Hill

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — Marquise Hill knew.

When he saw all of the acquisitions that the New England Patriots had made last offseason, he told friend and teammate Randall Gay that the team was going to be Super Bowl champion again.

But no one knew that Hill would not be with New England through this amazing season.

With all of the controversy and success the Patriots have endured and achieved this year, all of which have received far greater attention, the one thing that hasn’t weighs heaviest on many of the players.

It is the death of Hill, who drowned in Lake Pontchartrain in his hometown of New Orleans last May 28 at age 24.

His death has affected the Patriots, so many of them young and all of them in top physical condition, believing that death could not come and take one of their football brothers.

When Jarvis Green got a phone call from a cousin telling him that word was police and Coast Guard searching the massive lake were looking for Hill, Green hung up on him. But the cousin called back, insistent that it wasn’t a joke.

Green’s wife called Hill’s fiancÉe, Inell Benn, who had not heard any such thing. In fact, she had spoken with her high school sweetheart about 30 minutes earlier.

Hill’s mother had phoned Benn with the terrible news. The next day, the body of Hill, who had held so much promise, was pulled from the lake. Green and Hill, it seems, were destined to become friends.

When Green was a junior at Louisiana State, first-year head coach Nick Saban told him about a big recruit the team was pursuing — Marquise Hill. Hill admired the standout defensive end and fellow Louisiana native from afar, Saban told Green, and he wanted him to spend time with him when Hill visited the campus.

“From that day, we bonded,” Green recalled yesterday. “We were similar people and we connected. …When I first met him, it seemed like I had known him forever.”

Green was drafted by New England, and two years later head coach Bill Belichick asked him about the big defensive lineman at LSU. Green assured the coach that he was a hard-working player and that he’d look out for Hill.

In 2004, they became teammates again when the Pats selected Hill in the second round.

But chosen by a team deep in defensive linemen and with a playbook that can be difficult to learn, Hill struggled. He played in just 14 games through his first three seasons, but was determined to get on the field this year.

“The maturity level in him had been raised. He was more focused on getting on the field,” said Gay, who was with Hill for all four years in Baton Rouge and three more with the Patriots. “In the offseason, when we would be at LSU, he was there all day. Everybody would be like, ‘Oh, you’re just getting here, Blue? Marquise has been here since six in the morning.’ He was really focused on showing that he wasn’t a bust as a second-round pick.”

Green and New England defensive coordinator Dean Pees agree that Hill would have made a bigger contribution this season.

In a way, Hill has contributed. His death made many teammates realize that football is just a game, and that family and friends are what is most important in life. Gay misses Hill’s sense of humor and his daily updates on teammates and mutual friends. Pees spent time before each home game sitting in Hill’s stall at Gillette Stadium, which has been kept mostly intact.

Green opted to wear Hill’s purple-and-yellow shoulder pads from LSU each game, and he touches the black ‘91’ decal on the back of his helmet before each game.

Ma’Shy Hill calls out to black Cadillac Escalades.

Marquise had told Green of his largely fatherless upbringing, as it was just him and his mother. He wanted more than anything to have a son, to be to him what his own father had never been to him.

When he and Benn learned they were pregnant, Green said, Hill immediately began buying items for the baby — all in blue. There had been no ultrasound, but Hill knew it was the boy he longed for.

Ma’Shy likely will not have many memories of his father outside of what his mother and others tell him as he grows up, but despite being so young, he knew the type of car his dad drove: a black Cadillac Escalade.

Green knows he can’t take the place of Hill with his son, but he has gone about making sure that Ma’Shy is provided for.

In the weeks immediately after Hill’s death, he and his wife invited Benn to their home, where the Greens could tend to her and Ma’Shy could play with their three children.

He has set up a charitable fund for the young boy and checks in regularly with Benn, who is pursuing a nursing degree.

On Sunday, Green will don Hill’s shoulder pads again, and the Patriots will take the field at Super Bowl XLII with Sherry Hill in the stands.

They will be playing for a championship. They will be playing for immortality.

They will be playing for Marquise.

“He predicted it,” Gay said. “So now we have to finish it for him.”

smanza@projo.com