For the Love of the Game: A Scandurro Story

BY TIM SCANDURRO

“If any of you has any fantasies about running out of that tunnel with your gold helmet shining in the sun, you’d best leave them right here.  Of you fifteen dreamers out there, maybe we’ll keep one or two…Our first teams are going to pound on you like you’re their worst enemies.  Your greatest value to us is, we don’t care if you get hurt.  Like what you hear so far?  Anybody want to run home to Mama?” –Assistant Coach to Walk-on Candidates, Rudy

It is very common these days across America, and certainly this week at Tulane, to hear people complain about the business of college football.  The money is out of control for both coaches and players.  What ever happened to loyalty?  What ever happened to the traditional rivalries and historic conferences?  What happened to the game and the sport we grew up watching, and fell in love with?

On the flip side, sitting around lamenting what used to be isn’t going to win you any games today.  There’s a lot that needs to be fixed about the sport, but the timing and scope of that change is uncertain.  Until those fixes come, you have to adjust and adapt and climb the new mountain that’s in front of you or be left behind.  Some coaches and programs are unable or unwilling to do so, and they usually end up retired or fired or ineffective.  Others thrive in this new uncertain world and set the curve for the rest.

Regardless of what you think about the state of college football, you surely understand how money—television and media contract money, booster money, revenue sharing money, corporate money, playoff money—shapes everything about the current direction of the sport. 

That’s why our first kickoff against Charlotte Saturday night was such a breath of fresh, throwback air.  Before our kickoff unit even took the field a large knot of loud, animated players were going crazy on the sidelines.  The reason soon became apparent.  The people making all the noise were led by our regular kickoff unit, and the people who took the field to cover that kickoff were walk-ons.  A quick scan of the roster showed that one was a punter, one was a quarterback, and several were undersized guys who were probably listed an inch or two taller and 10 or 15 pounds heavier than they actually were. 

Every one of them was jacking up the crowd before the ball was even teed up.  Every one of them flew down the field, knowing that Patrick Durkin’s kick wouldn’t be returned (it wasn’t).  When they hit the end zone they ran all the way to the north end zone wall jumping up and down and engaging the fans.  They did it two more times in the first half, never once going a step slower or any less enthusiastically.  Their teammates, the regular scholarship players, loved it.  Like those two or three guys who come off the far reaches of the bench at the end of a basketball game, the football walk-ons hold a special place in the hearts of the rest of the team and the fans who watch.

They were never in it for the money.  Some of them eventually earn a scholarship, but those are few and far between.  They are in it, most of them, because they loved the game in high school and don’t want to give it up.  They might be a step slow or a few inches or pounds less than optimal.  But they  want to be a part of a team, to help the starters get ready for the next opponent, and to do whatever it takes just to put that uniform on and stand on the bench at home games.

They are also far more important than people may realize.  When Willie Fritz got here, one of his first culture shocks was when he learned we didn’t really have a walk-on program.  It became an immediate priority.  “You have to have enough of them to be able to practice the right way,” I remember him saying.  And so he built it up.  Thanks to Jimmy Ordeneaux’s “job takers of the week” segment on FTW, our fans often get to experience the value our staff and program place on these unsung heroes.

Imagine what it’s like to be a walk-on, paying your own way for the privilege of getting up way earlier than your fellow students, spending countless hours in meetings,  getting your body in a series of car wrecks most days in practice against bigger and faster men, and then not getting to play in the ‘real games.’  All while carrying a full course load in a selective and challenging university curriculum.

But you do it anyway, not for the glory and certainly not for the money because there is little or none of either.  You do it  because you love the game of football and you want to test yourself against people more talented than you are.  You do it to be in that locker room to feel the tension before a big game, and to celebrate with your teammates after it.  You do it because you cherish being a part of a football team and you know that when you do finally hang up your cleats, you’ll miss it forever because, well, there’s just nothing else like it in the world and you don’t want it to end. 

What a gesture by our staff to give these young men that well-deserved opportunity to get on the field, not once but multiple times, in a nationally televised game.  They will remember it for the rest of their lives.

For those of us old-timers watching, it was a vivid reminder of what first drew us to the game.  Ten guys tearing down that field as fast as they could, exuberant, their hearts beating out of their chests with excitement and anticipation, the culmination of years of vital but quiet, unseen work.  Yes Virginia there is a Santa Claus, and yes college football fans there are still boys in backyards across this country who dream of playing football for reasons other than money, and who will one day sacrifice their sleep, their bodies and their time to do it for their teammates and for Tulane University.  For free.

It's still a game.  Despite all the money it’s still a wonderful, unique, fantastic game that can inspire the very best qualities in the heart of a young man.  When players retire even as professionals and are asked what they miss most, it’s never the money.  It’s usually “the locker room and the guys.”  When asked how they hope to be remembered, the answer is usually “as a great teammate.”  That’s what our walk-ons are, every one of them.

Roll Wave.