Saturday's heroes - college football players

College football is not just polls, booster clubs and bowl bids. It is the rituals, large and small, governing the thousands of student athletes who suit up each Saturday and experience everything from NCAA Division I-A glory to Division III obscurity. It's the dreams they nurture and the frustrations they face. It's the ways in which football is integrated into their overall college experience--or isn't. And it's the pieces of themselves these athletes leave on the field and the pieces that seem to be missing when they look ahead to a future with no football at all.

Meet four such men, all playing college football in the Boston area this season. One is a young father with serious family responsibilities and a legitimate shot at the pros. Another, the son of a former pro player, has continued the family tradition without tasting the stardom his father did

One is best defined by his work ethic and pure love for the game, another by his crusade to make college football matter at a school with weightier things on its mind.

Each "comes to play," as the cliche goes. What each brings along is something else, something more fiercely individual. Four student athletes. Four perspectives on the college game. Saturday's heroes, all.

Football was always fun for Omari Walker. It was fun when Walker was a 10-year-old legend in Mansfield, Mass., where he rewrote the record book--and the rule book--by basically being unstoppable with a football in his hands. "A man among boys," his Pop Warner coach calls him. "We had to limit Omari's carries because he'd have four for 200 yards in the first quarter, and it wasn't fair to the other kids."

Football was fun for Walker in high school. too, when, as a 5-10, 212-pound tailback with legs of steel, he led Mansfield High to a state championship, drawing long stares from Syracuse, Michigan State and Tennessee. Walker was the 1992 Gatorade New England Player of the Year. Syracuse was Walker's first choice, but a scholarship offer unraveled. Instead of being in the Orangemen's backfield, he enrolled at Boston College, where he led the Big East in rushing last year with 1,199 yards and scored 13 touchdowns.

"Omari was definitely underrecruited," says Mike Redding, Walker's high school coach. `Why? Because he lacked size and speed, maybe. Because his academics did not really improve until his senior year, probably. But schools with more patience, like BC and Wisconsin, scouted Omari and said, Wow, this is one of the best backs in the country.'"

Football was even fun for Walker in 1994 his redshirt-freshman year, but he almost quit the Eagles during preseason camp the next year because he was newly married and a young father (twice over). Bonding with his daughter, Briena, and infant son, Derrion, seemed more important than running one more slant play off tackle, one more tailback I sweep.

"What Omari's trying to accomplish juggling school, family and sports is mind-boggling," says first-year BC coach Tom O'Brien. "He obviously wants to be successful not only in football but in life."

Walker, a talented writer and poet, is working on a master's degree in education and plans to teach and coach at the high school level when he's through playing football. "I'm a walking stereotype," he says. "A black man married to a white woman. A student athlete. A father. I try to shatter those stereotypes. People don't think a football player can have an intellect. I want to educate people otherwise."

Football was not fun for Walker last year however. Not by a long shot. Despite the gaudy statistics. Despite being elected a BC co-captain his junior year. Despite the belated recognition that, yes, this really was one of the best running backs in the country. Despite the individual heroics (261 carries, six 100-yard games) and the gut-check performances (158 yards, two TDs vs. Notre Dame), plus all the hoopla that comes with being a marquee player on New England's marquee Division I-A college football team.

"I was so done after last season, there was no way I was coming back this year," Walker says. "I was going to graduate and look for a teaching job. In college football, you build up a lot of good memories of going through things together. War stories, you know. So when something happens like what hit us last fall, it totally smashes everything."

What hit BC last fall was a betting scandal that rocked the school and led to 13 Eagles being suspended, two for wagering against their team. Walker occupied ground zero as one bombshell after another exploded around the beleaguered Eagles. BC's 5-7 record and the dismissal of coach Dan Henning last November only added to the shrapnel count.

"Instead of guys laughing and talking they're fighting and yelling," Walker says. "People were stealing stuff from lockers left and right. When you can't trust your own teammates, and you're losing, and the media is down your throat, and the coach gets fired you consider hanging up your shoes. To do all the work we do and to be dragged through the mud like we were last year makes football very unpleasant."

Walker, 23, did plenty of soul-searching during the offseason. Although he got his bachelor's degree in English last spring and spent the summer designing teachers' aids for a Boston program that tutors inner-city schoolchildren, he still had a year of football eligibility remaining. He met with O'Brien, who promised a fresh direction at the Heights.

Walker gave the go-ahead for another season. And his wife, Tina, supported his decision to use his fourth year of football in pursuit of a graduate degree.

