The Sport Authority : Fat Boys Coming To A Field Near You
'Fat Boys' Coming
To A Field Near You 

By Joe Davidson
Sacramento Bee Staff Writer

(Published Nov. 24, 2000)

Grayling Love has a fraternity, no table manners required.

Valley High School's monstrous lineman requires that interested members have two primary interests: Football and the need to throw down, as in large increments of food with little regard to style or tack. You know, treat every club meal like a pie-eating contest at the county fair.

Love founded the eat-and-be-merry group with teammate Josh O'Meara, and they slapped the appropriate title on it: "The Fat Boys." Every so often the rotund group of 20 teenagers ambushes the Hometown Buffet in Laguna and bellies up.

"Oh, it's cool," Love said. "We're proud of our fat. Our initiation for newcomers is for them to take their shirts off and dig in on a plate of ice cream and cookies. We have them dig in until the manager makes them put their shirt back on because we're scaring the customers."

Truth be told, Love is more substance than flab. He's a well put-together package of size -- 6-foot-3, 290 pounds -- agility and skill, and he's one of the most heavily recruited linemen to come out of Sacramento. His first recruiting trip next month is enough to make any high school athlete drool with envy: Notre Dame.

Love loads up on honors classes such as calculus, piles on the calories and then unloads on the poor chap in front of him on game night.

Love's extended fraternity -- and potential recruits to the college ranks and the "Fat Boys" -- includes four additional movers and shakers in the Sac-Joaquin Section Division I playoff field. If they haven't bumped bellies before, they surely must now to survive the coming weeks.

Elk Grove's Mitch Quist, Nevada Union's Jason Leach and the Grant tonnage of Joe Wolford and Izacc Ramirez share the same bond: Loud and proud, large and in charge. Each senior is a field-tilting jovial giant. Each is silly and quirky, attributes that belie their brutish Friday night behavior.

And each is motivated to bring his team a championship, the fuel coming from the still-digesting eats on their favorite holiday -- Thankgiving.

"I think the coaches worry we might eat too much on Thanksgiving," Love said. "Sorry, but big guys have to eat."

Love could run into Leach on every snap tonight in a quarterfinal game at Nevada Union. Like their counterparts, Love and Leach play both sides of the ball, clogging up holes as tackles or creating them with drive blocks.

If Love doesn't wind up offering Leach a "Fat Boys" T-shirt, he'll surely notice the hair.

Leach's mother, Carol, was only mildly surprised that she found her kitchen doubling as a mini-salon the other night. Leach, who normally has light brown hair, became a full-bore blond after a bleach job, then supervised the treatment of two teammates he brought with him, Fred Anderson and Jake Curtis.

"I think the bigger they are, the sillier they become," Carol Leach said. "Jason's definitely flamboyant."

He's also an intriguing prospect. At 6-2 and 295, Leach has SAT scores similar to that of Love's, in the 1,200 range.

"He's too big for our program," NU coach Dave Humphers said. "We're used to having the 5-7, 165-pound linemen. But he's good. They must have family stock in Costco."

Quist got into the hair thing back in the heat of September, before the opener against Napa. The most seasoned lineman of the lot -- he's a third-year starter -- Quist thought the best way to usher in his final season would be to change his brownish locks to a blinding blond. As for motivation, we're not just talking football here.

"Hey, the girls dig it," Quist said.

A brute at 6-1 and 265 pounds of fury, Quist can bring a weight room to a standstill. He can squat some 540 pounds, applying the leg strength that made him an All-City wrestler last fall. He admits to being something of "a savage," having busted six chin straps this season.

Quist only has to look across the dinner table to discover the source of his zany personality. Older brother Mike used to do back flips at basketball games to pump up the crowds. Now he coaches his kid brother on the finer points of knocking people on their duffs.

Quist was named homecoming king, an announcement that nearly brought him to tears.

Said Mike: "I was homecoming king here a few years ago. And, like Mitch, it was based on weight and good looks."

At Grant, practices are often laced with barbs between Wolford and Ramirez. But in the heat of battle, few tandems are more potent or proven. They dominated opponents down the stretch in leading the Pacers to the section championship last fall.

Tonight they'll tangle with Quist and Co. for a berth in the City Championship game against the winner of the Valley-NU contest.

At 6-2 and 310 pounds, Ramirez says he backs down to no man. Unless his name is Mike Alberghini. Ramirez was so smitten with the Grant coach that he pleaded with his family to return him to Del Paso Heights so he could play for the Pacers, following a six-month stay in Southern California his sophomore year.

A true highlight came last year, when he was chewed on so hard by Alberghini that he cried.

"I have no problem with that," Ramirez said.

Ramirez and Wolford were assigned the task of being mentors to new linemen this fall.

They've done it with equal parts teaching and humor.

Wolford drives his coaches nuts with his constant yammering, about how skilled and tough he is, how he can't wait to cash in on millions in the NFL, about how sleek and "sexy" he looks now that he's slimmed down a bit.

Sure. From 276 last year to 275 now. His teammates crack that he's so hairy he's their "Teen Wolf."

Alberghini keeps Wolford --

arguably the top center in the region -- humble by saying he could make a lot of money hiring himself as a mascot -- "He's Chuck E. Cheese without the rat costume."

"That's OK," Wolford says. "Everyone knows who the best player is around here."

Of the bunch, Love has no idea where he got his size. His mother, Catherine, is all of 5-1. His dad, Grayling Sr., is barely 6-1. The closest either parent got to football in college was when Mom participated in the marching band at Michigan State.

Love's athletic skills don't make a lot of sense, either. The first time Valley coach Jay Whinery caught a glimpse of Love this summer, he asked his assistants to confirm that Love had just jumped up and hung on the crossbar with nary an effort.

Last spring, Love earned team MVP honors in baseball, gassing opponents -- including top-ranked Laguna Creek -- with his nasty circle changeup. He cracked five home runs and was a sight to behold chugging around the bases in a uniform that looked like it was painted on.

"He's an incredible athlete, a freak of nature," Valley assistant coach Abe Snobar said. "I mean, he can throw a football 50 yards. He was our kicker last year. And he's humble about everything."

Except eating, that is.

 

© 2000 Sacramento Bee



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