Matt Slauson

[Husker_Power]

Learning to laugh helps Husker work through disability

 

LINCOLN — Matt Slauson was one of my favorite people in college football.

 

For one thing, he's an offensive lineman. I find that species interesting. Slauson is that and then some. He shows up for every Nebraska game in a cowboy outfit, complete with six-gallon hat and boots. He paints his face for games. Two years ago, after beating Colorado, he showed off a buffalo skin jacket that draped down to his ankles, a buffalo skin hat and a necklace around his neck made of bear claws.

 

But along came the San Jose State game on Sept. 6.

 

Slauson came to the postgame press conference dressed like Roy Rogers. But that wasn't what dropped my jaw. That happened when Slauson began answering questions.

He stuttered.

 

Did you hear that? The man is stuttering.

 

I was stunned. I mean, I had interviewed him for four years and never noticed.

 

I looked around at the other media gathered around as Slauson stood up there stammering. They weren't paying attention to his speech. They weren't laughing. They weren't smirking or cracking up under their breath.

 

They were listening to what the big man had to say.

 

So, is this how it goes? Do people just listen to what you say?

 

It was a moment of revelation for me. Now, this may come as a shock to people who have never met me, but, well, I stutter. Yeah, I know. Stop the presses.

 

It was also a moment of embarrassment, because I realized I wasn't listening to his words, but, rather, how Slauson was struggling with them.

 

It was also then that Slauson became one of my favorite people, period.

 

This was someone I had to meet with. Here was someone who had the guts to stand in front of a big press conference, with the cameras and all the trimmings, and stutter like there was no tomorrow. I had questions.

 

So, last Friday, the week before his final home game at Nebraska, I met with Slauson. It was one of the most unusual interviews I've ever done, two stutterers babbling and fighting consonants for 45 minutes, swapping stories of child pain and heartbreak.

 

In a way, it was like interviewing myself.

 

We had a lot in common. We took speech classes all through school. We didn't talk much. Didn't raise our hand in class. If anything, we hoped and prayed to be invisible.

 

But we weren't. Classmates were cruel. There were rivers of tears.

 

"I didn't even want to go to school because kids made fun of me all the time," Slauson said. "I would come home crying and ask my mom why she made me like this. She just said, 'You know those kids are making fun of you now. You just wait: You'll be laughing all the way to the bank and they'll have nothing.'"

 

Boy, does that sound familiar. But one shocking story didn't.

 

"I didn't want to talk in class, and my teachers accommodated me with that," Slauson said. "They didn't want to hear me talk. They didn't want to deal with me.

 

"So they would say, here's a book, now go in the corner and read. I didn't learn how to read until the fourth or fifth grade. I couldn't even say my name in class. Everyone thought I was big and dumb."

 

But that size turned into a blessing.

 

"It wasn't until I started playing football in seventh grade that I started getting some payback," Slauson said. "And all of a sudden they didn't care about my stutter anymore. They wanted to be my friend. Mostly because I was blocking for them, but I also played defense so I would come and kill them, too.

 

"All of a sudden, people forgot about my stutter. And if they didn't, they complimented my stutter. A couple times, they said, 'I want something like that.'"

 

Hmm. I don't recall ever hearing that.

 

We stutterers have our tricks, our shortcuts to the end of the sentence. For instance, I told Slauson the story of the year I was president of the Football Writers Association of America. I had to get up in front of ESPN and the world and announce the winner of the Outland Trophy.

 

Someone had written a long speech for me to say. All I had to do was read it off the teleprompter. I knew I couldn't do it. So I improvised. When the big moment arrived, I said only one sentence — one I knew I wouldn't stumble over.

 

"I can relate to that," Slauson said. "When you grow up with a stutter, you figure out words that you stutter on and you try and stay away from those. It's like speech is a rhythm and there has to be so many beats before that word.

 

"That happens when we're on the field during a game. Linemen have to communicate. We have to make line calls. Like, if we have a swap, and I know that word will be hard for me to say, I'll say, 'We have a swap' or 'Hey, Murtha, we have a swap' so all the beats line up in front."

 

How do his teammates react? Slauson said, "There are days when it gets really bad and guys laugh and tease. But it's all in fun."

 

Getting to the point where you can laugh, too, is the lifeline of the stutterer.

 

And we agreed that it's important to find that spot. Because the insults never really stop. People make fun for various reasons; stuttering makes them nervous, and poking fun makes them comfortable. Some people are just plain mean.

 

When I write a column or give an opinion somebody doesn't like, some readers still go to the stuttering insult card. I'm 50 now. I laugh with the juveniles and at them.

 

I told Slauson about the time that I stopped letting it get to me. It was many moons ago, in a place far, far away. A woman I was seeing told me she didn't see a future for us because she didn't want kids who stuttered. I was like, it's really not that bad.

 

Confidence is a place you grow into. The undying love of a wife and three daughters is therapy no speech teacher can ever provide.

 

It takes confidence to play guard for Nebraska. Still, I was curious how Slauson had the nerve to face those cameras every game. How does he not melt under the hot TV lights?

 

"The first time I did it, it was a lot harder to talk and to think," Slauson said. "You see the bright light and you think everyone's going to see it. You think, 'I have to do everything right,' and all of a sudden you're doing everything wrong.

 

"I had to make a decision. This is part of the deal here. Everyone has to communicate. I can't worry about something as small as this. There's a lot bigger things out there to worry about. I can't let this drag me down. If people don't like it, so what?"

 

Slauson, it turns out, has his own inspiration.

 

He has two older twin brothers, Chris and Nick. In the womb, oxygen was briefly cut off to Nick. Chris is a pilot in the Air Force. Nick is mentally handicapped. He lives at home with his parents. He lives, period.

 

"Everything I have to deal with doesn't even compare to what he has to go through," Slauson said. "Look at what he has overcome. He set swimming records in high school. He can drive. He's a cook. He is just loving everything about life."

 

If a man like that doesn't act handicapped, why should a couple of big lugs who can't spit the marbles out of their mouth once in awhile?

 

I told Slauson that God made everyone unique. Stuttering is what we do. It's not necessarily who we are.

 

"I believe that, too," Slauson said. "Everybody has something about them that sets them apart. Ours is our speech. There are some days I don't want that to set us apart. I'm like, why can't I have a mole on the back of my head?"

 

Nah. That wouldn't be very interesting, would it?

 

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[WVhuskerXX]

Slauson has been one of my favorite players these last few years..he will be missed....

[WVhuskerXX]

double post

[BigBL87]

As someone who also struggled with stuttering, it's always great to see someone who has the same problem succeed like Slauson has.

[macroboy]

I really like it when the players get exposed as human and not these crazy god-like figures that the fan base tries to make them into. I also like that this wasn't the over-done "from the ghetto" story.

 

We worship them when things go well. We call for their heads, or pretend it is nothing, when they get in trouble. We call them busts when they miss tackles.

 

Hey, how are classes going? How was your childhood? Have you talked to your mom lately?

 

Its good to see them as people once in a while.

[Husker_x]

I can't imagine trying to make fun of Slauson for stuttering. You'd have to have some balls. That guy eats his own body weight in human flesh every day, and double that on game days.

[tattooedhusker]

balls no, the ability to run very fast, maybe.