The couple and their two children elected to save money by moving into a small apartment downstairs in Walker's parents' house in Mansfield. Tina's mother and stepfather also live nearby and help with child care. Tina runs a small, at-home day-care program to supplement their income, which may or may not get a boost from next year's NFL draft.

Walker is nothing if not pragmatic. "When I get out of college, I need to find a job right away," he says. "I don't have the luxury of sowing my oats, so to speak. Teaching isn't a very lucrative occupation anyway, and having a master's means I can make more money in that profession. I couldn't imagine sitting around just playing football. Some guys do. I'd love to have that luxury, but I don't."

With a laugh, Walker adds, "Tuition is really not free. I'm paying it with my sweat and blood." Pro football? "If it happens, it happens," he replies. "I'd give it a shot, sure. But to be honest, it's not my main priority."

College football around the Walker house is an extended-family affair. For BC home games, as many as 100 of Omari's relatives and friends gather for a tailgate picnic in a parking lot adjoining Alumni Stadium in Chestnut Hill. Barbecued ribs are on the grill, and the beer flows freely. Tina wears one of her husband's game jerseys, just for luck.

The luck went sour during the BC-West Virginia game September 13. Walker was hit in the backfield while blocking for quarterback Matt Hasselbeck and was carried off the field for the first time in his football career. The injury, an ankle sprain, sidelined Walker for three games. A minor setback, but a significant reminder that football, even big-time college football, is a fragile foundation on which to build a future. "Fortunately," Tina says, "Omari has always wanted more out of life than that."

Having a little more fun before he's through would only be a bonus.

DIVISION I-AA: KRIS PREBOLA, BOSTON UNIVERSITY

Early in the third quarter of Boston University's home opener against Youngstown State, with the score tied 7-7, BU went into punt formation on its 22-yard line. Punter Brad Costello--arguably the Terriers' best player, certainly its most consistent weapon--barked out the signals. Costello's roommate, senior Kris Prebola, lined up far left and charged downfield on the snap.

What followed was a routine play in what turned out to be a numbingly routine loss for BU, which is 0-7 after slogging through a dismal 1-10 year in 1996. For football purists, though, the punt play contained one of those mini-dramas, those delicious games-within-a-game moments, that make special teams play, well, special.

Costello's kick spiraled 45 yards downfield. Knifing past one blocker and brushing off another, Prebola, a little-used reserve fullback, cornered the return man in the open field and buried his face mask in the runner's rib cage. Wham! Dropped for no gain. Prebola trotted off the field like the hit was no big deal. The kind of service any roomie would provide.

Up in the stands, Gene Prebola pumped his fist. There are moments a father lives for, and this was one of them.

"It's been a great four years for Kris and a sharing experience for both of us," the elder Prebola says. "He's given me a chance to relive my younger years, and how often does a father get that?"

Peyton Manning notwithstanding, the answer is: not often. And seldom with such touching symmetry, either, as in the case of two Prebolas, father and son, conjoined across a gridiron. Gene Prebola, Class of '60 and a BU Hall of Famer, went on to be a high school teacher and football coach in New Jersey. A two-way starter for the Terriers, he parlayed his glory days at Nickerson Field into a brief but respectable career in the pros; drafted as a tight end by the NFL Detroit Lions and the AFL Houston Oilers, Prebola wound up playing four AFL seasons for the Oakland Raiders and the Denver Broncos before washing out while trying to catch on with the New York Jets, three games short of qualifying for a pension. Never a front-line star (his biggest contract totaled $12,500 a year, or roughly what Joe Namath spent per month on bell-bottom pants and champagne), Gene Prebola had already gotten a taste of the big time at BU, where he played against teams such as Penn State, Syracuse and Boston College, and before Saturday crowds of 25,000 and more.

Kris Prebola's gridiron career has been a study in contrast, more a clip in the backfield than a chip off the old block. Four years of position shifts, empty seats and downsized expectations have tested his commitment to a game that put his father in the school's Hall of Fame, yet puts few fannies in the seats these days as BU football labors in the shadow of former rivals such as BC. (Last Saturday, after another loss, to Northeastern, the school announced that for financial reasons it would drop its football program after this season.)

Things might have worked out differently, Prebola says, if his high school coach had been more aggressive about sending out game films. Or if he, Kris, had trained his sights on a smaller school. A first-team All-Western New Jersey selection at Sparta High, Prebola projected himself as a Division I-AA quarterback, a position he excelled at in high school. Several Division III schools, including Georgetown (now I-AA), thought Prebola was hot stuff, too, since he posted 1,500 yards in total offense and led Sparta to the state divisional playoffs his senior year.

