A Tribute to My Idol: Jack Falla

Before my maternal grandfather passed away this past spring and kindly left me his white 2000 Ford Ranger XLT, making it to the one class I couldn't afford to miss in college was a bit of a costly propostion.

Tuesdays and Thursdays at 8:00 am I attended sports journalism, JO514, with the late, great Jack Falla.

Let me emphasize that starting time once again: 8:00 am.

Now, once you've graduated and grown accustomed to working, 8:00 am is no big deal. It's life. But back in college, 8:00 am is impossible for many, and an epic struggle for the rest. I was a struggler--I had painted for portions of the four summers prior to my enrolling in Monsieur Falla's lecture on sports, professionalism, and life, so it was a challenge I was ready for; however, my roommate, the owner of the type of car that repels girls like Off!, a silver Honda Civic Hatchback, was another story.

Julian Rodriguez is not a light sleeper.

Yours truly, Sean, a current roommate (at the time), and Greg, a former roommate, all depended on Julian twice a week to transport us in the early hours of dawn, or sometimes pre-dawn depending on the Sun's mood, down Commonwealth Avenue to the earliest classes BU offered. Needless to say, Boston's sub-freezing winter weather made Julian's ability to drive even more important. The roughly two miles to the warmth of the classroom from the comfort of a rumpled bed cemented Julian's role as our proverbial hockey father.

Despite both bearing the responsibility of ushering adolescents to early morning skates, Julian Rodriguez and Jack Falla were cut from a different mold.

Julian and his fellow engineers, Sean and Greg, with cushy jobs in hand and impressive degrees on the way, could be late. My much less impressive résumé and standard awkward silence response when asked about my "career path" dictated otherwise.

Thus, my winter mornings became routine. Sean, our roommate, would awake first, jumping in the shower at roughly 7:00 am. Following his exit from our grimy cleaning area I would ascertain my options. First, to scrub or not to scrub? In this election the shower beat my black-on-black adjustable Boston Red Sox hat, but with just 52% of the vote. Next, breakfast. Eggs, a bagel and cream cheese, or leftover pasta and ground beef from one of Sean's cooking binges would invariably win out. Time was of the essence after all, heartburn be damned. Sean's offerings often won that primary.

During my coffeeless attempts at waking up (I haven't picked up that bad habit yet, unlike the overuse of parentheses) Sean and I took turns shaking our chauffeur from his gentle slumber.

We followed a tried-and-true recipe of banging on Julian's door, explaining the situation in simple terms--"Julian, get up, we're gonna be late."--and eventually, guilt trips.

"Jules, I can't be late, if you didn't want to go to class you could've told me last night, but now it's too late," I would say flinging all my moral indignation at poor, tired Julian. "You gotta get up..."

No response.

"Now," I would sometimes add for good measure.

Moments later, as I neared my breaking point, usually around 7:47 am, Julian would emerge from his room ready to go. Often his trip would merely be to drop me and perhaps Sean and Greg off before returning to bed, but that was less certain. No matter, his ass had better get mine to class on time, that was for sure. A trip to Brookline to pick up Greg, which prominently featured Comm Ave. and Babcock Street's awkward stoplight spending time like Paris Hilton spends money on glitter, would set us back another 7 to 10 minutes. It was now crunch time.

Arriving in front of BU's School of Communication anywhere from 7:56 to 7:59:38, the race was on. Many days, it would literally be a race to the finish.

Now, my legs are naturally about as fast as Hal Gill's. I probably can sprint a 5.0+ 40-yard-dash and I almost never run at all. Furthermore, around this time I found that I had a degenerative disc bulge in my lower back, so I was in far from peak physical condition, with reverse motivation to boot. On top of my back serving as a convenient excuse not to exercise, I play the one position in team sports that requires almost NO extraneous movement. So much so that Curt Schilling famously aided the New York Yankees in their epic 2004 ALCS choke job on a bleeding ankle that necessitated groundbreaking surgery involving a cadaver's ligaments.

Yup, I'm a pitcher. I don't/can't hit depending upon whom you ask. Despite a love of hustle on the ball field I often hypocritically walk to and from the mound. To maintain my footing, and sometimes just to minimize unnecessary steps to the side and back again, I occasionally switch from the wind-up to the stretch despite there being no one on (and then quickly because there is someone, or multiple someones, on base).

I am not a runner.

But when I had to beat Professor Falla up the stairs, I ran like Usain Bolt. Obstacles like concrete dividers standing four feet high were minor hindrances, stairs meant to be scaled in two or three bounds at most, and doorjambs pylons worth leaping over just before my opponent could tackle me at the goal line. In arriving in this fashion, you can bet there were several awkward entrances inches and seconds in front of the greatest teacher ever to grace the halls of Boston University's School of Communication with the suaveness of Evan from Superbad. No matter, I made it. Every time.

That's how you show you care. Make it. On time. Every time. No excuses.

"The only excuse to miss class is a death in the family," Falla often told us, relaying a line a professor from his undergrad days at BU had thrown his way. "And I'd prefer it be yours."

Well, on September 14th, 2008, a member of the family died.

I left one of my three jobs a few minutes early to make it to my idol's wake three days later at the Doherty Funeral Home in Wellesley. Falla stringently insisted on promptness and putting in all necessary work, but he did have a penchant for leaving early to beat the traffic, so I figured he'd let me off the hook for that one. Reuniting with friends who had taken Falla's class, or classes if they were lucky, we read the eulogy that the church wouldn't allow his son Brian to deliver, looked at pictures from earlier days, and said goodbye. Jack's body lay motionless next to his family; meanwhile the loves of his life, his wife, Barb, and his grown children, Brian and Tracey, stood graciously accepting endless sympathies a mere few feet from his side.

The next morning, I got up early. Jack Falla would be laid to rest in a matter of hours, but I wouldn't be at St. Patrick's in Natick that day. My peace made, I wouldn't watch dirt fly through the air. Instead I got into my Ford Ranger, which still ran despite sustaining a bump or two since my grandfather left it to me halfway through my final semester at BU, and headed to Fenway Park to work as a media relations assistant for the Boston Red Sox--a job, naturally, Jack had gotten me.

My shift would start at 9:00 am. Unlike my 7:59:59 am arrivals in February, I would be there a few minutes early that morning. I no longer had what it took to make it to my desk like a puck careening toward an open pocket of netting before the green light went on.

On that sad Thursday a certain spring in my step was lost forever.