Cornelius Lucas III remembers everything about the day his father drowned on a family camping trip outside their home in New Orleans.
Washington
Years after his dad drowned, this Commanders starter is teaching kids to swim
“He literally asked me, ‘You want to come with me?’ I was like, ‘Nah, I’m just gonna stick back here and throw the football around.’ And I just remember seeing him walk out — as a kid, everything seemed bigger — but maybe like 40, 50 yards deep into the water. And then he — I saw his hands waving at me, and he just dipped underwater.”
People rushed out to help, but when they got there, they couldn’t find his father. He had been dragged under by a rip tide.
“Forty-five minutes later, he floated back,” Lucas said.
“At the age of seven, I was out of having a dad, out of having my best bud, my best friend, my greatest — my best teacher, you know what I’m saying? Like, the guy that was put in this world to give me all the game that I’ve been searching for since then.”
Twenty-six years later, Lucas is a man, 6-foot-8, 327 pounds, a professional hitter with a goofball grin and the self-confidence he lacked growing up without his dad. Lucas believes his unlikely journey has led him to this moment with the Washington Commanders, where, entering the 11th season of his improbable NFL career, the longtime backup is competing for the huge role of starting left tackle and blindside protector for new franchise quarterback Jayden Daniels.
Lucas, 33, feels he’s doing well early in the competition with rookie Brandon Coleman, and unlike his first shot at being a full-time starter (his second season, with Detroit), he feels ready.
Many players who go undrafted out of college, as Lucas did out of Kansas State in 2014, get chewed up by the NFL. Their moment is darkened by the ever-present possibility of getting fired, and they’re often forced out of the league against their will, broken or brokenhearted. In his fifth year, Lucas was overwhelmed by repeated rejection and tried to quit by ignoring calls from his agent.
It was in those difficult moments Lucas felt his father’s absence most.
“Outside of my coaches and my teammates to push me and tell me I could do this, I haven’t had someone I could call on and just tell them how I’m feeling, what’s going on,” he said.
“It’s really been a me situation. Like, me figuring it out. Me going home and sitting in silence for two hours because I got beat in practice, and I’m thinking about why I got beat and how I can’t get beat no more because I’m on the edge of getting cut, and you know — I’m saying it’s been stressful. ”
As he honed his skills, Lucas has grown mentally tough, observing people around him, looking for “life tidbits” and refining who he wants to be.
In 2018, everything came together. Lucas caught a break, played well in one game for his hometown New Orleans Saints and parlayed it into a job with Chicago, where he shined. In 2020, he signed a two-year deal with the Commanders, and in 2022, he signed another. Last summer, he felt like he finally “filled myself up enough to pour into others.”
And he had an idea how: Swim camp. Every summer, NFL players host youth football camps across the country, and while he saw the value in them, he wanted to do something more personal. He attended pool parties growing up, even after his father’s death, but he still had never gone in a pool deeper than his height.
So he partnered with Son of a Saint, a nonprofit organization for fatherless boys in New Orleans, and figured he could show boys like him how to be a man and teach them a potentially lifesaving skill.
“I live in New Orleans, Louisiana,” Lucas said. “We are currently seven feet under sea level. In New Orleans, we get flooding. Hurricane Katrina, it was flooding for 45 days.”
This year, at his second camp, the only boy scared of the water was too big for anyone but Lucas to hold while learning to doggy paddle. Lucas encouraged him to go into the pool, urging him to fight their fear together.
“Trust me,” Lucas said. “I won’t let you drown.”
Weeks later, Lucas left New Orleans for training camp extra motivated. His girlfriend — with whom he bonded, in part, over missing a parent — is pregnant with their first child, a son, due in early November. Sometimes, when Lucas notices her belly growing, it makes him want to go outside in the sun and practice.
“When he gets here, I just want him to see his daddy doing the right thing.”
Lucas wants to teach his son all the lessons he had to gather from others, such as how to mow the lawn or drive on the highway. He’s picking up even more from Instagram and TikTok. He hopes to one day teach his son to play tackle.
And he wants to throw his son in the water. He wants him to flail on his own at first, to fight to float, because he believes struggling will help his son get comfortable. Even if he doesn’t like to swim, Lucas’s top priority is for his son to never feel how he sometimes felt around water.
“He’s not gonna have a fear of it,” he said.
See what a ‘super’ El Niño could bring
USA TODAY Network reporter Brandi D. Addison breaks down what a strong El Niño could mean for weather patterns across the country.
It may be the middle of July, but the Old Farmer’s Almanac is already looking ahead to the fall with cooler temperatures ahead.
The Almanac, which has been one of the most trusted weather prediction sources for more than two centuries, recently released its fall forecast, showing a wide range of weather throughout the United States.
