Hungry for One More Season on the Football Field

He is called Geezer, as in old man, and his buddy is KC, like from the Sunshine Band.

Roommates. Buddies. Teammates. Harvard football Captain Greg Gicewicz and senior tight end Kevin Collins are, they say, almost brothers.

They do lots of things together. Like room together for four years. Play intramural hockey. Take the semester off to play an extra year of football.

Both Gicewicz and Collins decided to skip last semester and come back this fall for a final season of varsity football eligibility.

"We talked about it together," Gicewicz says. "And we decided, why not, let's play football again."

So Gicewicz went to Digital Equipment and Collins to Lt. Governor Evelyn Murphy's office. Traded the ends of their senior years for six months of real life and three months of the fantasy that is football.

This week the fantasy consists of Union breakfasts, double sessions, and nights spent sitting on the steps of Claverly.

Outside Dillon Field House, just finished with his second practice of the day, Gicewicz philosophizes about football, the season, his decision to come back.

"I have a lot of theories on what chemistry makes a successful football team..."

But his thoughts are interrupted by catcalls from a younger player.

"Guys look, it's Geezer," he calls. "We love Geezer. We love him. He's our favorite."

Greg's name is not easy to pronounce--"guh-SEV-itch" is the explanation in the pronunciation guide. Geezer is easier.

Collins is spared the catcalls. Also tired and sweaty from the day's second practice, he is patted on the head as the players filter out of Dillon. "Hey KC," they each say. They are happy to have him there, happy to have snatched him back from both basketball and graduation for one last season.

Collins himself is bigger than ever before. On the field in Saturday's scrimmage against Brown he looks almost dominating. It is strange to see a man who looked so small on the basketball court loom so large on the gridiron.

This day it is hard not to look at his hands. They are large, very large, as if they could palm a basketball. One knuckle is bleeding, the practice had been rough. You can imagine the hands as a nice resting place for a lofted football. Saturday, when he plays tight end, they are just that. Quarterback Tim Perry connects with Collins in the end zone for the Crimson's only touchdown.

Gicewicz is a quiet leader. His position--middle guard--is one of the most anonymous on a football team.

He is embarassed by the teasing, the catcalls. He is not one who has been tapped for opinions on football by reporters in the past. But his theories are serious, his opinions interesting and perceptive.

"I'm a big believer that in a game like football that no team ever just rolls over another team," he says. "There are always a few big plays, a few breakdowns, a few crucial plays that you have to come through."

It is an apt description of what happened to the Crimson last season: a few missed snaps, a close loss, and the snowball started rolling.

For him the game depends on an attitude, an approach. He is happy to be the leader of a nameless, faceless team. A team with no stars, but many hungry players.

"This team is inexperienced, everything is a potential problem," he admits, but he seems almost pleased with the thought. He likes the idea of a fight, a struggle.

It is easy to see that Collins and Gicewicz are roommates, good friends. When Collins talks of this football season, there are echoes of Gicewicz's theories, and their matching stubble makes you wonder if the room they share is one without razor or shaving cream.

Collins, too, speaks of "hungry" players, and the absence of any one big star who can afford to be "cocky," have an "attitude."

"Inexperience is an ambiguous word," he says. "Because we don't have experience, we have hungry players."

Gicewicz and Collins are hungry themselves. Hungry enough for a last chance at football, a final season, that they came back even though their class is gone.

It is because, both of them say, they love the sport. It is in the blood.

"I decided kind of all through last football season," Gicewicz says. "It wasn't frustration, just love of the game."

His philosophy on this one is, "Play while you can, you only have so many years."

Not surprisingly, Collins fell quickly into his line of thinking as well.

"I missed football that much," says Collins. "I thought it was a tough decision, but it really wasn't. I didn't miss anything. Football is just the icing on the cake."