Magazine, Interview, Football, Sports Illustrated
DAVID 159
“Among my own team mates, it was pretty congenial. Plus I guess our location helped a lot too. Palo Alto is about a half hour drive from San Francisco, where different lifestyles are tolerated to a greater degree, and so the whole deal about me likin’ guys was not too big of a deal. At least on the surface.”
“Did you sense other feelings?”
“Well, yeah. You know, these are big, tough, young guys.”
“Were there any other members of the team who liked guys?”
“Yeah, but I don’t think they would want me to say. And I have to say that a lot of the team would catch me in the hallway and tell me that they were glad I was on the team and they sounded really sincere. A lot of them even asked me to autograph pictures for their girlfriends or their moms or their grannies. Or their Uncle Ned in Nebraska who’s a big fan (wink wink) or--”
“Naked pictures?”
“Some, actually. But they all seemed pretty ok with it. And then of course they were all anxious to ask me about workout tips, which I love teaching, so we got along just fine. Now the other teams—”
“From other schools.”
“Yeah, from other schools…now they were a different story. I suppose you wouldn’t be on the friendliest terms with your opponents, but when I’d be on the field, I could see them, and they’d all be trying to look like they weren’t looking at me.”
“Did you ever meet them close-up?”
“Well, I tried. My mama always taught me that it was rude to be standoffish, so I’d smile and go up and introduce myself or give somebody a compliment, but uh…(laughs) it was a pretty cold reception.”
“Why do you think?”
“You could just sense the uneasiness in the room. All kinds of stuff. I think some of them were challenged by me. They looked at me like they were just not gonna be taken down by this…big, ol’ guy. Like they were gonna win fame and fortune by being the one…the one that tackled David McAllister. And some guys I think…well, no…I know felt even more threatened because I was gay. You could just tell they were sweating the fact, hoping that they didn’t end up across from me on the line, and hoping that they weren’t gonna be taken down by…you know…a guy that thinks guys are nice lookin’. And I think most of them were just intimidated by my size, but didn’t want to show it.”
“I think they feared for their health.”
(Smiles) “I think so, especially with what had happened.
“Which was?”
“Well…(sighs)…now you have to remember! Guys get hurt playing football all the time. It’s just when someone gets hurt and I’m in the game, it makes national headlines. Literally.”
“The St. Louis Post.”
“Yeah. That was Darryl…let’s see…Darryl Ross. Yeah. He ended up with a slight concussion. Just a slight concussion.”
“Isn’t that like saying, ‘Just a little bit of a broken arm?’”
“No, that was Rudy Crenshaw.”
“I was making an analogy.”
“Oh! Sorry. But my point is that a slight concussion is not unheard of in the game.”
“It wasn’t your fault.”
“It wasn’t my fault! And Rudy’s arm too. And it was his wrist. A slight fracture, and that’s because…it’s not what you think.”
“So tell me.”
“With Rudy, okay…let me first start by saying that I believe that part of the game, especially for a linebacker, is psychological.”
“And your major is psychology.”
“Yeah. For lots of reasons, one of them being because I’ve always been fascinated by the implications and responses, conscious and subconscious, of people who are confronted with someone that looks like me, and what it means to people in different societies. One of the things that I learned real quick when I first started posing for photographers is to put on the “seriously serious” face. If you look at some of my pictures, you’ll see in a lot of them that I have this real…tough, scary, in-your-face look. One of the photographers named it “seriously serious”.”
“I’ve always thought you looked kind of imperious, like a bald eagle or something.”
“Yeah, well that’s the idea. I mean, you have to be somewhat of an actor when you’re being photographed. If I’m naked except for boots and a motorcycle hat, I gotta look into the camera with that look that says…like I really mean it, ‘I’m gonna fuck you to death.’ Oops! Can I say that?”
(Laughs)
“So when I’m on the line, I made it a habit to look at the guy across the line…right in the eyes. And not blink.”
“That would be intimidating. Especially with your eyes.”
“Well, it worked, because most of the time they wouldn’t look me in the eye, and when they did, they’d catch a look from me that said, “I’m gonna break ALL your bones and shake ‘em up in your uniform so the doctors can’t sort ‘em out.”
(Laughs) “Oh god!”
(Smiles) “And they’d just wither. I tell you, I must admit that it is quite satisfying to see a couple of hundred pounds of muscle relax. Because, you see, when you’re on the line, your weight is forward, and when they’d wither and subconsciously decide that they were doomed—”
(Laughs)
“—their weight would shift back. They weren’t gonna tackle. They were just gonna shield themselves and hope for the best.”
“When you say a couple of hundred pounds of muscle, you’re referring to?”
