How Steve Lattimer inspired me to embrace my barbarian instincts, celebrate my masculinity, and find brotherhood.
It’s Thanksgiving Weekend, Barbarians! It’s time for Family, Food, and Football – a game that continues to serve me long after I stopped playing.
Playing football was always a privilege. Despite my aging body continuing to ache and break, I still look back on those barbarian days with fondness. It was a time of heavy weights, cut-off sleeves, daily violence, and 2,000 calorie “fat shakes.” A brief and glorious span of time, where gaining weight was prized and losing weight was despised. The perfect time to be a meathead.
Meatheads
Of all the barbarian splinter groups, meatheads are by far my favorite. Like all barbarians, meatheads live with Vigor, Wonder, and Fellowship. But it’s how meatheads live that really sets them apart. In the simplest terms, what makes a meathead a meathead is his style.
Meats aren’t just strong, they’re loud and strong -- often grunting during workouts and the occasional keg toss. Next, meatheads are extreme. Moderation is their kryptonite. Living life at full throttle is their drug. And finally, let’s talk fashion. Meatheads dress in a way best defined as “barbarian chic.” They (okay, let’s be honest), WE love wearing bandanas, jewelry, tight shirts, tight jeans, tight everything.
Because of their in-your-face style, young men (like the 17-year-old me) are drawn to meatheads. That's because young men are hungry for inspiration, and meatheads (on TV, in movies, at the gym) feed that hunger like a 32-ounce steak. They have extreme muscles, extreme intensity, and extreme personalities. And those extremes grab our attention.
Of all the meatheads I’ve loved and emulated, there is one (other than Arnold) who stands above the rest. His name is Steve Lattimer, his nickname is “Lats,” and he’s arguably the greatest meathead in cinematic history. Here’s how he inspired me so long ago to get fit, go feral, and find a tribe of barbarians who wanted to do the same.
Earn Your Place at the Table
I was barely 17 when I first watched “The Program,” a 1993 movie about big-time college football. Sitting in the theater with some high school pals, I recall a scene early in the film when the team’s starting QB joins some teammates at a bar before the football season and says, “My god Lats, you put on some weight.”
Looking like he just stepped out of a comic book with long Viking hair, cut-off sleeves, and a pagan cross wrapped around his bulging neck, Steve Lattimer turned and replied, “I gained about 35 pounds. I’m tired of watching you guys play, so I spent my summer in the gym. I intend to start this year.”
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Fast forward to their summer “two-a-day” practices. After one hard-hitting practice – featuring the now outlawed Oklahoma Drill and Bull in the Ring -- the camera pans across players sprawled out on the locker room floor groaning from pain and exhaustion. But then… oh but then! We begin to hear the faint sounds of grunting and clanging metal in the background.
Soon the camera leaves the locker room and enters the weight room, where the soon-to-be starting defensive end for the ESU Timberwolves is murdering 315 on overhead presses. After his final rep, he drops the weight and begins dry heaving and kicking the barbell. An observing coach says, “Lattimer is an animal all of a sudden.”
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A few scenes later we see a finger sliding down a list of names on the team bulletin board.
Anyone who has ever played college football knows this list. It’s the depth chart and it’s the most honest piece of paper you will ever see. The depth chart tells you (and the entire team) exactly where you stand in the pecking order. Are you first-string, second-string, or fifth-string? And when you’re fifth-string, what are you gonna do to move up on that depth chart?
Every morning, the depth chart is posted, and sometimes it changes. Thus, if you ease off today, tomorrow you might find yourself a notch down on the chart, replaced by a hungrier, more savage teammate.
As the finger slides down the starting defense depth chart, it stops at one name: Lattimer. “Yes! Starting defense, place at the table! Woooooo!” he screams. A few seconds later, Lats busts out of the locker room door and onto the parking lot where he begins smashing his head into car windows to celebrate.
With blood pouring down his face, he raises his arms in victory. After years of busting his ass, after years of seeing other names above his, Lattimer finally has a place at the table – and he celebrates like a meathead should. He's loud, aggressive, and completely over-the-top.
