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RedHawks' DiFranco puts down guitar and picks up intensity
Saturday, August 02, 2008
DETROIT — Miami University's David DiFranco tries to prepare himself for each football game by feeding upon, without overindulging, his emotional intensity. What he calls "a mix of focus and pure insanity."
It's a tricky line he must walk, especially since he considers himself an extremely competitive athlete on the one hand who would love, on the other hand, to make a living someday playing the guitar and leading a "stress-free life."
There is nothing but stress in the trenches of college football, and that is where DiFranco, a 6-foot-4, 300-pound senior guard, earns his keep on Saturdays.
"You have to be ready to explode on somebody," said DiFranco, attending the Mid-American Conference Preview earlier this week at Ford Field. "But it has to be a controlled rage."
He helps control that rage with a pregame ritual, during which you might hear him say something like, "Say hello to my little friend." That's one of Al Pacino's more famous excerpts from "Scarface."
Yes, he likes to quote movie lines.
"It helps me loosen up when I'm too intense," explained DiFranco, a third-year starter who has the potential to be one of the top linemen in the MAC this fall.
"I like to feel excited, juiced up. That makes me know I'm ready to play," he said. "But you don't want to blow your pipes out too soon. You want to peak at the right time."
DiFranco has a gentle, laid-back nature that disappears when he walks onto a football field.
"While I'm competing, I'm not laid back at all," he said. "I'm intense. I play to win."
DiFranco, who grew up in LaGrange, which is about 20 miles outside of Cleveland, said he has been competitive "ever since I was a kid, playing Nintendo, or going outside and having a baseball home run derby with my friends" pretending "to be guys like Jose Canseco, Ken Griffey Jr. or Mark McGwire."
Plus, DiFranco added, his father, Jim, was pretty competitive.
"My dad played cornerback and safety at Baldwin-Wallace," he said. "He would've been on the national championship team in 1978 if it hadn't been for an ACL that kept him out."
The RedHawks are scheduled to report to camp today, Aug. 2, and hold their first practice Sunday.
Contact this reporter at (513) 820-2197 or pconrad@coxohio.com.
