A Boy Named Goo
It just doesn’t seem fair. No 22-year-old should be subjected to so much tragedy. Some people go through the first 20 years of their lives without losing a loved one. But not Rian Wallace.
He’s mourned the death of his slain friends and cousins. He’s coped with losing his grandfather, whom he’d greet when he returned home each day. He knows what it feels like to have friends and family take their own lives and what it feels like to bring a new life into the world.
Somehow, Wallace has survived. And though he’s flourishing now as Temple’s top defensive player and raising his 16-month-old son, Nasir, Wallace still thinks about the losses he’s endured along the way.
‘Some days I don’t get past it,’ Wallace said. ‘I try to hide it and put (the deaths of my loved ones) behind me, but some days I can’t help but think about it and what’s going on. I ask myself, ‘Am I lucky, am I blessed or am I next?’
His older brother, Darnell, admits Wallace is greatly affected by the deaths. The younger Wallace worries about others and doesn’t deal well with losses. Wallace needs something to take his mind off his troubles, so he plays football. It’s his escape from the world that has been so harsh to him.
Wallace says football is one of the easier things he does in his life, and his statistics certainly don’t lie. Going into Temple’s noon game against Syracuse on Saturday at Lincoln Financial Field, the junior linebacker has an interception and forced fumble to go along with his team-leading 83 tackles.
His name appeared on several preseason All-American lists, he’s a top candidate for most defensive player of the year awards and has NFL scouts planted in their seats to watch the 1-8 Owls.
And it’s all because they want to see the boy named ‘Goo.’ Wallace’s family gave him the nickname when he was caught with gooey, chocolate Easter candy smeared on his face as a young toddler, and it’s stuck ever since.
Wallace and his two brothers couldn’t avoid the danger, so they lived with it. Their single mother, Cynthia, was the unofficial police officer who protected them. She would tell the drug dealers to pipe down if it was late at night and call the police when people getting shot would land on her porch.
‘I say it’s like living on Mulberry Street,’ Cynthia said, referring to the Dr. Seuss book, ‘And to Think I Saw it on Mulberry Street.’ ‘Because you never believe what happened on Mulberry Street. All kinds of things happen. It’s unreal.’
‘It was rough because my friends and I had a lot of temptations when growing up,’ Wallace said. ‘You could get into a lot of trouble. Some of my friends who I grew up with are in jail, and some of them are dead.’
Wallace is no stranger to death now, following the suicide of his cousin in seventh grade and the passing of his grandfather soon after. While many would’ve hidden from the world, Wallace was inspired to earn a college scholarship and dedicate it to his grandfather.
The 5-year-old who got roughed up by Darnell, who’s Wallace’s elder by six years, turned into a beast of a linebacker that starred for four years at Pottstown High School.
He played through more troubled times during those four years – a teammate dying and a friend getting shot – and finished his senior year with 153 tackles. There were plenty of interested college coaches calling, but his test scores were below NCAA requirements.
It wasn’t until after graduation when Wallace received his satisfactory test scores, and, luckily for him, Temple was still waiting with a scholarship. But Wallace couldn’t leave Pottstown before one last tragedy struck a month before leaving for Temple. This time it was his cousin who, hours after defending him from a bunch of belligerent teenagers at a charity basketball game, was shot to death in his car.
Wallace doesn’t know whether he’s to blame, but he wears a T-shirt with a picture of his cousin under his game jersey to honor him. After one of his friends committed suicide during his freshman year at college, Wallace took his tributes a step further and got ‘RIP ATF’ tattooed on the back of his arms (ATF stands for ‘all the fallen’ comrades he’s lost).
He also pays tribute to his loved ones who are still alive. The ‘WB’ insignia tattooed on his chest stands for the Wallace Brothers, and the dream catcher tattooed on his left arm is intended to keep the evil spirits away from his young son, Nasir.
‘I don’t want (Nasir) to go through what I went through (growing up),’ Wallace said. ‘I don’t want him to know what it feels like (to have no father).’
It’s difficult for Wallace to care for Nasir during football season, so the child lives with his mother, another Temple student. Darnell, who transferred to Temple two years ago and is now a senior, and Cynthia also help take care of the child Wallace nicknamed ‘Little Goo.’
Darnell said Wallace is so dedicated to being a great father that it probably ranks higher than being a great linebacker. But in fact, Wallace’s success on the field might help make Nasir’s life better if Wallace can bring home an NFL paycheck.
Wallace might declare for the NFL draft a year early so he can provide for his son even sooner. Plus, he wants to pay for his mother to move into a new house free from the trouble that lurks outside their Pottstown home.
Then no more Wallaces would see what he had to see and feel the pain he felt losing so many friends and family members. His upbringing surely isn’t enviable, but despite everything, Wallace looks at it optimistically.
‘I don’t say it’s not fair because there’s some people who grow up in a place where there’s no way out,’ Wallace said. ‘I had an opportunity, where if I was strong enough, I could make it out.’
Wallace made it out with football as his guiding light. And though he’s experienced more tragedy than most people his age, it’s made him stronger. His success won’t bring any of them back and he still plays with a heavy heart, but maybe that heart is pumping a little more adrenaline through his veins than most 22-year-olds.
‘(His memory of the past) makes him a warrior,’ Darnell said. ‘That’s why he has the tattoos to remember the people he’s lost. Someone might have had the same dreams as he did to play in the NFL, and they never will get the chance. So he’s living for them, too, even though they’re not here. It gives him a lot of drive.’
Published on November 10, 2004 at 12:00 pm
