Leader of 'Washboard Whatups' Leads Ivies in Funny

Maybe you saw him during the first week of school, wandering around in a sunflower yellow shirt with no punctuation. Or maybe you wondered what guy still wears a Juwan Howard jersey without shame. But no matter where you saw him, he probably made you laugh.

“John Hopkins definitely spearheads the humor attack for Harvard,” said junior wide receiver Alex Breaux.

Hopkins, an undersized senior safety, makes certain that he’s the most entertaining character in the Ivies on a regular basis.

For starters, Hopkins, or “Hop,” takes full advantage of his “Gold Summer Dog” status. Players who stayed for summer workouts were referred to as “Summer Dogs,” and they were rewarded with t-shirts to recognize their hard work. Those players who didn’t miss a session, like Hopkins, were given gold t-shirts. The shirts, however, went horribly awry.

“It looks like something that you’d get in Tiger Cubs when you’re real small,” junior wideout Elliot Lauzen said.

“It was the kind of shirt I might send home to mom and dad for a dustrag,” Breaux said. “On the front, they had a picture of a wolf, not a dog. On the sleeves, they have these puma or tiger paws ironed on, on the back there’s no punctuation...it’s a travesty to fashion. There’s no punctuation whatsoever; the last line [on the back] says “We ready are you,” no comma or anything.”

Hopkins, meanwhile, was not afraid to wear the yellow disaster for the first full week of the year, on a bet from Breaux.

Fashion sense will be more necessary when Hopkins finally leads his “band,” the “Washboard Whatups,” on its first tour. The band is the child of summer football workouts. A summer lifting group of Breaux, senior quarterback Liam O’Hagan, and Hopkins, started using the nickname in lifting competitions held to break the monotony of offseason workouts.

“I came up with the name the Washboard Whatups, just because it’s the greatest name ever,” Breaux said, “and we decided it should be a band we’re in, so we just created alter egos with that.”

Hopkins quickly latched onto the idea that he should be the bass player.

“All summer he played Guitar Hero so he could be good for our band,” Breaux said. “There was a two month stretch where the only time I saw him outside of football was playing guitar hero.”

Hopkins wasn’t quite so charitable with his assignments to other band members.

“They were trying to get me to play the xylophone or the tambourine,” Lauzen said. “That doesn’t lead to very good air tambourining.”

Guitar Hero and hideous shirts aside, Hopkins has come into his own in a deep Harvard secondary this season. After playing in all 10 games in 2006, recording 11 tackles, picking off one pass, and recovering a fumble, Hopkins became a defensive force in his first year as a full-time starter. This season, Hopkins is tied for second on the team in tackles with 48, third on the squad with three interceptions, and has added 10 pass breakups, good enough to tie for second on the team. Hopkins was named Ivy Defensive Player of the Week after the Crimson downed Cornell 32-15, a game in which Hopkins amassed 10 tackles and picked off a pass. This all comes despite being surrounded by three All-Ivy performers in the secondary, making it hard for Hopkins to get the recognition he deserves.

“John Hopkins is one of the more underrated players in our entire league,” head coach Tim Murphy said. “He knows the defense, he’s always in the right place at the right time, [and] he’s good against the run, good against the pass.”

Hopkins contributes even more to the guys off the field.

“He brought the term ‘brudie’ to the team—someone who’s physically a small guy with a huge heart,” Lauzen said. “You’ll hear him on the sidelines after guys make a play, saying ‘Nice job, brudie.’”

“The best part about Hop is that he does all these goofy things, but at the end of the day he kicks ass in the classroom and he’s a guy everybody respects,” Breaux said. “For guys who don’t play that much, we look at his season and see if you work hard and don’t let your head get down, you can get out there and really play.”

The Whatups, meanwhile, will be looking to open its tour in Hopkins’ final game.

“All we talked about all season is how the perfect way to go out would be to score a touchdown, and the only way we’re going to get on ESPN would be to do this epic air guitar solo, and hopefully not get a penalty,” Breaux said.

—Staff writer Brad Hinshelwood can be reached at bhinshel@fas.harvard.edu.