“Oh, what I mean is that, well most of the linebackers and defensive ends weigh between oh, maybe 230 and 250.”
“But then that would mean that you outweigh them by a hundred pounds or more.”
(Nods) “Plus the weight of my gear.”
“So there’s no way…no way that somebody’s gonna take you down. If I had a hundred extra pounds…launched at me…(shrugs and shakes head)”.
“I heard somebody say that it was like standing at home plate with your bat at the ready and having a freight train pitched at you.”
(Laughs) “And, I gotta ask you…you love it don’t you?”
“Well (smiles slyly) it’s my job!”
“Do you like what you do? I mean, is there a sense of satisfaction in your position on the team?”
“Well, sure there is! But I think what you’re saying is do I enjoy the simplicity of my position.”
“Yes.”
“Well then I’d have to say yes. Immensely. My job is not to go out there and coordinate the ball to a running back or my position to the availability of the quarterback, or my running feet to the sidelines while some guy is right behind me wanting to take me down. My job is to mow people down, plain and simple. My job is to exemplify pure, brute force, to overwhelm. That’s what I try to do in front of the camera, and that’s what I did on the football field.”
“So, getting back to Rudy.”
“Oh. Well, like I said, I saw Rudy decide that he wasn’t gonna plow into me with everything he had—”
“Do you ever hold back when you see that?”
(Sighs, smiles, looks up shyly) “No.”
“Mow ‘em down.”
(Laughs) “It’s my job!”
“Okay.”
“So anyway (sigh), the ball was snapped and I…(motions forward with hand).”
“Launched yourself.”
“I took off, and Rudy didn’t hardly hit me. In fact, I think I saw him cringe. He kind of leaned up and forward and just bounced off me. And when he fell back, he fractured his wrist, but it wasn’t like I tired to shatter his bones upon impact. Well, actually I was thinking that now that I remember, but the whole deal was…he just fell back and landed wrong, like anybody could’ve, in any position, in any game, after being tackled by anybody. Not just me.”
“He went on record to state that you had not done it intentionally.”
“Well, I didn’t! How could I? If you watch the tape, you’ll see him just kind of stand up, go into the fetal position on one leg like a flamingo, and then bounce off me.”
“And Darryl?”
“Darryl was just an unfortunate, perfect tackle. I guess I hit him right in his center of gravity as he was coming at me at top speed. He went from going 20 miles an hour to 0 instantly—”
“Like running full force into a brick wall.”
(Nods) “And again, it’s not like that doesn’t happen in football. But when I do it…sheesh! But I believe there’s much more to the reactions than meets the eye.”
“How so?”
“Here you got these big, tough brutes, you know? The best of the best. The toughest of the tough. The biggest of the big . Destined for greatness, and they’re up against me, who…well…I’m a lot bigger than they are.”
“Which they resent, is that what you’re saying?”
“Not only that, but I feel you have to figure into the equation that when they come home with their bandages or their cast, they have to explain, if they’re not the lying type, that a big, pretty, farm boy who probably thought they were cute, ran over them like a cement truck.”
(Smiles and shakes head) “Do you believe that there should be size limits in the sport?”
“Maybe. Now that I’m leaving. I certainly wouldn’t want to go up against someone proportionally bigger!”
“Which brings me to the latest controversy: Matt Darcy.”
“Well, they can’t blame me for that.”
“Well, they try to because of your size. What happened?”
(Sighs) “I went up to position, and the other team did too, and Matt moved in front of me. This is after a loooong huddle on their part. I found out later that they were trying to decide who was going to be opposite me, and nobody wanted to, but Matt got the privilege. Even when he walked up to the line, he had that kind of doomed saunter, and then he crouched in front of me, and I looked up through my facemask at him.”
“Did he make eye contact?”
“Yeah.”
“And, may I ask, do you remember if you had the ‘seriously serious’ face on?”
“Course I did. I think I was thinkin’…you know when you’re driving and all of a sudden you see a bug go splat on your windshield, and how that little bitty crispy bug is no match for a ton and a half of metal coming at it at 70 miles per hour?”
(Laughs)
“I know. I’m bad.”
“But it’s your job!”
“There you go! So anyway, the ball is snapped, and Matt stands up and moves out of my way.”
“And then what?”
“The flags fly, the whistles blow, the refs come over, they start yelling, he starts arguing that there’s no rule that says he can’t do that, the refs start arguing among themselves as to what kind of foul it should be, he starts back saying it’s unfair for them to put himself in danger and if they think he should why don’t one of the other tackles take his place in front of me and give it a shot…. We stood around for ten minutes. It was a mess. He don’t talk to me.”
“He doesn’t?”
(Shakes head) “Which is strange ‘cuz I didn’t even break any of his bones!”
2004