Washington State Cougars

More Kenny Alfred quotes

Posted on 27 November 2009 by Dale Grummert

Here are some leftover quotes from my interview with WSU center Kenny Alfred, profiled in Friday’s edition. It’s pretty unusual for a college athlete to string together this many complete, grammatical sentences, let alone such lucid ones about such abstract concepts. It’s obvious he has spent time thinking about this stuff, but how a college football player finds the time to think is beyond me. It didn’t hurt that it’s Apple Cup week, which heightens and stirs everything it touches.

On being an English major and writing in his spare time:

“I couldn’t really tell you about everybody else (in the department), but I know I really enjoy writing as an outlet, and it’s something I adapted and turned into a degree, which is great. For me, whenever I got frustrated with everything else and I couldn’t hit it out on the field or I couldn’t talk it out, I’d just write it out and it always helped. I’ve always enjoyed writing stories and other things. It’s honestly just something I feel like video games can’t touch and going to see a movie can’t touch and talking to friends can’t touch. And it’s such a personal thing, its’s an expressive thing, and I just love doing it. And it sort of carried over into allowing me to get a degree.”

”One of the classes I liked the most was my Chaucer class, and actually reading the Canterbury Tales in Middle English. That was just fun. It was something I really enjoyed. Shakespeare is great too, but there’s something about Chaucer that’s just easy to absorb and so calming and so relevant also. So many cultural ties that I didn’t expect to see going into it.”

On contemporary writers:

”John Updike is one of my favorites. He’s incredible. I actually didn’t have any experience with him until a little bit more recently, probably a year ago. I got my hands on ‘The Terrorist,’ and I read through that book and I was so taken aback by just how in depth his writing was, but how streamline and simple the story seemed at the same time. I got real excited, so I’ve read some of his other work and got interested in it. It kind of makes me wish I had more time (to read). But at the same time I know when this stuff (football) is gone I’m going to wish it was still here. Trying to juggle and find a balance between what I’m actually able to consistently read …. I mean, for a while whenever we’d have long plane trips, I’d try to read as much of, say, one of the Dark Tower books (by Stephen King) and see if I could read the whole thing in a three-hour trip. But just having that little amount of time between homework and studying film and studying for the week’s contest is kind of frustrating. But it’s also OK.”

On his music collection:

”I’ve always liked to collect as much music as I could, not necessarily new stuff but new stuff to me. I’ve got my MP3 players and stuff and the digital stuff in my room. In my living room I don’t have cable or anything, and I don’t really have a DVD player, but I’ve got a turntable and a couple of old speakers my parents had and a pretty old amp from the ‘60s but it still works. It’s just really cool way to get in touch with things my parents heard and experienced, because I’ve got a lot of their records and also a bunch I’ve picked up.”

On why it’s so important for him to deepen his connection to his parents:

”Because I love my parents. I’ve really got a close connection to my immediate family, and my extended family, pretty much, but especially my parents and my brother. We’re incredibly close and anything I can do to enrich the bond we’ve got is important to me, and to understand maybe their perspective and things they’ve been through and things that molded their persective is huge for me. I’d like to know, or try to understand, what makes them tick, or what’s brought them to the point in their lives that they’re at. I know growing up my parents might tell me something and I’d say, ‘Oh, they’re just being mean or they’re just being this or that. The older I got I realized, and it seemed obvious in retrospect, but it’s one of those things where you just say, ‘Well, you know, they’re people too.’ They’ve got their own perspectives, but where did they come from? Why did a lot of these things happen? There are so many blanks to fill in and questions to ask. And especially having somewhat older parents. I mean, not too much. My mom is more than a few years younger than my dad is. But just having older parents, I understand the fact that maybe in the grand scheme of things my time is limited (with them), especially compared to some of my friends, so I want to try to get to know as much as I can about their lives and experiences as I can. I think the records help. And I also like the music. That’s sort of more the bottom line.”

On his favorite musical acts:

”Of course it’s too easy to say bands like the Beatles, and the Who and stuff, but they’re obviously up there. I’ve got Chick Corea, some great jazz stuff I’ve gotten into, just randomly happen to have. The Mamas and the Papas. And my mom’s got an old record from the Association. And of course I like Def Leppard, and I love Pearl Jam. That’s one of my favorite bands of all time.”

On the dichotomy of on-field and off-field experience:

”I feel like people in general obviously put up walls that hide maybe parts of their true character or parts that are their most raw and vulnerable from people, naturally. And I know I do that too. And there’s a sort of lapse between being on the football field and not being on the football field. I’ve got to be absolutely tough (on the field), won’t back down, the epitome of what I necessarily consider masculinity to be. And off the field, I can experience a more, I don’t want to say feminine, but the more sensitive aspects of my life and some of the more absolutely opposite things to what I experience on the football field. Because of that, I’m left with a lot of questions. It’s kind of a strange dichotomy at times. I understand the part about flipping the switch, and being a different person on and off (the field), sort of putting on a guise to take care of a job. But at the same time I’ve been left with a lot of questions. What draws me to act this certain way? What drives me to be this sort of almost alter ego when I don’t necessarily have to be? Because of that, I like to investigate, just in my own thoughts and maybe do a little reading and do a little talking to my teammates, just off the cuff, so they don’t know what I’m necessarily thinking about.”

On playing football before college:

”I knew my dad was in love with football. I knew he had coaching experience and playing experience, but he kept his own accolades and his own successes away from us, just so we could experience our own. He just sort of kept us in the moment that way. Football for me started when I was a freshman in high school. I got my first taste of it, I wasn’t sure about it. I stuck with it for a year or so, and I felt it was OK. I kept playing and kept playing and didn’t really expect to go anywhere out of high school. I just liked playing. Things worked out for me. I got a few offers, and it ended up coming down to Northwestern and Washington State. And I was probably 10 or 15 minute away from calling Northwestern, and I decided to sleep on it. It took a couple more days and I ended up coming here.”