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. TRAVEL SMART"' T HIS WINTER! FROM NEW YORK ____ Roundtrip One Way *Mr. Michael, Owner Full Service Hair Sal f Adults-Chi Stl -Permanent Wave Special . Reg. $55 NOW ONLY $40 -Highlighting Special Reg. $45 NOW ONLY $35 With this ad Specials expire December 23, 1992 Walk-ins Welcome Daily 9-9, Sat 9-5 Ann Arbor. 2738 JIckson Ave. 662-1696 Ypsilanti, 1076 1 luron River Dr. 485-1240 on for ild ren- udents .. ..: ,., --+ -.,\...: \ ,.. '^ ' '^' -...,, y,\ ..tee -.. x '.