Matt Tuthill

THE CROSS THAT BEARS THE STORM

Published in the Bennington Banner on July 14, 2007, part of Matt Tuthill’s first-person football series, “I, of the Storm”

I hate John Cross. Rudy Rudiger’s teammates hated him, too, and with good reason.

Certain players, like Rudy and Cross, don’t know how to shut it off, or even tone it down. There’s 100 percent, and then there’s nothing. No in-between. No taking it easy, not even for a play.

While I can respect his work ethic, I hate Cross because he’s the reason I need a heating pad and a half-dozen Advil to get to sleep on Thursday nights.

Thursday is our offensive day, the day I get to run scout and line up as a defensive tackle against Cross. I can’t imagine I would have liked lining up against Rudy, or even a ticked off Sean Astin. But Cross brings a similar ferocity to the field every day, and tips the scales at 295 pounds.

With Cross, you are dealing with, quite literally, a different animal.

Using a four-point stance, I’ve been able to get a good jump on Cross in the past few weeks, and at least partially mend my embarrassment from our first few meetings.

During the early days of camp, Cross would smile in my face after “roaching” me, which is a block so effective the defender winds up helpless on his back.

Since then, I have kept a close eye on the ball and fired out with energy that more closely matched my behemoth counterpart. I haven’t gotten by him just yet, but at least I cut down on his roaches.

Then there was Thursday. Having spent most of my recent time in the offensive huddle, I have a good feel for each quarterback’s cadence tendencies, which afforded me some pretty good jumps, and made me just cocky enough to put me in danger.

I was only halfway into my stance when quarterback Mike Stephens rushed to the line and hiked the ball, trading in his usual clockwork cadence for a first-sound snap. I knew I was done before Cross even hit me, head-on like a dump truck.

I never remember yelling out loud in pain on a football field before, but I shouted when his helmet hit mine and he proceeded to drive me to the sideline before dumping me in a pile on the ground.

My chin straps were dangling, having snapped off on contact. I took off my helmet to massage my temple, the night-long headache already settling in. I spat out my mouthpiece.

“That was unnecessary,” I said.

Cross laughed hysterically and jogged over to me, a huge smile on his face.

“Yeah, but you took it like a champ!”

Thanks, Cross. I’ll rest easy knowing that the school yard bully really respects how well I took the day’s beatings.

Fellow lineman Leonard Cote told Cross he should apologize after practice. Cote, of Native American descent, makes a habit of speaking in somber Indian stereotype for effect.

“I heard the boy’s soul cry,” Cote told Cross. “Go to him.”

The linemen cackled as Cross made his way over to me.

“Dude, I’m sorry,” Cross said.

I stopped him.

“Don’t be,” I said. “Guys like you make football teams great. I hate you today, but I’m glad we have people like you.”

Cross’ intensity, coupled with the fact that he is the only member of the Storm currently starting on both sides of the ball, would be noteworthy on its own. Add to that the fact that Cross is severely asthmatic, and has been since he was born, and you have a special individual on your hands.

I see him tucking his inhaler into the waistband of his shorts after taking a puff every few plays. Some days, he reaches for the inhaler so often, you might mistake him for some kind of drug-crazed animal, constantly needing a fix of Primatene. But severe asthma, like the kind Cross endures, can be a life-threatening ordeal, especially when he takes to the field in 90 degree heat with high humidity.

Despite playing every level of football from pee-wee through JV, Cross stopped in the fall of 1999, just as he was entering his junior year at Cambridge Central School in New York. That’s when

Cross said the school nurse and athletic director deemed him too much of a liability and essentially told his parents he wasn’t welcome.

Cross could have kept playing and ignored the warnings, but pride took over. He wasn’t going to hang his hat where he wasn’t wanted. That season, the Cambridge Indians went on to win the New York State championship without him. To this day, Cross says he holds no grudges about what happened. In a way, the 24 year-old Cross said quitting that year was a blessing in disguise.

“I played a lot when I was younger for other people,” he said, twisting his tree trunk neck to the left and right with several loud snaps along the way. “Family and friends. Now I play for me.”

