Hungry Dogs Write Faster
Taylor Swift's boyfriend's brother makes me want to write through walls.
As a college freshman, growing facial hair felt like a statement. Unlike my classmates, who chose to express themselves through flashy tattoos, EDM, or newfound affinities for water pipes, I revealed to the world the new, “adult” Mike by growing a beard.
This is me, Mom and Dad! I grow hair… on my face!
Get used to it!
Over the years, my beard has become less like a statement and more like a footnote. It’s one item on a long list of physical qualities that identify me with every other white dude who’s ever visited a brewery.
My grizzly appearance has brought me nicknames like “Hobo,” and “IPA lover.” It’s also earned me flattering juxtapositions to Hozier, Thor, and Jesus Christ.
But before the doppelgängers both holy and homeless came one comparison that sticks with me to this day.
“Michael, you look like Jason Kelce!”
I was home for Thanksgiving, freshman year. A family friend had watched my transition from Kindergartener to Caveman, and was eager to share his findings.
But there was one problem. Not that I disliked Jason Kelce, but I didn’t know who he was.
TVs were magical to me as a kid. Using one to watch a boring sports game was like unsheathing Excalibur to dice an onion.
Who cares how fast Brian Westbrook ran with the pig skin? Where was he when the Fire Nation attacked?
I would’ve rather bet on which brand of paint dried fastest than watch even a single solitary down of Eagles football. But even I knew who the superstars were on name brand alone — the Donovan McNabbs, the Brian Dawkinses.
Jason Kelce was not those guys.
Fast forward 10 years to his retirement ceremony, and few will argue that he hasn’t earned his spot on Eagles Mount Rushmore. But, at the time, the compliment struck me like wet spaghetti on drywall.
Who the fuck was Jason Kelce?
And how did he become my favorite Eagle, when I didn’t even like football?
What does any of this even mean?
When it comes to my Eagles fandom, Maddee calls me a liar. When we met, I assured her that I was a basketball fan and a basketball fan only.
During our semester abroad, she watched me stay up late just to catch the first quarter of a Sixers game. When we traveled to Greece for spring break, she saw me sprint to a cash register at Athens International to buy a Mediterranean copy of SLAM with Joel Embiid on the cover.
What she didn’t see was me watching Donovan McNabb highlights before bed, or texting my Dad between classes, across timezones, saying, “I wanna pay more attention to the Eagles this year. What’s a first down again?”
For the rest of my life, I’ll be accused of fair weather fandom because of the timing of my football obsession. But from a winter in London, where an NFL broadcast on the telly was rarer than a sunny day in the British sky, how could I have known that the Eagles would win their first Super Bowl the very next season?
When I left PA for college, the familiar sound of another transplant shouting “Go Birds” on the streets of St. Pete soothed my homesickness, even if I never actually watched Eagles games. I returned for the holidays with a beard and a contradictory identity: I was a proud Philadelphian who’d never lived in Philly, an Eagles fan who didn’t watch football, a Pennsylvanian who lived in Florida.
The very next semester after my one abroad, a spiritual homecoming occurred when the Eagles beat the Patriots in Super Bowl 52. At the parade a few days later, some anonymous lineman by the name of Jason Kelce took the mic at the Rocky steps and gave a speech so loud you could hear the brotherly love down in Florida.
You didn’t need to like football to understand what he was saying. You didn’t need to be from Philly (or, just-outside-of-Philly) to appreciate its meaning.
It was the kind of speech that would’ve resonated with me even if I’d never texted my Dad to teach me the game. It still would’ve hyped me up as a kid, back when I used to increase the brightness on my GameBoy to compete with the glaring lights of Sunday Night Football.
Jason Kelce does not look like me anymore. In truth, he never really did.
When I was 19 and just starting on my freshman fifteen, he was nearly 30 and almost 300 lbs. I earned doppelganger status by my hair-and-beard alone.
Kelce has long since trimmed the man bun. He’s grown salt and pepper in his beard that I’m no rush to replicate. We look even less alike these days, and I’m OK with that. Because it’s not his appearance that I want to emulate, but that underdog spirit he’s always talking about.
Upon retirement, he took to the mic again to announce his departure from the game, reminiscing on his unusual career path as a walk-on in college, playing the wrong position before being drafted in the second-to-last round.
The Eagles misspelled his name in their draft day tweet. (Like I said, Kelce was not a household name.)
He didn’t hit his prime until well into his 30s. At an age when most players are slowing down, the Eagles center hit Hall of Fame status, captaining Philadelphia to that miraculous Super Bowl, and achieving demigod status along the way.
Yet despite having an Oscar-winning story behind that misspelled name, Philly’s Underdog-in-Chief shows an almost frustrating sense of humility. When his brother, Travis, named him the greatest Eagle ever on their podcast, Jason stopped him mid-sentence.
“Trav, I’m not even close to the best Eagle in my time.”
You almost want to reach through the phone and smack the big man, if not for the fact that the ricochet might kill you.
At the same time, you get the sense that maybe he only got to where he is today because of his modesty — his desire to shelve the plaudits and lift others up instead. After all, his Super Bowl parade speech consisted of little more than naming teammates who overcame major setbacks to win.
“You know what an underdog is? It’s a hungry dog,” Kelce said on that fateful day. “Hungry dogs run faster. And that’s this team.”
Look, I’ll be the first one to admit that it’s funny for a creative writer to take inspiration from a football speech.
Kelce’s words make you want to run through walls. They make you wanna chug a Four Loko and smash your TV in, put some boxing gloves on and fight, screaming until your voice goes hoarse: “Go birds.”
(No? Just me?)
For most people, Kelce’s speech does not make you want to sit in silence at a desk, idly typing away, and thinking about literature. (Ugh.)
But I’m not most people.
Granted, I’m also not really an underdog. I’m college-educated, with a cushy job and a 401(k) to boot. But as a writer, none of that shit really matters.
The degree on the wall means diddly squat when pitching stories. A corner office isn’t going to convince a publisher to redact a rejection letter, of which, I remind you, I have accumulated enough in 5 years to fill several scrap books.
But when I listen to that Super Bowl parade speech, I can’t help but feel motivated to go out and earn another rejection. There’s something meritocratic about sports — about the underdog, the hungry dog mentality — that reminds me of my passion for writing.
In football, you either win, or you don’t.
So, too, in any career with lofty goals. Like becoming a novelist, say. Or selling hot dogs in every stadium.
So excuse me if I feel compelled to listen to the Kelce speech — either his Super Bowl battle cry or his newly minted retirement fables.
Until that next parade, you’ll find me up early, coffee in hand, tippy tap typing away at my behemoth wannabe books. (Which may not kick my ass in the traditional, bruising sense, like football practice, but certainly fuck me up in other ways, both mentally and spiritually.)
And, when I’m not doing that, you’ll catch me at the library during lunch, or listening to audiobooks over the dishes, or mainlining coffee before bed, note-taking, annotating, and hitting the books for tomorrow’s writing session.
All while that silly little Jason Kelce quote hangs above my desk.
Why?
Because hungry dogs run faster, of course.
Shouts out to…
The 2017 Philadelphia Eagles.
Very inspiring, keep 'em coming *bark bark*
Gooooooooo Michael!!! I love reading your writing so much, please never stop doing it.
It tells so many stories and heals the soul. Thanks for sharing, Mike Mike.
Much love and hugs to you -
Maddee's Momma