Notre Dame’s Stams Is an Old Hand at All This

TEMPE, Ariz. —  Frank Stams, Notre Dame’s All-American defensive end, heard about 6-foot 6-inch linebacker Wes Pritchett’s broken hand the day after the Miami game. Pritchett was going around telling everybody how he could actually hear the bones crunch, and Stams was inflamed with envy.

“Could hear the bones crunch!” Stams said, becoming animated in the retelling. “Can you imagine! I told him, why didn’t he tell me about it. Man, I’d have loved to have heard those bones. I mean, it wasn’t like he was getting hurt or anything. It’s just a hand. Could hear the bones crunch every time he moved his hand! That would have fired me up so much. . . . “

Stams drifts into a hopeful reverie, thinking of a day when his own bones will grind and crunch. If that day comes, he says, he’ll be sure to share it with his friends. Not like that Pritchett.

OK, Stams is not like you or probably anybody you know. Stams may not be like anybody, although Pritchett comes close. Stams is one of those 6-4, 237-pound, baby-faced defensemen Notre Dame likes to turn out, the kind that ranks No. 10 in the country in rushing defense this year. Looks of a choirboy, strength of a piano mover, moves of a tango instructor. A threshold of pain you wouldn’t believe. Go ahead, crunch those bones. Make him laugh.

The other way Stams is unlike everybody is everything makes him laugh. Lou Holtz, who’s got the Carson show on his resume (and who did a coin trick for the media Friday), isn’t the only joker on this team. And if he’s not pulling pranks the week of his team’s national championship game with West Virginia in Monday’s Fiesta Bowl, he at least doesn’t mind recalling them.

There was the time, the week of the Stanford game, when Stams happened to be in the sports information office and decided to do some phone-answering. The caller wanted to know what time the game was. “Been called off,” Stams said. “By agreement between the two schools.” Suspicious, the caller asked who this was. Stams owned up. “Michael Stonebreaker,” he said.

Usually, Pritchett works with Stams. They used to terrorize kicker Reggie Ho, threatening to date his sister, who happened to be a student trainer. Better, if a camera crew was around, they’d like to take to the practice field early, in street clothes, and impersonate coaches. “Great job, Frank Stams, what a player,” they’d muse, in obvious ear-shot.

“Sometimes you can get in a rut,” he explains. “Gets to be late October, you dread practice. You don’t want to be there. Fun never hurts.”

Of course, one man’s fun is another man’s annoyance. Stams thought it would be funny one practice to sidle up to the freshmen players and tell them Holtz wanted to see them, pronto. One by one, knees knocking, they approached the bewildered coach. Holtz figured it out in time and began excusing the freshmen. Finally, Stams was the only one at his position doing drills, over and over, no relief.

“That’s the last time I fool around Coach Holtz,” he said. “He’s one step ahead of you.”

So he started leaving tickets for Elvis, instead.

Notre Dame is a laugh riot, isn’t it? It’s not Letterman, true, but for Notre Dame football it’s not bad. Wes Pritchett’s hand bones connected to Frank Stams’ funny bones.

But Stams is more than comic relief. The former fullback--he was one of the leading ballcarriers his freshman year--has further transformed himself into a star lineman.

Just one of a bunch last season, “when all I thought you had to do was stick your helmet into the other guy,” he has learned some moves and become instrumental in Notre Dame’s defense.

He still sticks his helmet into whatever moves, but his biggest plays may be remembered as two tipped passes, one of which was returned for a touchdown, in the 31-30 upset of Miami. “Being tough is not enough,” he said. “It’s mental, too.”

Certainly, he is tough. Being a fancy-dancing fullback, which is how he was recruited, was against his temperament it turned out. Also, it didn’t utilize his talents. Besides, he wasn’t that great a fullback. “I wasn’t all that comfortable in a 3-point stance,” he said. “And I didn’t tear up the ground.”

After 2 seasons of not tearing up the ground, he sat out a year with a nagging thigh injury, becoming just one of three players on this Notre Dame team to stick around 5 years. He came back as a defensive end, which seemed to suit everybody fine. “Also, they had these two fullbacks, Anthony Johnson and Braxston Banks, and I didn’t think I’d break through that lineup right away.

“I have more the temperament of a defensive player, more emotion, more aggression,” he said. “I like to make a great hit and get up smiling.”

Of course, it’s a team game, and sometimes even Stams needs an extra hand. Wes, give him yours.