Brad Payne: A Man on a Mission

Who’s to say? He’s a defensive player, and in the necessarily glamour-hungry world of sports journalism, defenders—especially linemen—rarely enjoy the cherished ink of the back page. He entered training camp without a formal spot on the depth chart, let alone the slightest bit of name recognition for the vast majority of Harvard football fans. And, as a 22-year-old junior, his days as a member of the Crimson are numbered at the outset. Who’s to say that this won’t be the last you ever hear of Brad Payne?

But even if this is the last you hear of him, Payne himself is a noteworthy first for the current Harvard football regime and a great story in his own right.

With the Ivy League’s recent reduction of annual football recruits from 35 to 30 this past summer and the overall trimming of football squads since the mid-90s, Harvard and its competition are being forced to recruit differently. Harvard coach Tim Murphy has noted that the recruiting process has changed as a result of the cutbacks.

“From the standpoint of emphasizing retention, we absolutely must get serious football players,” Murphy said earlier this month. “We just can’t afford to lose a kid once they matriculate to Harvard.”

Along similar lines, Ivy League programs are under greater pressure to find recruits who can contribute immediately to the programs’ success. Freshman who can step right in are scarce—right now, only a handful of sophomores and virtually no freshmen are expected to see consistent playing time in the upcoming season. Cases like that of junior linebacker Dante Balestracci—an All-Ivy selection as a freshman two seasons ago—are extremely rare.

Enter Payne, a graduate of Arizona’s Mesa Community College and now a junior in Dunster House. Payne, a 6’3, 220-pound defensive end, has been tabbed by coaches and teammates as someone who can contribute right away to a defensive line heavily affected by graduation, even if he doesn’t start.

And when he steps out onto the field during Saturday’s game, Payne will also become the first player recruited as a non-freshman to see meaningful action for Harvard in Murphy’s eight-year tenure as head coach. Three other transfers to make the roster in the Murphy years, all quarterbacks, never took a snap for the Crimson.

Of course, Payne wouldn’t mind if his ultimate impact on the program went beyond that bit of trivia. Despite the pressure of patching up a revamped line on a team that hopes to repeat as Ivy League champions, Payne saw that challenge as one of the most attractive things about Harvard when he considered applying.

“One of the things I liked most was that, with no returning starters, there was obviously a chance to get some playing time in,” Payne says. “That was really important to me. I didn’t just want to sit on the bench and graduate. I like to play.”

Two years ago, Payne couldn’t play at all. He was in South America serving a Mormon mission in between his two seasons at Mesa, and lost 30 pounds over two years without football. Payne describes his mission as an intense but rewarding event in his life.

“Playing a sport, you tax yourself physically every day and mentally to an extent, but with a mission you’re taxing your whole body,” Payne says. “In Uruguay we didn’t have cars. We walked everywhere, so I was tired day in and day out. Not only that, but dealing with people, seeing their issues—it’s very rewarding. But it’s very hard mentally, spiritually and physically, so in a sense it works your whole body.”

Payne experienced packed 16-hour days of scriptural study and service, during which he came to appreciate life in a third world country and the value of helping others.

“What I found is that you when really get in and try to help people, try to serve them, the time goes by really fast,” Payne says. “You learn so much. Not necessarily how to serve every person, but you learn what their points of view are, what their needs are. Because they’re a lot different from ours—they’re not at the same level we are financially. They struggle just to get food.”

The period in which Payne dropped 30 pounds is one that he now describes as his greatest time of personal growth. But after he returned from his mission, he became aware of how much it would take to return to the form that earned him First Team All-Region honors in Arizona as a freshman in 1998.

“I think the most difficult part was not realizing how much I had truly lost during my mission because I’m obviously not anywhere as quick as I used to be,” Payne says. “My body hasn’t done explosive exercises for two years and I was expecting to come back at a higher level than I did. It was really humbling for me to realize, ‘Hey, I’m not the fastest guy anymore, I’m not the strongest guy anymore, I’m not doing as well as I was before. I’m actually subpar.’ I really had to start working again.”

Payne worked his way to a solid season, garnering Second-Team All-Region honors in his final year at Mesa as well as earning a First-Team Academic All-American selection for the second time.

As he worked his way back into shape, he contacted Harvard—a program that had recruited him back when he was a high school senior. Payne had not jumped aboard then, but revisited the idea of playing in Harvard Stadium.

“He remembered his visit earlier and contacted us,” says Harvard offensive coordinator Jay Mills, who recruited Payne in high school and is currently in charge of the Crimson’s recruiting out west. “We encouraged him to continue and play another year. It took him a little bit to get back, but he has an incredibly strong drive in addition to great athleticism.”

According to his coach at Mesa, David Rice, Payne’s special athletic ability was evident from his high school days.

“I remember thinking he was the second best player in the state, next to Todd Heap,” Rice says. (Heap is now the starting tight end for the Baltimore Ravens.) “He’s a relentless player, very aggressive, one of the hardest working kids around. But his speed sets him apart. He used to place in the 100 meters. We looked at him and said, no question, he is definitely Pac-10 material.”

But the appeal of a Harvard education and his impression of his prospective teammates as a “down-to-earth” bunch (“People you can really talk to,” Payne says) led him back to Cambridge. Payne, who says that this past offseason has helped him finally get back to peak physical condition, has seen a major difference between JuCo football and the Crimson.

“In community college, there were definitely a lot of star players, but the thing I like about Harvard is that it’s just a really good team,” Payne says. “It’s not just really good individual players—although we do have really outstanding individual players. But as a whole team we’re a lot better than we were at Mesa. And I suppose that’s due to the fact that we also have juniors and seniors on this team, not just freshmen and sophomores.

“I was really impressed the first day when we had seniors like Jesse Brush, Mike Armstrong and Pat Lavin taking leadership roles. The upperclassmen are really pushing each other through the drills.”

Now, Payne is suddenly one of those upperclassmen. Transfers like Payne are not necessarily an easy answer to the Ivy recruiting crunch. Players from other programs with Payne’s academic credentials, particularly on the junior college circuit are difficult to find, especially at a time when three percent of Harvard’s transfer applicants receive acceptance letters.

But when they come along, it probably doesn’t hurt much to have someone with a little experience enter the fold—game experience and otherwise.

—Staff writer Martin S. Bell can be reached at msbell@fas.harvard.edu.