“Go, go, go!” I yell. I’m watching the Super Bowl and Matt Hasselbeck is scrambling out of the pocket, racing downfield for a critical first down. As the Pittsburg linebacker closes in on him the suspense vacuum seals my body. I stop breathing until - “Woohoo!” - I spring off the couch like a Jock in the Box.
“What’s gotten into you?” my friends Deric and Audrey ask. They only know me as Guyliner, the black-clothed, faux-hawked, wannabe rock star that I have spent the better part of five years cultivating.
“But I know him,” I say, pointing to the Seahawks’ star quarterback. “I used to play football with him in college.”
This of course comes as a shock to my old Venice Beach neighbors. Audrey is stunned speechless, scanning me up and down, up and down until finally she points to my camouflage kilt and says, “You’re not serious.”
I am.
I first met Matt Hasselbeck during the summer of ’95, before my freshman year at Boston College. He was an orientation leader and I was an incoming freshman. Despite all of his success on the field, his head still fit in his helmet. Matt was bright, funny and easily accessible. He fired off self-deprecating stories like perfect spirals. “I always thought babies were born after six months of pregnancy,” he said. Since he entered the world exactly six months after his parents married, he imagined that he was conceived on their wedding night. It took an intervention by friends in eighth grade to sort that out. Don’t worry, I said, coughing up my own personal misunderstandings about childbirth. Up until fifth grade, I thought that in the delivery room, the baby held onto the penis and the man pulled the baby out. Besides both being a little slow on the uptake, we shared interest in football.
I’d been a BC Screaming Eagle since 1984 when Doug Flutie’s infamous “Hail Mary” beat the Miami Hurricanes in the Orange Bowl. During his Heisman Trophy winning season, I cut out every story about him that I could find and even wrote him a letter that included my picture, phone number, and instructions to call me between the hours of six and eight p.m., but not after eight because eight was my bedtime. A couple weeks later he sent me an autographed photo that said “Best Wishes, Doug Flutie,” which I thought was rather nice but not as nice as something like, "Nice picture, Scott! I just tried your house but the line was busy. You’ll be hearing from me soon. Best Wishes, Doug." Nonetheless, I had another Flutie flake.
When I told Matt that I had always dreamed of playing football at BC he told me to try out. Apparently, the team didn’t make any cuts so as long as I showed up to practice each day, I would “make” the team. That detail certainly worked in my favor as I had a rather unheralded high school career. Only one school, Brown University, recruited me. And I suspect the only reason I even blipped their radar was because they knew of my older brother, Chris, the 6’7”, 300 lbs lineman who would soon start as a rookie in the Canadian Football League. Whereas he had talent and instinct, I had potential and a pipedream.
One thing that’s striking about my college sports fantasies is the fact that when you really boil it down, I didn’t even like playing football. I liked looking like a football player. With the jersey and the elbow pads and helmet and lines of black face paint smeared under my eyes I felt tough as nails, until of course the whistle blew and the play started and my coach would scream, “Hey, Peter Pan! Quit pussyfooting around and hit like your brother, not your mother!” I didn’t have the mental or physical toughness that the sport demanded. I was soft, which was apparent at the age of two when I tripped over a Nerf football and broke my leg.
I guess my interest in Division 1 college football had more to do with salvaging pride than any actual love for the concussions and wind sprints and humiliation at the hands of the self-important men who orchestrated the whole affair. And since I couldn’t be cut (so long as I showed up), it’d be easy to earn respect from my friends, family and coaches back home. Everyone would simply assume that I had made the high-profile team, a technicality that I wouldn’t rush to clarify.
So with Hasselbeck’s push, I joined the Boston College football team after my first semester, in time for winter workouts. I knew I didn’t have a pedophile’s chance in prison of actually playing, so fitting in was enough for me. I had bulked up to 245 lbs and I blended in nicely right up until the equipment manager handed me my gym clothes and gear. Unlike the other 80 scholarship athletes, I wasn’t issued a number in the standard range of 0-99. There would be no chance for me to go unnoticed, because let’s be honest, nothing screams walk-on! quite like the number 104.
Three figures aside, even if I had managed something more nondescript I surely would have made a splash thanks to my foot speed. After running my best time ever in the 40-yard-dash, one coach screamed, “Jesus kid, we could clock you with a sundial.” Some of the guys got a good laugh out of that, and I can’t blame them. I had run alongside another tight end and by the time I finally crossed the line, the kid could have gotten an oil change.
This was just the beginning of the physical tests. The coaches wanted to know everything - what we could bench, curl, squat, jump over, you name it. If there was a muscle they were testing it, and surprise surprise, I was the weakest link. Somehow, I survived six or seven weeks of the grueling pre-dawn workouts, time trials, group showers and the shame of my scarlet number. And I stuck with the team long enough to say that I played football at Boston College without actually lying. But when spring practices and the full-contact hitting began, I said thanks but no thanks and handed back my helmet and shoulder pads and jersey.
Shortly after giving Rudy a rest, my interests unexpectedly veered left. I swapped religion for raves, frat parties for Phish shows and Sports Center for Yoga Centers. And friends like Deric and Audrey who only know this wannabe rocker side of me have a hard time connecting the dots to the J Crew jock.
I can’t say I ever look back at the guy I used to be with any degree of nostalgia or regret. But as I watch the Super Bowl halftime show, I can see ahead at the guy I don’t want to become. Dressed in shimmering black clothes and sparkling wristbands, Mick Jagger is prancing around stage, sashaying and swaying like a tone-deaf drag queen.
My friends are in stitches.
“Look at how his arm just flaps around.”
“Where's the hoola-hoop?”
“How old is he?”
Normally I’d be laughing too. Instead, I’m appalled. Not only do I dress like him with the skinny black clothes and shiny wristbands, I fear that I’m just as big of a spectacle. As I watch him waving his arms and hoola-hooping his hips, I see my own dance moves, the very dance moves that I thought were slicker than champagne, in a striking, new, unflattering light. I sway. I sashay. My arms even flap around like that. Do I really look this bad?
No, I don’t, I decide. There’s a difference. I’m young and embracing my youth. He’s old and clutching onto it. But I need to stay on my toes. I don’t want to wake up thirty years from now with mascara smeared across my wrinkled cheeks, and have to face the very caricature of a caricature that I loathe.
posted by Scott Keneally @ 12:02 PM
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