The Michigan Daily - Rose Bowl Preview - December 10, 1992 - Page 3
Like any good mother would do
fpar her son.
His parents found a way to make
it up to every home game this year.
They even made it up for the Ohio
State game in Columbus.
But they watched the Notre
iame game, the first game, on a
small TV from the inside of a
trailer.
Accommodations courtesy of
H-urricane Andrew, the violent
storm that swept across southern
Florida and gutted the Everitts'
house. Steve's parents, Michael and
Barbara, and his sister, Amy, spent
the Sunday night it hit huddled in
the bathroom with the family's two
dogs and Steve's MVP trophy from
the 1991 Gator Bowl.
So they had to sit Week 1 out.
Then it was back to normal. Back to
making the 22-hour drive from
S Miami to Ann Arbor.
"I can't believe they do it,"
Steve says, shaking his head at the
thought of it. "But it's great to have
,them here."
Steve got word that his family
was OK the day after the storm hit,
mostly because a woman across the
street from the Everitts curiously
had a working phone, even though
all the phone lines were down.
i Then Steve's dad made another
call to Ann Arbor a few days later,
once the shock had settled in some.
"I called the football office again
4nd talked with Coach Moeller and
told him, you know, 'We're alive,
$ed we're well, and it's going to be
long-range, and it's nasty and keep
Steven out of it. He's got no
business at home. I don't want him
concerned about it.' With it being
his senior year, and that's both
academically and with football, he
needed to stay focused."
He did. And now things at home
#e slowly, but surely, edging back
tp normal.
A school in Parchment, Mich.,
(near Kalamazoo) adopted Cutler
Ridge Middle School, where
Barbara Everitt teaches, sending
care packages and Christmas cards.
The Everitts bought their artificial
Christmas tree here in Michigan and
took it home with them last week.
There's a brand new stove in the
living room waiting to be installed.
Toilet seats and showerheads
arrived.
"We didn't realize how long it
would take," Steve's dad says.
"Nobody did."
"No cable, though," Amy says.
But they're supposed, to have it
back by the first of the new year.
Still, they went four weeks
without electricity and two months
without phones. They can handle
having just the four stations and
their lives, for now.
"Some of this stuff was act of
God," Michael Everitt says.
---
But the divine intervention did
not save Michigan this season.
Three ties. Three ugly ties ruined
an otherwise perfect season.
The worst for Everitt was the
one that tarnished his last home
game. Illinois. 22-22. His final
game in Michigan Stadium.
"That was the best game our
offensive line had played all year,"
he says. The hands are drawing
something imaginary on the table
now.
"I just sat in the lockerroom
afterwards and I was just about as
upset as I've been since I've been
here."
He pauses, then looks up. Makes
eye contact. The ball is snapped.
"I'm so glad Washington made
it back," he says.
"I don't care about. their record
or our record. I just want to go out
there anl do to them what they did
to us last year." (A 34-14 loss
which Everitt watched from the
sidelines.)
It is his final shot at redemption,
just like it is for all the fifth-year
Michigan seniors. One last chance
to raise those hands in the air.
Everitt will be out there playing this
time, broken thumb or not.
"I don't want to go out like we
did last year."
Steve Everitt, the wacko football
player with metal screws holding
his jaw in place, will cross the stage
at Commencement next May
clutching a Bachelor of Fine Arts
degree in those busy hands of his,
assuming he finishes up two more
art classes in the winter term.
From there, the picture gets
cloudy.
The NFL will come calling. But
the pro draft is a quirky one. Some
players slide mysteriously down the
charts. Others skyrocket. Steve says
he wants to play for the Miami
Dolphins. But that's just a kid's
dream, nothing more.
He'll apparently get his shot,
though, at sticking with some team.
He's one of the top five lineman in
the country, depending on who you
talk to.
Postseason awards, which are
generally more political than
presidential elections, have eluded
Michigan's all-everything center
this season. Mike Devlin from Iowa
and Mike Compton from West
Virginia are collecting the trophies
instead. And Lincoln Kennedy,
Washington's outgoing offensive
tackle, is expected to be one of the
top two picks overall.
But Everitt knows he'll get his
chance.
"Every year you gain a little bit
more confidence that you'll be able
to do it," he says, eyeing the hands.
"Because your friends and all the
guys around you, they make it. And
you're on the same level with
them."
Football, then, is the immediate
goal.
But there's always the drawing
board.
He didn't spend his entire senior
year in high school in an AP art
class - putting together work for
his portfolio to send away to
colleges - for nothing.
"I haven't really found what I
want to do," Everitt says when
asked about his art. "I haven't
gotten my art to the level I want. I
haven't had a chance to devote all
my time to it.
"Hopefully, in the future I'll
have a lot of time to do that,
because I love it. Definitely, I want
it to be in my future somehow."
Somehow, he wants to be a little
bit like his father, who is a profes-
sional sculptor and works out of his
own studio. Somehow, he'd like to
be a little bit like his father, the guy
who will be taking a train out to
Pasadena (a four-day trip) to watch
Happy Holidays
frol
DASCOLA
STYLISTS
Steve play on Jan. 1. (Last year, the
Everitts never made it to Los
Angeles, because their plane's
engine blew up over the Gulf of
Mexico and had to return to Miami,
Michael isn't too keen on flying
anymore.)
Somehow, he'd like for this
hobby of his to be more than that.
More than just something he does
when he can find the time.
"It's just totally opposite from
being out on the field smashing
heads with somebody."
It is his release. Time to forget
about the other job. Time for the
hands to relax. Time for the hands
to create.
"I'll just kind of start going, and
whatever happens, happens," he
says. "I never, like, sit around and
try to draw football players and
stuff. Although I have started to do
some abstract stuff with the
(Michigan) helmet design. The
helmet's a great design."
He will continue this. Both the
football and the art. Because it is
what he wants to do. And, if
nothing else, Steve Everitt does
what he wants to do. So he will
continue to head down to
Schembechler Hall, and he'll
continue to head up to North
Campus each day. Into his other
world. The football player who's an
artist.
Does he stick out?
Sure.
Does he try to?
No.
"I don't go up there with my
Michigan football sweats and my
black turf shoes and my football
sweatshirt," Everitt says.
"It's not like I'm trying to hide
the fact that I play football, or
anything. But I don't want to be
some poster child for it, either."
He's looking at his hands again.
At his tools.
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