View From Bennett Avenue

I am here to scold Sports Illustrated. And no not for the usual issues. But in reading last week's issue I came across an article by Kelli Anderson on Stanford FB-LB Owen Marecic, who is certainly worthy of a profile. Marecic was the starting fullback for most of his first three seasons at Stanford and his crushing blocks helped make a Heisman contender out of Toby Gerhart. Now he is both the team's starting fullback and a starting inside linebacker in the Cardinal's new 3-4 defense. That's right--he is a two-way player and nobody loves a two-way-playing throwback like Sports Illustrated (see Gordie Lockbaum).
But Ms. Anderson stumbles when gushing over Marecic's ability to play two positions known for toughness--as opposed to two-way players like Champ Bailey and Chris Gamble who were speed guys--as she uses Jim Thorpe, Bronko Nagurski and "more recently" Chuck Bednarik, "the so-called Last 60-Minute Man." She clarifies Bednarik a bit by mentioning that he played at Penn in 1940s. While I will not chide Anderson for her use of players like Thorpe and Nagurski who were the focal point of their team's effort on both sides of the ball each Saturday (receiving shots while on offense), my main complaint is with her use of Bednarik. Bednarik's 60-minute tag comes from his 1960 season with the Eagles when he led a veteran team to the championship. So do not reference a pro player when making an analogy for a collegiate star, especially when there were thousands of players playing on both sides of the ball in the 15-year period after Bednarik left the Quakers. Dick Butkus, for example, played center and linebacker for Illinois in splendid fashion after Bednarik retired from football.
Am I sensitive to the reference to the NFL when discussing college football? Yes I am. There is a notion that the NFL so completely dominates the college game, a notion that is not true and that does not need to be alluded to in an article about a college player. Anderson is even stretching the perceived domination to an era when the college game outdrew the pro game. Why not reference Lockbaum, who was a runner and safety, in the Thorpe mold (but not talent), of such skill for Holy Cross in the 1980s that Anderson's own magazine trumped up his Heisman candidacy?