BU? It offered nothing more to Prebola than a walk-on opportunity at free safety. No scholarship money. No promises.

If this is where you expected Gene Prebola to step in and hit Kris with the BU-or-bust ultimatum, you're wrong.

"My dad didn't ky to persuade me one way or another," says Prebola, 22. "I honestly felt I wouldn't be challenged playing at a lower level. It was about me trying to prove some people wrong, but mostly about proving something to myself."

Prebola, a math major with a 3.0 GPA, must specialize in proofs. After playing practice-squad safety as a freshman, he shifted to outside linebacker the next season, a 3-8 disappointment for Prebola and the Terriers. The coaches relocated him to tight end in 1996, his junior year. Prebola happily obliged and, finally comfortable at his position, started BU's first two games. He even caught a pass. In Game 3, his playing time nose-dived, and he was increasingly relegated to special teams duty. Prebola considered quitting football.

"I tried to figure out what happened," he rejects, "but it was all very discouraging. I was still a walk-on, with no scholarship money. If it weren't for the friendships I've made on the team, I probably would have quit. But the game is still important to me. I guess that's the best way to explain it. In football, you need 11 guys working together. If one messes up, the whole play goes wrong. I like that. I think of myself as a leader. I'm competitive by nature. If I didn't have football, I honestly don't know what I'd replace it with."

Prebola's patience ultimately paid off. After a strong spring playing his fourth position, fullback, in four years, Prebola rekindled his enthusiasm for football. BU matched that commitment by awarding Prebola his long-coveted athletic scholarship. These aren't the kind of stories you read about in college media guides. Yet they are integral to role players such as Prebola, who play each Saturday to prove a point as much as score one.

"I'm not playing in my dad's shadow in the sense of trying to live up to him," Kris says. "I'm playing for the same richness of experience he had. During the season, football and studying are pretty much all I do. I don't feel I'm missing much. If anything, I think playing football keeps me more focused than a lot of other BU students. Also, my parents travel to just about all my games, and I think being there means as much to my family as it does to me."

Says Gene Prebola, "To me, Kris epitomizes the student athlete. He's proud of what I accomplished, but he's not playing in my shadow. Not at all. I was in the right place at the right time. So is he. Different times, that's all."

Rewarding times, too.

DIVISION II: CASEY BUTLER, BENTLEY COLLEGE

Puffy pink clouds float by at twilight time, lit by a three-quarter moon. Geese fly over midfield in V-formation on a warm September night in the Boston suburb of Waltham. Bentley College is about to meet Merrimack College in an Eastern College Football Conference game. The aroma of grilled sausage and popcorn perfumes the air.

Casey Butler, 21, trots out with the kickoff team. The crowd is still drifting in and will eventually number about 2,000 by late in the first half, when students will stand two-deep along one sideline. Butler, a 6-1, 228-pound senior tight end from Winthrop, Mass., already is savoring the moment He does not expect to have a starring role in the evening's proceedings. Butler caught just two passes last year, good for 17 yards and no touchdowns. Not exactly go-to-guy statistics.

Although he will match last season's reception total before the night is through (fumbling away one of those receptions in a sloppy 14-12 Bentley victory), he knows his job as well as he knows his team's playbook. That job is to (1) block, (2) play special teams and (3) shuttle plays in from the coach to the quarterback. Not (4) go deep, (5) catch the Big One, or (6) date the captain of the cheerleaders.

All of which bothers Butler, an accounting major, not one whit. He likes the math. He knows the spreadsheet. The numbers work for him. With his family in the stands and kid brother Chris, a sophomore linebacker, alongside him in a Bentley uniform, Butler focuses on how perfect--and fleeting--a moment this is.

"When you're younger, you dread practices," Butler says. "Football can feel like a chore. Now I find myself getting fired up for every practice. I think about what it will be like to never go to one again. I think about this year being the last year I'll be with my friends, strapping on a helmet I want to leave it all on the field every time, practice or game. To make every moment--every moment--count."

Quietly, Bentley coach Peter Yetten has built a Stealth bomber of a football program out of role players such as Butler. In his 10th year as varsity coach and boasting a 66-18-1 record (including 30 consecutive victories from 1993 to '95), Yetten has upgraded a club-level program to a Division II power in two decades. Once the best-kept secret in New England college football, Bentley has become a legitimate big deal. Each year brings at least a handful of transfers from Division I-AA schools, players who give up athletic scholarships to partake of Bentley's business-oriented curriculum and the chance to play big-time football--in terms of success, anyway--in a small-school atmosphere.

