DIANNE HOPES SHE can give her dad the kind of miracle he once gave her. On Dec. 17, 1949, in Houston, Y.A. was playing in a charity football game when suddenly an eerie feeling told him to go home. He hitchhiked four hours to his house in Marshall, and early the next morning, Minnette, pregnant with their first child, awoke covered in blood. She had suffered a placental abruption and was hemorrhaging. Minnette was rushed to the hospital. Men weren't allowed in the delivery rooms back then, so Y.A. pounded on the door, desperate for any update. Minnette survived. Their child, a little girl, had gone so long with so little oxygen that doctors pronounced her dead on her birth certificate. But the doctors were wrong. Dianne was alive -- 4 trembling pounds, cradled in her dad's hands.

So it's fitting and somewhat ironic that of all the Tittle kids, Dianne is the one whom Y.A. now calls "my quarterback. I do what she says." In a family of athletes, she suffered from exercise-induced anaphylaxis -- potentially fatal allergic reactions brought on by physical activity. Still, she grew up trying hopelessly to connect with her dad. She watched all of his games, studying them for clues into what football revealed about him. Fans saw him as a star, larger than life. She saw him as human -- a target on a field, a limping hero at home. Y.A. tried to bond with his daughter by ironing her clothes, but at heart he was the type of father who had no sympathy for splinters or stubbed toes and who wouldn't talk football without one of his sons present.

It was not easy for a country boy from Texas to raise a beautiful teenage daughter in the 1960s. He initially disapproved of her marrying her hippie boyfriend, Steve de Laet, whom she met at the University of Colorado. And he initially disapproved of her decision to become a poet and harpist too. "The only Sappho I ever knew played for the Green Bay Packers," he liked to say.

In 1981, Dianne ran a marathon, and when her allergy began to fight her from the inside, hardening her mouth and swelling her skin, she thought about how her dad always played through pain -- through blood, even -- and she finished. At a family gathering a year later, Dianne said: "Dad, sit down. I'm going to do something for you on the harp."

She recited one of her original poems, and afterward Y.A. said, "What Greek was that?"

"Dad, it's called 'The Hero.' It's about you."

Dianne has tentatively planned the annual party for March, but Y.A.'s health might prevent him from flying. In January, Y.A.'s breathing was so bad he thought he was dying. "This is it," he told Dianne. He was placed on oxygen. But over months of daily conversations with his "little bitty brother" Don -- he's 84 -- Y.A. asks hundreds of times when they're going to Caddo Lake. Finally, Dianne books the party for the last Friday in April, but days before they are due to leave, Y.A. comes down with bronchitis. They board the plane to Dallas anyway. On the flight, he collapses from lack of oxygen; passengers have to help him off the floor. The entire trip seems like a bad idea. But then Don picks up Dianne, Y.A. and Anna at the airport, and they drive three hours east, off I-20 and to the end of a long country road, where a white house emerges from the blooming dogwoods. A sign reads: TITTLE'S BAYOU COUNTRY EST.

"It's magical," Y.A. says.

THEY SPEND THE afternoon on the back porch, staring at the lake. A breeze crosses through. Condensation from cold beer leaves rings on their table. Dianne studies her dad, hungry for flickers of memory, but he seems to be getting worse. Ten or so times each hour, he utters a version of this: "I grew up in Marshall, Texas. I went to Marshall High School -- the Marshall Mavericks. I went to LSU to play football so that I could be closer to my older brother Jack, who played at Tulane. He was my hero."

He hollers at Anna to bring him a vodka rocks and makes a few crude jokes, as if returning home has transplanted him to his teenage years. It's all too much for Dianne. She walks to the dock and stares at the muddy water. It's clear that there won't be any magic on this trip. "His memory is gone," she says, as if she needs to confirm it to herself. The party seems like a looming disaster. One of his few living high school teammates can't make it. Her brothers are unable to attend. She's out of energy and patience, and she feels guilty about both. Her eyes turn glassy. Something more than a party is at stake.

"You're witnessing a family tragedy," she says.

