‘Pops’ Knows Best

COLUMBIA, S.C. â€”  Tim Frisby is the most talked-about receiver on the South Carolina football team. Movie studios want to tell his story. The Leno and Letterman shows have fought over him.

Just imagine if he catches a pass.

Frisby is a 39-year-old freshman, a married father of six who spent the last 20 years in the Army, where he served in Desert Storm and Kosovo. He’s taking a full load of broadcast journalism classes, has a 3.88 grade-point average and is chasing his longtime dream of playing college football. He was inserted for the final four plays of a 17-7 victory over Troy State last Saturday.

“One of the reasons I wanted him to get in was because of his attitude about the team ... which I think serves as a great example for all of us,� Coach Lou Holtz said. “When you put the team first, then the team should take care of you.�

The Gamecock depth chart isn’t deep enough to list Frisby, who ranks about 10th among the dozen receivers on the team. He probably won’t make the 65-player traveling roster this season, yet he’s becoming as famous around town as legendary Holtz. The NCAA does not keep statistics that would determine whether Frisby is the oldest player ever to participate in Division I football.

Still, Hollywood has taken notice. Gavin Lang, the assistant sports information director who has been fielding calls and screening requests for Frisby, has a list of more than a dozen movie studios that have called. Recently, a producer knocked on the door of Frisby’s home on the morning of a game.

“That kind of freaked me out,� Frisby confided. “The week before, we had a conference call with the NCAA and they went over some things we could and couldn’t do. So, gladly, we did that because I was aware that all I could do was accept his card, pass it on to my sports information director and let him handle it. That’s exactly what happened.�

Frisby is quick to point out this is no publicity stunt, and his coaches and teammates back him up. Knowing he was going to enroll, once he could begin collecting an Army pension, he began preparing to play college football three years ago. He wrote letters to coaches and recruiting directors and landed a walk-on tryout with South Carolina, near where he twice was stationed as a soldier. He didn’t mention his age, so it wasn’t until Frisby made the team that Holtz noticed he was born in 1965.

Because Frisby’s situation is so unusual, the NCAA didn’t immediately rule him eligible. When he was cleared to play, his teammates broke into spontaneous applause. The reaction was similar when he passed the team’s most rigorous test for receivers, running 30 consecutive 40-yard dashes in 4.7 seconds or less with a 25-second rest between.

“He ran on a different day than the offensive linemen, so we all started to go out there to see if he’d make it,� tackle Na’Shan Goddard said. “Everybody called us and said, ‘Man, he made it!’ It was crazy.�

Incredulous teammates started referring to Frisby as “Pops� only after he proved his age -- he’s older than some of their parents -- by producing a driver’s license. Frisby, who is 6 feet 1, 188 pounds, has a 30-year-old’s face and a lean, muscular build. His teammates ribbed him when he recently changed hairstyles from a short Afro to cornrows, although he was back to his old hairstyle in an appearance Thursday night on the “Late Show with David Letterman.� One of the self-styled cartoonists on the team drew a picture on a locker-room chalkboard, depicting Frisby hobbling with a helmet in one hand and a cane in the other.

The generation gap shows, not so much on the field but in the locker room, where No. 89 occasionally tells teammates stories of days gone by.

“The shows they watch in syndication, I watched live,� said Frisby, who was born and raised in Allentown, Pa. “They barely remember Reagan. And I’ll say, ‘When I was a little kid, Johnson was the president.’ And then I’ll go into Nixon, Ford, Carter, and they can’t even fathom that. It’s history to them. We didn’t have computer games, PlayStations. We were a more play-out-in-the-street generation.�

Frisby and his wife, Anna, a sales representative, rise each morning about 5, dress for school and work, and prepare breakfast for their four boys and two girls, who range in age from 16 years to six months. Then there’s work, school and all the other responsibilities of parenthood.

“When we found out he had six kids, that made a big difference in how we looked at him,� Goddard said. “I’ve got a girlfriend and she drives me crazy when I go home. With six kids and a wife? I know they’ve got to be driving him crazy. Not to mention Coach Holtz yelling at him. Oh, man, I know he’s thinking, ‘What am I doing out here?’ �

Frisby says he never wonders that.

“People congratulate me and say it’s an inspiration,� he said. “Sometimes they’ll say it makes them think about doing things that they’ve wanted to do, maybe not even related to the sports field.... I guess the whole moral is, it’s not too late to do anything if you really want to do it.�

Ah, but there’s a catch, and Frisby can’t wait to make it.