"We want the kid who is not only serious about football, but who'll have fun playing here," Yetten says. "It's nice to win, don't get me wrong. I expect a lot from my players. Many work part time, even though there's spring practice, plus lifting and running. But I also want them to study hard and have a social life, to kick back after a game or take their girlfriend out to dinner. Hey, it's college."

Butler, adds Yetten, is a "lunch-pail" player who accepts his limited role and works his tail off at it.

"There are a lot of Casey Butlers on this team, nuts-and-bolts guys who don't need the fanfare," Yetten says. "Casey is always smiling. I don't think I've ever heard him say a negative word in the four years he's been here. When the game starts, though, he's all business. He'll run downfield and belt you right between the eyes."

Butler did not even play football until high school. At 5-8, 135 pounds, he was a defensive back/wide receiver prototype. Four years later, Butler went 6-1, 195 pounds and moved to defensive end. Winthrop went to the state championship game each of Butler's last two years, losing both times (once to a Mansfield team led by Omari Walker). The second loss, in overtime, had a motivating effect on Butler. He had already drawn interest from Worcester Polytechnic, Colby College and Bentley, yet he was unsure about playing college ball. "I had the skills," he says, "but I was nervous about playing against bigger, faster guys. Then we lost that Super Bowl (as Massachusetts state title games are called), and that wasn't going to be my last memory. I'd played only four years of football, I enjoyed the game, and I'd gotten better every year."

His parents leaned toward Colby (Waterville, Maine), Butler says. He chose Bentley because it was closer to home and offered a more urban atmosphere and amenities. Working for his father's company was another plus. The company specializes in demolition work, and, as Butler notes, "I like to get my hands dirty. Having a desk job seems weird, although I suppose I'll get one sometime."

Balancing work and athletics is no harder at Bentley than it was in high school, Butler maintains. A GTE Academic District I All-American he has a 3.5 GPA and is on track to graduate in June. He lives in an off-campus apartment with three Bentley teammates: defensive end Ben Nassar, a co-captain; quarterback and co-captain Mike Mason, who also is a product of Winthrop High; and defensive lineman Bill Tucker.

Happily for Butler, Bentley's football philosophy seems to be Find the worthiest opponents possible and go right at them.

"My first two years we were basically wiping the floor with everyone," he says. "We went undefeated my freshman year, 10-1 the next. Last year, we finished 7-4, but it was more satisfying. I'd rather play tougher competition and lose than blow somebody out."

Life after football is going to be "real strange," he adds with a frown. "Usually you start getting ready for next season as soon as this one's over. Can I find something to substitute for it? I hope so."

He shakes his head. "I really hope so."

DIVISION III: TROY GAYESKI, MIT

It takes a certain mentality to play football at a school like Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Not mental ability, which is pretty much a given on a squad that considers nuclear engineering a soft major and Bill Gates a smarter dude than Bill Parcells. Rather, mentality as in: How do you psych yourself for 60 minutes of smash-mouth football--yes, they do play tackle at MIT, with helmets, chin straps and everything--when the entire home crowd of 250 could fit inside the Mir space station (probably fix it, too), and the school band practically takes song requests in the huddle?

"I try to supply my own intensity," says MIT fullback troy Gayeski, 22, a senior co-captain from Wilkes-Barre, Pa. "There are no Division I-type star athletes around here. Apathy is probably the best word to describe the campus attitude toward football. You can look at the situation two ways--make the team better or think you're too good for the program. To me, the latter attitude is unacceptable."

To his teammates, budding rocket scientists all, the 6-1, 221-pound Gayeski is the Beavers' liquid propellant and launch code rolled into one. A guy who practices hard, plays hard and studies hard (check out his 4.6 GPA, on a 5.0 scale, in chemical engineering). And, when appropriate, Gayeski loves to have a good time in the belief that college comes around only once in a young person's life and should not be made of wind sprints and pie charts alone.

"Troy is the most focused person on this team, whether he's playing football or studying," says linebacker James Jorgensen. With a grin, Jorgensen adds, "He's also the only guy I know who lifts (weights) to get in shape for spring vacation."

MIT coach Dwight Smith calls Gayeski "a little more athletically exceptional" than the typical MIT player, which is like saying that Frasier Crane is slightly less neurotic than his kid brother, Niles. Smith is quick to laud another of Gayeski's abilities, though--the commitment he shows to raising awareness of, and support for, varsity football on a campus where seldom is "nerd" a discouraging word, and the stands are not crowded all Saturday.

