Dr. Huff and Mr. Tuinei
I felt like devoting a post to this week’s Jackson Long interview. I don’t know who Long is, even though I’ve met most people who have written for campus publications in the last two years. I can only assume, though, that he has some sort of solid-gold connection/compromising photo of a receivers coach/Jedi mind trick that allows him to commune with Oregon Football players, then put their thoughts in the Emerald every week.
This week, he’s got both of the team’s slot receivers, multi-use bulls-eye Lavasier Tuinei and Swiss Army legs Josh Huff talking to him. These interviews are not quite as entertaining as Cliff Harris’ was a couple of weeks ago, and Long needs some new questions, but there are some gems, starting with this dazzling ruby from Huff:
Before I leave here, this is my plan: I don’t want to be known as the football player who played for the Ducks, I want to be that nice guy everyone knows that helps you with your homework.
(I corrected a seeming typo and punctuation error for clarity) I don’t know whether that epitomizes a dry sense of humor or a sincere civic conscience, but I’m charmed one way or the other; aren’t you? If I was writing a thesis about The Illiad or cramming for an organic chemistry final, you know I’d have Huff on the line.
That’s in stark contrast to Tuinei, who mostly seems to be snapping at Long, and uses really weird jargon, at least to someone who doesn’t really care about football like me: “JuCo”? “‘Ship”? OK, Lavasier. But even he can muster a winning tribute to a teammate:
He will put you first before he puts himself first. I talked to him today, he sent me a text message. It was something like: “I played (against Arizona) like I had a burden on my shoulder because I was playing that game for you. I knew I had to win these last games so you (Lavasier) could be back to play in the future.” That touches me. I feel like he is one of my best friends.
And here’s another thing:
What we do is what we love to do — play football. What happens on campus has nothing to do with us. I’m not saying it is fair or not fair that we get the Jaqua or new clothes, we just happen to have more support than other people. We do bring in the money and it is helpful to have things like that. Man, you should just take that up with Phil Knight, you ask Phil Knight that tough question. People need to know we work hard for theses things, we bust ourselves for that stuff.
