Ryan Boschetti gets giddy when he talks about the sack.
“You know, the hit that I got on the quarterback was
really clean,” the UCLA junior defensive end said, almost
panting. “I came across the line, he was trying to run, and I
got all body on him.
“Yeah, it was good, it was good. I liked it.”
Then Boschetti flashed that boyish grin of his ““ the same
one he had directed toward the handicapped seats after his first
career sack in his first career start against Oregon. It
wasn’t too difficult to spot his father, Steve, who once
played a little defensive tackle himself. The diabetic who
describes the Rose Bowl as a “stadium for midgets”
wriggled out of his seat and stood up on his cellulite legs, on his
two artificial hips, with his cane, and cheered.
“I may be fat, but I was jumping up and down like a crazy
man,” Steve said. “It was like the feeling I got when
Ryan was born.”
And now, Boschetti has blossomed.
The junior college transfer is currently second on the defensive
line in tackles to Rodney Leisle, who Boschetti actually backs up.
Since the preseason All-America candidate broke his foot two weeks
ago, Boschetti has stepped into the starting lineup and done quite
well.
“I’ve coached first-round draft picks that
haven’t done as well in the first year as Ryan has,”
defensive coordinator Phil Snow said. “He’s adjusted
well to our level of football.”
Only three years ago, Boschetti’s football career was
floundering. After going unnoticed playing on an 0-10 Carlmont High
(Belmont, Calif.) team, he was left with only a full-time job as a
personal trainer at a 24-Hour Fitness.
There, he bulked up to a 6-foot-4-inch, 275-pound frame.
Boschetti eventually played for two years at College of San Mateo,
recorded 21 career sacks and became a JC All-American. With his
father’s health problems, he wanted to stay closer to home
and transfer to Stanford, where he was once a ball boy.
But the university may have seen his high school grades as a
Cardinal sin. UCLA would have to do.
“I wanted to go where my dad would get to see me play the
most,” Boschetti said. “Hopefully, he can see me finish
up my career here at UCLA.”
These days, Boschetti spends his Saturdays wearing blue instead
of feeling blue. His father, who on any given day takes in
medications of all sorts of colors, stays positive as well.
Football brings the two together more than anything.
Steve makes the weekend trips from the Bay Area to the home
games, and Boschetti holds up his end of the bargain by playing as
if each play were his last.
“Ryan is always going hard,” Leisle said. “But
he just needs to calm down, rather than ask 15 million questions.
He has a friggin’ motor on him.”
Boschetti, despite the occasional rookie ribbing (“How
many sacks do you have?), is a beloved teammate. And coaches love
his drive, giving him “The Heart Award” for his efforts
in the Oklahoma State game.
Steve, of course, can’t get enough of his son. Often, he
will sit in bed with the remote control in hand, prop up his legs
and break down the UCLA game tape he has recorded.
He will set Ryan’s plays in super slow-motion and go over
them a dozen times each. He will pause the tape, moment by moment,
to relive the games and relish in all that Ryan has
accomplished.
Then Steve will phone his boy out the blue to talk to him about
plays he can hardly remember. And Boschetti will chuckle.
“Dad’s always been there to critique me in a
fatherly way,” he said. “I didn’t need another
coach.”
But father knows best.
“I’m inspired just getting up in the morning, but I
have to have something else to inspire me,” says Steve.
A sack is more than enough.