"Troy has been a strong advocate for our program, and that's no easy task," Smith says. "We have a big attrition problem. It's rare for a student to play four years here. Football is not really pushed on the student body, either. It's just not a big deal here, as I tell my kids every year."

No kidding. A water polo match against Harvard--water polo! Harvard!--drew more fans on a glorious mid-September weekend than MIT's home opener against Worcester Polytechnic did, the Worcester Tech game, a 24-23 thriller that MIT lost on a botched PAT, was played in the kind of fall weather practically invented for college football.

The game also featured a typical performance by the resourceful Gayeski, who lugged one pass for 54 yards and threw a 21-yard completion off a fake punt. Gayeski's heroics aside, however, the biggest cheer from the onlookers in Cambridge occurred when the MIT bench buckled in half, spilling two players to the ground. Crrrackkk! Heavy, man. Can I work that into my next mechanical engineering lab?

Gayeski has been an all-conference second-team pick at two positions (tight end and fullback) and earned a first-team Academic All-District designation last year from the GTE College Sports Information Directors of America. Football may be small potatoes at MIT, but Gayeski is hardly complaining.

"Sometimes I wish I was playing in front of more people," he says. "The biggest crowd I've played in front of here has been maybe 2,000. When we played Berwick my senior year in high school, 14,000 people showed up. An average high school game drew 6,000. So it's a different deal here, sure."

But, he says, "You stick it out. I mean, what the hell. No one owes you anything. Sometimes I wonder more about the coaches' frustration level than my own." Gayeski's football career has been freckled with frustration. Coming out of Wilkes-Barre's Coughlin High School, where he played against the likes of Notre Dame star recruit Ron Powlus, Gayeski was confident he could compete at the Ivy League level, if not higher.

He was accepted at West Point--his father is a retired Air Force officer--yet planned to go to Princeton and play football there. With combined SATs of 1410, Gayeski considered himself a shoo-in and was told as much by friends and school advisers. He heard much the same from the Princeton football staff, which saw no reason to push Gayeski on the admissions office given his strong academic record and the 60 pounds of muscle Gayeski had added since his sophomore year.

When April rolled around, though, Gayeski was notified by Princeton that he had been put on the waiting list. Devastated, Gayeski decided to enroll at Penn State while he sifted through other options, not bothering to wait on Princeton.

"It was like an ax," he says. "My football career looked over. I could go to West Point and maybe play there, but maybe not. I could walk on at Penn State, but I'm obviously not going to play there my first year. I talked to a few walk-one at Penn State, guys who were no bigger, faster or stronger than I am. By now, I'd probably be playing special teams for Joe Paterno. But when I got into MIT, I never looked back. It was all academics. I didn't even know MIT had a football team."

Not surprisingly, Gayeski became an instant starter--and a habitue of the MIT weight room, which was completely refurbished this year, thanks in part to Gayeski's efforts. Last year, he surveyed dozens of other colleges at the request of an MIT visiting committee looking into the school's athletic facilities. How, Gayeski wondered, did a school like Bates support a 12,000-square-foot weight room and 15 bench-press machines but MIT could muster only a 2,000-square-foot room with three machines?

A first-rate university, Gayeski argued, should have first-rate athletic facilities. The committee bought the argument. And the new weight room.

Off the field, Gayeski's life revolves around Sigma Alpha Epsilon, MITs "jock" fraternity. Regularly scheduled road trips include New Orleans for Mardi Gras and spring break in Cancun. (You expected Pasadena in January?) If all goes as planned, he will complete his undergraduate degree in January and receive a master's degree in chemical engineering in January 1999. More than conference titles or rushing records, Gayeski hopes to leave a legacy of enthusiasm for MIT football by the time he's through.

"The faculty takes the view that if sports are so important, why did you come here?" Gayeski says. "I don't know anyone who plays sports and who has failed here, though. If anything, they do even better. But you're talking about a school that gets over $300 million a year in research money. And none from football."

He laughs. "That's not a problem at Penn State."

                                 Boston
How their schools stack up        College    Boston U.   Bentley

Stadium capacity                 44,500      14,500      3,200
Ticket price (G.A./student)      $25/$10     $10/$5      $5/$0
Undergraduates                   8,958       15,496      3,116
Football scholalarship           85          63          0
Assistant coaches                9           10          8
Weight room, square feet         7,000       6,800       3,300

How their schools stack up
                                 MIT

Stadium capacity                 1,600
Ticket price (G.A./student)      $0/$0
Undergraduates                   4,100
Football scholalarship           0
Assistant coaches                6
Weight room, square feet         2,600

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COPYRIGHT 2004 Gale Group