But what about in the Washington DC region? Here’s what the Almanac says.
What is the fall weather forecast in the Washington DC area?
DC sits along the Almanac’s Atlantic Corridor, and that region should expect a “cool, dry” fall, according to the forecast.
“Expect cooler and wetter conditions than usual this fall,” the Old Farmer’s Almanac says. “Below average temperatures are forecast, along with an uptick in precipitation over traditional averages.”
Last year, DC received 6.53 inches of rain during September, October and November — significantly lower than the city’s 30-year average of 10.50 inches, according to the National Weather Service.
September’s average temperature was 72.2 degrees, with October at 60.3 and November at 49.9 degrees. The season had an average temperature of 60.8 degrees, slightly below the 30-year average of 61.0 degrees.
What does the Farmer’s Almanac say about winter in Washington DC?
In its long-range forecast, the Almanac forecasts above average temperatures this winter in DC with snowfall below normal.
“The coldest periods will occur in mid- to late-December and early and late January,” it says. “The snowiest periods will be in late December, early January, and late February.”
The Old Farmer’s Almanac says it is 80% accurate, but a 2017 University of Illinois study found it to be just 52% accurate.
This story is from an installment of The Oeno Files, our weekly insider newsletter to the world of fine wine. Sign up here.
While Washington State has become well known for its Cabernet Sauvignon and Bordeaux-style blends in recent years, it is also home to many producers making outstanding Syrah. With just a 40-year history of cultivation in the state, Syrah is now the second most-produced red wine there as well as its best-kept secret. First planted in Washington in 1986, some early releases were treated like Cabernet Sauvignon with a lot of new oak and one-size-fits-all production method, but over time a broad spectrum of expressions has arisen among the state’s Syrahs.
Elsewhere in the U.S.A. it might seem like wineries are holding back the most exciting bottles for their neighbors, but Washington Syrah is more widely available than one might think, especially on restaurant tables. Landry’s Inc.—which operates more than 500 restaurants across the country including steakhouses such as Morton’s, Del Frisco’s, and the Palm—serves more than a dozen Washington Syrahs and a wide range of Syrah blends from the state. Scott Tarwater, corporate director of wine and special events, describes Washington Syrah as “a rugged, mountain man, unshaven, but worldly, down to earth, and plain spoken.” While he enjoys it for its savory character, he also likes that it is full of jammy notes such as boysenberry, black raspberry, and pomegranate alongside hints of ripened olives and pipe tobacco.
One of the drivers of quality in the last 20 years is the adoption of Old World techniques like stem inclusion and the use of concrete vessels, large‑format oak casks, and neutral oak barrels to let the fruit do the talking. Improved vineyard techniques have allowed for site expression to become clearer as well, with the Rocks District and Royal Slope showing savory and mineral characteristics, Red Mountain and Horse Heaven Hills bringing out more power and ripeness, and Yakima Valley showcasing a mix of the two styles.
Matt Reynvaan, founder and winemaker of R|A Family Wines, makes his JDA Project Syrah from a vineyard in the Rocks District that is defined by ancient riverbed soils layered with dense cobblestone. “These stones retain and radiate heat, lending intensity, structure, and unmistakable minerality to the fruit,” he explains. Replanted in 2020, the vineyard was designed with clonal diversity and precision farming practices tailored block by block. “Syrah is interplanted with small amounts of Viognier, and each section contributes a unique dimension, from power and structure to elegance and purity, resulting in a wine that is both complex and site driven,” Reynvaan says.
DeLille’s vineyards
DeLille
At Two Vintners, winemaker and partner Morgan Lee produces four different Syrahs including a Columbia Valley cuvée, a Rocks District bottling and single-vineyard expressions from Horse Heaven Hills and Yakima Valley, working with 13 distinct vineyards across six AVAs. “Each patch of dirt puts a stamp of individuality on the wine,” he says. “The beauty of Syrah is that it absorbs its surroundings like nothing else. It is a chameleon. It is so exciting to taste these individual parcels side by side and see how thrillingly different they are from one another.” Leaning heavily into a Northern Rhône style in his vineyard sourcing, Lee also employs Rhône techniques like native-yeast fermentation and whole-cluster pressing.
Washington’s first Syrah was planted in the Red Willow Vineyard in the foothills of the Cascades in the far northwest portion of the Yakima Valley by Mike Sauer in 1986, and winemaker Nick Bernstein utilizes fruit from that original block for DeLille Red Willow Syrah. “The Syrah here thrives on steep slopes of poor volcanic soils and creates powerful wine with deep concentration,” Bernstein says. In addition to that and DeLille’s Grand Ciel estate vineyard on Red Mountain, Bernstein also buys fruit from Boushey Vineyard, whose proprietor Dick Boushey has been a prominent grower for 45 years. This cooler site allows for more hang time, flavor development, and acid retention, leading to an earthier Syrah with dark fruit notes.
