Saturday afternoon fever

Sporting News, The, April 7, 1997 by Brian Tomlin

ROBERT FATZINGER has lifted, labored and, mostly, lost for four years at lowly Wake Forest. The prospects for success this season are slim. Regardless, he's back for year five. Why?

For Robert Fatzinger, a little Saturday afternoon glory likely will be as good as it gets in his football career.

Some might argue it has never been good for Fatzinger. In fact, his three-year tenure as a pretty good defensive and for pretty bad Wake Forest has been akin to pledging a fraternity: Thank you, sir, may I have another? And another? And another? Enough, already.

But while many players who toil in have-not programs would think two, three and four times about returning for a fifth season, Fatzinger is hungry for more. It may be because the football options for a guy like Fatzinger are limited. If you know any NFL personnel men who would like to fly him in for a workout, he's available. As for legal representation, the only thing Fatzinger wants is for someone to show some interest.

Playing for a college football never-has-based has protected his privacy and given him lots of miserable memories. If you've got at weak stomach, turn your head now:

* 52-0 at maryland and 42-7 vs. Virginia in 1996.

* 52-23 vs. North Carolina State and 72-13 at Florida State in 1995.

* 50-0 vs. North Carolina and 35-14 at Vanderbilt in 1994.

If losing builds character, well, let's just say Fatzinger can be counted on to pay any overdue fees he may incur at the library. He has endured enough abuse to wear down even the heartiest of souls. Still, he has elected to return and play as a fifth-year senior this fall, buoyed by modest hopes of earning some type of All-ACC recognition and a sniff from the NFL.

That's one reason you can see Fatzinger suffering through--but loving every minute of--another spring football practice. Oh, and Fatzinger is returning because he's unable to satiate his need for collisions and contact in our jacket-and-tie world. This guy loves the pad-to-body pop football provides, but you'll figure that out.

"Down at Florida State my sophomore year--there were potholes of mud, and we were down 40-something to 13 at halftime," Fatzinger says. "Coming back out, a hurricane hits. You can't even see the guy in front of you and we've got two quarters left to play.

"My backup just got kicked off the team the week before, so I'm No. 1, No. 2 and No. 3 on the depth chart and it's, `You're not getting out of this game, even if the score is 70-something.'"

That sounds like as much fun as the one-on-one, backyard football games played between older and younger brothers that always end up getting Mom involved. But while recounting his terrorizing experience in Tallahassee, Fatzinger smiles. He doesn't look like a man who has been beaten down by four seasons of losing.

Give his body a quick once-over. He has built himself into a 6-4, 275-pound specimen, his calloused hands proof of countless hours spent hoisting iron in the weight room. The Fatzinger who takes the field this fall hardly will resemble the gangly kid who showed up in Winston-Salem, N.C., in 1993. He has gained 40 pounds, yet reduced his body fat. He's still as quick as he was when he played tight end in high school, yet his strength has grown tremendously. He has the physique the game requires.

Losing--something Fatzinger has done 35 times, against nine wins, since stepping on campus--doesn't appear to have damaged his psyche, either. Coupled with Fatzinger's suit of body armor is an intense mental toughness. He routinely logs more than 60 plays per game, unheard of for a defensive lineman. "The only thing left to do now is to win a few football game," he says.

There are personal goals, as well, but it's hard to tell where those and his hopes for team success part. Would All-ACC honors wash away the taste of another 10-loss season? Would team success balance out an average individual season?

"It's kind of a tradeoff," Fatzinger says. "I mean, we're losing, but at least I'm getting to do the losing. I'm not looking at some other guy out there doing it."

But the more he explains, the less you understand his desire to pad-up again for the dreadful Demon Deacons. "If I win next year--if we win next year--then I've done everything," he says.

He better not lose that optimism or his sense of humor, which may be more valuable to him than muscle or might. "I still got 80 reps (against Florida State)," he says, chuckling. "I was pretty happy, I was having fun."

That Fatzinger could find fun in that 72-13 loss to Florida State in the driving rain at the midpoint of a 1-10 1995 campaign says a great deal about him and his decision to play a fifth season for one of the nation's worst programs, but he says he never considered coming back.

I don't know where Fatzinger gets his drive, which is something I lost while playing five seasons at Virginia. My faith failed. Somewhere among the 40 games we lost from 1978-82, something inside me died. By the beginning of my fifth year, I was counting the days until my ordeal would be over.