The lake seems to calm her, as it did the dozens of times she came here as a child. Soon she remembers today's tiny moments that made her smile. During lunch at Neely's barbecue -- a Marshall staple almost as old as Y.A. is -- everyone stopped and stared and pointed. Waitresses wanted a picture. Two teenagers approached him, calling him Mr. Tittle. Y.A. sat with them over brown pig sandwiches, talking about their football careers, not his. When it came time to leave, Y.A. reached for his wallet -- he always pays -- but the boys had already picked up the tab. It gave Y.A. a fleeting moment of honor, and it gave Dianne a fleeting moment of reassurance. She sometimes forgets that he is still a sports icon, even as she's more protective of him than ever.

It's dark now, and the mosquitoes are fierce. Dianne heads back to the house. Y.A. slowly lumbers inside from the porch. He sinks into a couch, panting so hard that it resembles a growl. It's been a long day.

"You still breathing?" Don asks.

"I'm still breathing," Y.A. says.

Y.A. COUGHS HARD most of the night, and by morning he is exhausted and croaking, his voice a scratchy wisp. But he has enough energy to venture into Marshall for a glimpse of his childhood, maybe the last. In the passenger seat of an SUV, he seems more alert, guiding Dianne through the outskirts of town as if he'd never left. They drive a mile down a thin, sleepy road and over a hill -- a stretch he used to walk in the dark after football practice -- until they arrive at a grassy lot, barren except for the crumbled foundation of a brick house that burned down a few years ago. A NO TRESPASSING sign hangs on a tree.

"Here it is," Y.A. says. "I grew up here."

They park on the lawn. A man from a nearby porch looks over suspiciously, then turns away. "This brings back so many memories," Y.A. says. Dianne sits in the car, waiting to hear stories that she's heard many times. He used to tell her about the hundreds of bushes that filled the yard and how in 1936, at age 10, Y.A. would pretend to be Sammy Baugh, taking a snap, rolling right, throwing to them. "They were my receivers," he would say. The ball would lodge in a bush and he'd run to it, then throw to another, then another, for hours -- Complete! Twenty-five yards! Touchdown! -- fighting through asthma, through an allergy to grass, dodging snakes, sick with himself if he missed two bushes in a row, fascinated with spinning a ball long and well. His father, Abe, would come home from his job at the post office and be furious, his yard decimated. But Y.A. couldn't stop. Nothing made him feel so alive.

It's quiet in the car.

"This is a bit sad for me," Y.A. says.

Seconds pass. "What are we going to do with this property, Dianne?" he says.

"Dad," she says, trying hard not to tear up, "a young woman owns it."

Again, silence. As Dianne slowly steers the car away, she says, "This might be our last trip out here." Soon after, Y.A.'s sadness seems to have cleared from his mind like a bad throw. He directs Dianne past the cemetery where his parents rest, past the old grocery store, past the Harrison County Courthouse, to a brick building. "This is the old Marshall Mavericks High School," Y.A. says.

Dianne slows down, but Y.A. doesn't want to stop. He tells her to turn right, then left, until she pulls up alongside a park, fenced up and unkempt.

"This is the old football field," he says.

Dianne hits the brakes. "Dad, I have to get out." She jumps from the SUV, past men sitting on their cars and drinking out of brown paper bags, past rusted gates with broken locks, up concrete stairs blanketed in shattered glass, and looks out onto a shaggy field that she's never seen before. "Wow," she says.

She takes off her shoes. She needs to run. She owes her life to this field. It wasn't where her parents first made eyes -- that was in the town square -- but it's where they fell in love. Before he graduated from high school, Y.A. gave Minnette a bracelet with their initials in hearts. He left for LSU, she for the University of Arkansas, putting their relationship on hold. As a senior, Y.A. was asked by a reporter what he planned to do after graduating. "Marry my high school sweetheart and play professional football," he said. Minnette's boyfriend at the time was not amused. Months later, she and Y.A. were married.

A train whistles by. Dianne reaches the end zone and raps her knuckles against the rusted goalpost. She stands with her hands on her hips, tears and sweat soaking her face ...

Y.A. slams the horn, ready to leave. Dianne takes a final look and climbs into the car, adrenaline filling her chest. Before she can turn the keys, her dad does something rare: He begins to sing. When those old Marshall Men all fall in line, we're going to win that game, another time. And for the dear old school we love so well, we're going to fight, fight, fight and give them all hell!

She is in awe. Since she landed, she's been questioning why she made this trip. Is it for her dad? For her? Is it to cling to a fanciful dream? Finally, she's in a moment that beats the hell out of the alternative.

Two blocks later, Y.A. says, "Did we go by the old Marshall Mavericks High School?"