Fairly Uncatchable

Get past the irony in his stillness. Ignore the advice you have no doubt internalized about how to succeed in the classroom—much less college—and allow yourself, like his teammates, to be impressed.

It might be difficult, admittedly. Amid the inevitable, expectant hush, in fact, it may all seem so astoundingly wrong given what you, his peers, have been so trained to think and understand.

But when the ball hurtles down towards him, try your best to disregard the world of professors. Try to forget that in Cambridge, success is nearly synonymous with throwing an arm into the air.

It’ll be tough, but look carefully.

You just might notice that at Harvard, Brian Edwards has been heralding perfection by being bold enough to refuse to raise his hand.

“I’m sure my mom would love to see me fair-catch a little bit more, but I’ve kind of developed this reputation,” the senior jokes, sitting on the end of the couch in his Winthrop common room. “I just feel that every time I catch a punt, there’s this chance that I’m going to go and make somebody miss, break a tackle, and get some yards to help the team.”

Such an outlook can safely summarize who Edwards is, both as a player and a person. Talk to him, talk to his friends, and you quickly find that the lesson he obeys when returning punts and kickoffs is the same he follows when hauling in Ryan Fitzpatrick bombs as an All-Ivy wide receiver. He is more than the blur weaving downfield, or—on other days—the unfairly easy target that he resembles on special teams. The lesson is the identical one he follows day-to-day.

The Los Gatos, Calif., native simply believes that he should not take the easy way out, especially when it comes to football. It should never be definite personal safety over possible team gain.

“He’s absolutely one of my favorite players,” tailback Clifton Dawson says. “He may not be the strongest or really even the fastest guy, and he may not be the most serious guy in the weight room, but it’s like he gets out there and just doesn’t think about his body.”

And for Edwards, he who often seems to play like he’s in a video game, fair-catching is the antithesis of all that. It is the denial of potential, and thus far, he has happily managed to convert said potential into three touchdowns and nearly 600 return yards without one fumble.

“It’s amazing to watch him play,” defensive back Ricky Williamson, his roommate, says. “A lot of times he’s just running around, and you’re like, ‘He’s going to get tackled now.’ But he slips tackles, somehow making these amazing catches, making these enormous plays.”

And Edwards, refreshingly, legitimately and openly enjoys his role as playmaker.

In remembering his team’s gutsy 13-12 victory over Dartmouth this year, Edwards simply smiles. That was the game where he ventured to return seven punts against The Big Green over the course of the contest—none for much net yardage, ultimately—and got an unlikely bit of advice in return.

“I was getting creamed back there,” Edwards says. “Our defense played so well, and they kept punting, and I didn’t fair-catch any of them. The ref finally comes up to me and he goes, ‘You do know you can fair-catch, right?’ I just sort of had to say, ‘Yeah, yeah, I know.’”

But as the Californian will tell you himself, he’s not bothered by much at all. Not by the pummeling his body routinely takes, or the fact that his once unquestioned status as Fitzpatrick’s go-to guy has severely eroded thanks to the emergence of sophomore wideout Corey Mazza.

Then again, maybe that’s because he’s had no problem finding other ways to impact his team.

With defenders keying on him after a breakout junior season, Edwards has ended up throwing for a touchdown, taking his share of handoffs, and even intercepting a pass when moonlighting as a free safety in a return formation against Holy Cross. He has run back two punts and a kick-off for scores, also, becoming the only person in 130 years of Harvard football to notch touchdowns in four of the five offensive ways. His 143.9 total yards per contest and his total of 1,295 net yards stand a remarkable second on the Crimson only to Clifton Dawson’s 1,303.

“After getting off the field from a defensive series, we’re supposed to be looking at the coaches for adjustments,” linebacker Matt Thomas says. “But I can’t help peeking over to see what he might do next.”

In fact, just ask anyone—coach, player, and referee, apparently—and you’ll begin to realize one thing: Brian Edwards is exhilarating on the field, jovial off it, and defiant of convention.

“He’s got this great free spirit about him,” Harvard head coach Tim Murphy says. “I’ve always said that I don’t want a bunch of robots on my football team. He has a toughness and a confidence about him that kind of transcends what people think football players are like.”

And ultimately, Murphy is right.

Exceedingly so.

From the samurai-like topknot he sometimes wears in his long, black hair, to the touchdowns he’s acrobatically caught, to the yards he’s valiantly accumulated—and even down to this ethnicity, which is half-white, half-Asian—Edwards is not like most college football players.

Just watch him go to work on special teams, and you can tell.

“In the past two years I think he’s been the most versatile and explosive wideout in the Ivy League,” Murphy says. “People don’t want to defend him.”

How unfortunate, then, that Brian Edwards, arm fastened firmly to his side, will make them do just that.

—Staff writer Pablo S. Torre can be reached at torre@fas.harvard.edu.