateful player in last spring's NFL Draft. The Langford's Super Bowl baby grew up in a football-crazy household with Calvin driving his family to watch his semi-pro games on the weekends.
Prominently displayed in the Langford family's home is a fading photo of what appears to be Kendall Langford wearing the gray and blue uniform of the Tri-City Titans. Upon closer inspection, the player is Calvin, a linebacker who had a free-agent tryout with the Dallas Cowboys in 1979.
"I look at that picture every time I'm home and it's crazy. It looks like me in that uniform," Kendall Langford said.
The dream for the father has become reality for the son: Langford, a 6-foot-6, 290-pounder, has played in every game for the Dolphins, making 12 tackles with two sacks and deflecting two passes.
Although he barely remembers it, Kendall Langford spent the weekends until he was 4 years old watching his father play football. Calvin Langford went straight to the police academy after high school and was prohibited from playing at Virginia State while the force paid for his schooling.
But they couldn't stop him from playing football in his free time, so he joined a semi-pro team that traveled up the East Coast.
On Saturdays, Calvin and Ardee loaded their three sons into the family's silver Nissan minivan, the same one Ardee used to take Kendall and all the neighborhood kids to the Skate Land roller rink on Friday nights. The Langford boys played in the stands while dad played on the field.
"I went to the games for years and I didn't know what I was looking at," Ardee joked.
It wasn't until a teenaged Kendall grew into the biggest kid in his class that it became apparent he had inherited some quality genes. He was tall (Ardee is 6-foot-1, Calvin, 6—3), fast (Calvin once ran the 40-yard dash in 4.3 seconds) and smart (Ardee graduated at the top of her high school class).
Kendall also played basketball and baseball, but, like his father, "his heart was with football," Ardee said.
Virginia and Virginia Tech offered scholarships, but Langford needed to improve his standardized test scores. Virginia's coaches suggested he go to prep school, but he also had a scholarship offer from Hampton and decided to take that instead.
Langford set out to prove that he could go from the small, historically black college to the NFL, becoming Hampton's first defensive lineman in nearly 20 years to be named first-team all-conference for three straight seasons.
"I had a little chip on my shoulder," Langford said.
When he saw Langford on film, Dolphins coach Tony Sparano wondered if he was too good to be true. Then he checked with Hampton's Jerry Holmes, who had coached with Sparano in the NFL. Langford was the real deal.
"He was kind of a man among kids out there," Sparano said. "I knew that this kid would come in here and he would be more mature. He'd understand. He'd get it. And he really did."
When other rookies went home after their first rookie camp with the Dolphins, Langford stuck around for more work, and it's paid off.
"All of a sudden I'll watch him and I'll say, 'Wow, that doesn't look like a rookie play. That looks like a three-, four-year veteran play that he's making,' " Sparano said. "How he's improved over the past couple of weeks makes you believe he came in here a little better than some guys do."
As long as he and his parents can remember, Langford has told anyone who would listen he would play in the NFL one day.
"It was one of those things you dream of when you're young," he said.
Now Calvin Langford and his Super Bowl baby are on the same team.
"I'm living through him," Calvin said. "This is fulfilling my dream of the NFL."
Carlos Frias writes for The Palm Beach Post. E-mail: carlos_frias AT pbpost.com