Lats’ spectacle of broken glass, spilled blood, and raised fists of glory is an exaggeration -- and that’s the point. Moderation is the enemy of inspiration. Extreme behavior is what inspires us to great feats. Jocko training at 4:30am, Thor deadlifting 1100 pounds, or Tom Platz going apeshit on leg day -- these inspire! When we see extraordinary feats, particularly when we’re young, we’re inspired to go nuclear with our goals.
Be Somebody
The night before their first game, Lattimer’s head coach asks his players “What they like most about football?” Here’s what Lats had to say:
“It’s the battle, going to war with the other guys, hanging together, having our own dorm, staying at hotels the night before games… Setting ourselves apart… Being different than everyone else… Having a chance to be somebody, to do something that people look up to you for -- your strength, your courage… Not everyone can play football, we’re the lucky ones.”
In the next scene, just before kickoff, Lats is smearing his face with war paint in the locker room, inspired by pictures of Native American warriors pinned to his locker. In no small way, he is preparing himself for battle.
Then the team’s All-American linebacker Alvin Mack walks up to Lats and they stand face-to-face. Like two barbarians about to sack Rome, Alvin slams his fists on Lats’ shoulder pads. Lats slams back. Then Alvin spits in Lats’ mouth. Lats spits back.
It’s gross and totally fucked up, and at 17 I loved every second of it (and still do). At that moment, in that theater in Middletown, Rhode Island I went all-in on my Lattimer stock. I wanted to lift like Lats, hit like Lats, look like Lats, and have teammates like Lats. I wanted to join a tribe of young savages and “be somebody.”
Focus on the Positive
If you’ve seen The Program then you know Steve Lattimer is no choir boy. He did some awful stuff in that movie, like assaulting a woman – which the movie, of course, blamed on steroids.
After the head coach suspends Lats and orders him to quit the roids, the star linebacker, Alvin Mack, scolds Lats with “What the hell did you take that shit for?” Lats had the perfect response: “Not everyone has your ability, Alvin. You do what you have to do to play!”
Though he lacked the natural ability of Alvin, Lats still dreamed of playing big-time college football. He worked his ass off for three years and never started a game. Then he had one year left. One year for the rest of his life. So he took the roids, and trained like a demon.
As a teenager, I wasn’t looking for morality, I was looking for inspiration. When I saw Lats, I ignored his negatives and focused on his positives.
By focusing on his positives, I saw a young man who transformed himself from weak to strong, from backup to starter, from normal to savage -- and did it all with great panache!
From Boyhood to Manhood to Brotherhood
For eons, the role of young men has been to keep the wolf away. We men have evolved biologically to seek danger, embrace violence, crave brotherhood, and yes, occasionally do some boastful stupid shit.
But what happens when the world turns modern and civilized? What happens when we’re born into a more gender-neutral society where roles for young men are no longer defined or valued? What happens when young men (in places like America, though not in Ukraine) are told that their traditional roles as hunters, warriors, and protectors are no longer needed? What then?
Well, then is now. Because every week I see another article, book, or speech about how young American men are more alone, obese, and unhappy than ever before. So what can be done? Who can save them?
Meatheads can save them.
Through their style, swagger, and intensity, meatheads like Lattimer can seize a young man’s attention and inspire him to pick up the weights, lace up the cleats, and attack life like a charging rhino. To avoid what is easy and do what is hard. To get out of the house, to find a tribe, set some goals, and celebrate their masculinity -- just as nature intended.
When your evolutionary virtues of strength and courage are put to the test through contact sports like football, you get an opportunity to prove yourself to other young men. When they see your strength, courage, and toughness, they are drawn to you, just as you are drawn to them for the same reasons. This is how brotherhoods are formed -- it’s how they’ve always formed, from prehistory to today. The world can change all it wants, but what brings men together will never change.
When you go through a brick wall with other guys – and have some fun along the way – you never forget the guys you did it with. Doing crazy and intense shit together is how young men form bonds – bonds that can last a lifetime.
The results of these bonds is a lasting tribe – a tribe whose members grow together, love one another, and celebrate their masculinity together. A tribe of big hugs, strong drinks, bad jokes, and the occasional meathead act that brings us even closer together – like this one from my college roommate and teammate, 25 years after we graduated.
Nature makes the rules for us men. All we can do is follow.
Thanks Lats (and Greg) for leading the way.
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