The wide diversity of Syrah can be seen in Liminal’s two offerings, High Canyon Syrah and Block 16 Syrah, which come from blocks in the WeatherEye Vineyard in the Red Mountain AVA that are about 500 yards apart but differ in aspect, elevation, and clonal selection. Liminal winemaker and partner Chris Peterson says the High Canyon block has elements of black fruits, minerals, and cured olive that remind him of Côte-Rôtie. “This is why we co-ferment with about 4 percent Viognier and choose the specific barrels to age it in and accentuate these aspects,” he explains. Meanwhile, the Block 16 exhibits the “wild herb, cured meats, and firm structure” characteristics that recall Cornas, so he ages it in 500-liter puncheons, with a style of new barrel “that shows off this more feral side.”
One of the newest additions to the Evergreen State scene is Dossier Wine Collective, whose head winemaker Billo Naravane crafts its flagship Syrah with an eye on the Northern Rhône, especially Côte-Rôtie and Cornas. Sourced from three vineyards, it offers the aromatic elegance and finesse of Côte-Rôtie alongside the structure, focus, and depth of Cornas. “Our use of concrete during fermentation is intentional. Concrete preserves purity and freshness while lending the wine a tighter, more focused profile, a hallmark we admire in many traditional Northern Rhône Syrahs,” Naravane says.
On the east coast, diners at JF Restaurant’s eateries can enjoy Syrah from Walla Walla and Columbia Valley. Beverage director and partner Amy Racine tells clients unfamiliar with the style that “Washington Syrah is a crossover between the States and Rhône Valley. It has a savory, peppery backbone similar to the northern Rhône and a ripe and juicy fruit you can find in the States.” Calling it “a category that rewards curiosity,” she tells Robb Report, “Most guests come in with a fixed idea of what Syrah is supposed to taste like, usually a Rhône reference point, and Washington Syrah surprises them by being a little familiar yet entirely its own thing.”
Do you want access to rare and outstanding reds from Napa Valley? Join the Robb Report 672 Wine Club today.
Authors
Mike DeSimone and Jeff Jenssen
Washington
Divorces granted July 2-8 in Washington, Benton counties | Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
The following divorces granted were recorded July 2-8 in the Benton and Washington county clerks’ offices:
BENTON COUNTY
25-1094. Heather Jones v. Michael Mazzarisi
25-1993. Sarah Waddle v. Brandon Waddle
26-46. Samantha Hines v. Garrett Hines
26-266. Donna Boyd v. Russell Boyd
26-329. Tara Whitwam v. Brett Whitwam
26-354. April Timboe v. Matthew Timboe
26-397. Troy Hull v. Kaley McManamon
26-419. Mark Hagel v. Michelle Hagel
26-437. Deborah Luper v. Donald Luper
26-470. Amanda Russell v. Christopher Russell
26-561. Audrey Mosher v. Dustin Mosher
26-562. Jacob King v. Ashley King
26-649. Chris Edwards v. Sara Edwards
26-664. David Carpenter v. Hannah Holtrey
26-774. Lauren Armfield v. Alexander Armfield
26-775. Sandra Saldana v. Luis Saldana
26-785. Maritza Campos v. Luis De Los Santos
26-798. Darell Shepard v. Rachel Lipscomb
26-802. Jeffery Nicholas v. Tracy Nicholas
26-809. Alicia Moreland v. Travis Moreland
26-814. Mellisa Dugger v. Matthew Crowne
26-817. Sabra Utting v. Derek Utting
26-825. Laura Wortman v. Brian Wortman
26-827. Laura Dean v. Seth Dean
26-845. William Austen v. Krystal Austen
26-846. Janine Robin v. Henry Robin
WASHINGTON COUNTY
24-472. Breayonda Bendickson v. Zackery Thompson
25-1333. Joshua Stephens v. Tiffany Pershall
25-1475. Jacqueline Lybrand v. Zachary Lybrand
25-1720. Jennifer McMahon v. Timothy McMahon
26-10. Janiky Rosario Madera v. Angel Ortiz Fuentes
26-225. Carol Kaufman v. Charles Axtell
26-268. Elizabeth Lasiter v. Prashanth Kumaresan
26-367. Shawn Harp v. Angela Harp
26-414. Patricia Johnson v. Robert Pritchard
26-518. Francisco Ramirez v. Nicole Franz
26-633. Debra Andrews v. Randy Brown
26-695. Jorge Azahares v. Dianelis Rodriguez
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