Storm head coach Ken Laumann couldn’t be happier that Cross made the decision to play again.

“He’s a lot of fun to coach,” Laumann said. “He’s very adaptable and knows the system really well.”

The decision to make Cross the team’s only two-way starter as right guard and defensive tackle was essentially taken out of Laumann’s hands.

“It wasn’t so much me deciding he should play both ways as it was him setting himself apart,” said Laumann, who has issued an open-ended tryout call to any able-bodied linemen in the area.

“He’s the one that did it. He doesn’t allow his asthma to hold him back.”

Laumann recalls a few times during the start of training camp when Cross had to sit out for short periods of time to get his breath, but credits conditioning coach Bob Kurtzner with all but eliminating any major difficulties.

“I would have to put that in Bob’s lap,” Laumann said.

Throughout all the roaches Cross could throw at me, I never once heard him talk any smack. He doesn’t do it in real games, either, employing a much more unique tactic.

“I usually sing to my opponent, or go to shake their hand,” Cross said, noting that the Mickey Mouse theme song is his personal standby. “You know how those guys are singing it at the end of Full Metal Jacket? That’s my inspiration. … It’s like no matter how bad things get, there’s always good in any situation.”

Or you completely lost your mind.

Cross’ full-time job at 206 Depot Street would make any average man a prime candidate to be tossed in an insane asylum. But the same patience that’s brought him back from the brink of so many asthma attacks also plays a major role in counseling troubled teenagers.

“They’re in there for the same reason that adults go to prison,” Cross said, citing the often hostile environment that pits him against verbally and physically abusive children. Through the daily barrage of vulgar insults, Cross tries to find a way to each child that comes across his path, playing basketball and video games and lifting weights with whomever he can.

“I have extremely good patience,” he said.

Cross took a deep breath and swung his left leg out with a sharp, loud pop as the scar tissue adjusted.

After a dirt bike accident left him with a three-quarters tear in his MCL, PCL and ACL, Cross’ left knee required several arthroscopic surgeries to correct the damage.

Cross let out one of his deep, infectious trademark laughs as he explained the accident.

“I had a wheelie going for too long,” he said. “When I hit the ground, this knee was pointing out to the side like that.”

Cross almost couldn’t control his laughter at the last bit.

“When I stood up, it fell back into place, but I couldn’t walk on it.”

Why this story strikes Cross as hilarious I can’t quite grasp. Living a life full of such moments, however, might begin to explain it.

Team trainer Melissa Elwell said Cross’ battle with asthma, and the frightening episodes that come with it, is one few can understand.

“I carry it right in my pocket during every game, just in case he needs it,” Elwell said of Cross’ inhaler. “People hear that he has asthma and they think that a lot of people have it and it’s no big deal. But it is hugely important. … It’s like breathing through a straw.”

I can’t pretend to know what Cross has gone through, weathering the rigors of the kind of asthma that once left him in an oxygen tent for a week at the age of 11. Mine was never that bad, and I had the great fortune of outgrowing the disease when I reached adolescence.

But every time I see Cross reach for his inhaler, I remember the fear that overtook me when my bronchial tubes narrowed and I was left gasping for air. I remember my mom sitting me down for nightly treatments of Albuterol. I remember waking in the middle of the night and thinking that if I didn’t calm down, I could die.

Maybe it was never that serious, but it certainly felt that way. And that small phase of my life, now safely in the past, is what John Cross goes through every day.

And he meets each day — and each practice — with the ferocity of a man who knows that any day could be his last.

“If I’m going to do something, I’m going to do it the whole way,” Cross said. “I don’t half-ass anything.”

I still hate him in practice.

But come game time, I’ll thank God he’s on our side.

“I, of the Storm” from the Bennington Banner, Saturday, July 14, 2007

Note: Assistant Sports Editor Matt Tuthill has been working out with the Southern Vermont Storm as the team gears up for the 2007 season in the New England Football League. With three weeks of practice to go before the team’s season opener, only one player — John Cross — has been named a two-way starter.