This Is The Game Of The Name

Fleming became aware that someone was using his name during the 1974 season. Sitting in the Dolphins' locker room reading fan mail, he came upon a bill for a week's stay in an Oakland hotel. "I thought, wait a minute. That couldn't be. I was in Europe then." The hotel told him that somebody claiming to be Marv Fleming, the football player, had stayed there. Later that year he got a letter from a woman in Oakland that said, "The baby has arrived." He called her and said, "You've got the wrong guy."

Trotter impersonated Fleming three years ago in Tyler, Texas and on that occasion was arrested for selling phony stock in NFL teams. That time he said he was really John Mackey, the former Baltimore Colt tight end (1963-71). He pleaded guilty to felony theft and was sentenced to three years in prison.

Tyler is about 40 miles from Longview, where the real Fleming was born, and only 10 miles from Lindale, where in May of 1978 the Lindale High newspaper, the Eagle Eye, ran an exclusive interview with Trotter entitled: EX-PRO MARV FLEMING TALKS WITH THE EAGLE EYE.

Fleming/Trotter talked expansively to the paper about his best season, 1966, argued that Denver wasn't really a Super Bowl team, said that playing against the Minnesota Vikings was so easy it was "like cutting grass" and told how he gave his first pro paycheck to his mother to buy a house. He also promoted his new venture, Fleming Foods. There was even a photo of the counterfeit Fleming with his "fianc�e," Vickie Lynn Banks, a senior at John Tyler High in Tyler. Fleming/Trotter told the interviewer that he'd gotten Vickie Lynn's name and address from the personals column of Soul Teen magazine.

"At first." the Eagle Eye reported. "Marv says her letters were very short, and he thought she either was 'stupid or couldn't write.' ...Well, one thing led to another, and they have been seeing each other for 23 months now."

"One day he just got up and left," says Banks, who still lives in Tyler. "It was strange. Until I read about him getting arrested in Louisiana, I always thought he was Marv Fleming."

Trotter is willing to talk now, which is something he didn't do much at a press conference in July. "Listen, Marv or Arthur or whoever you are," Vaughn had said to him then, "would you like to talk to some reporters?"

"Sure," said Trotter. But when he saw the TV cameras, he clammed up.

"Are you the Marv Fleming who played for the Packers and the Dolphins?" was the first question.

"I'll take the Fifth Amendment," he said.