Matt Sabetti: Combining Both Power and Willpower

I'm a street-walking cheater with a handful of napalm,

I'm a runaway son of a nuclear A-bomb,

I'm the world's forgotten boy,

All I can do is search and destroy. --chorus of "Search and Destroy" by Iggy Pop

Before a football game, starting varsity linebacker Matt Sabetti cranks himself up by listening to Iggy Pop's album "Raw Power."

And although it may appear that all Sabetti can do during a game is "search and destroy," there is nothing raw about this power. Rather, Sabetti has worked to build up and refine his strength through his own desire and dedication.

When Sabetti first entered Harvard he had little trouble 5-ft. 11-in., and 185 pounds, he found the transition to the varsity team the following year very difficult.

"My sophomore year I played about 9th string and all I could do was just bounce off people because of my size. It was ridiculous and I just wasn't effective." he said.

"I wanted to play, and since I couldn't get taller, I decided that I had to get bigger," he added.

At the end of the season, Sabetti started working out two hours a day for five days a week with free weights at Mike's Gym in Porter Square and, by the time the 1978 season rolled around, Sabetti weighed in at 210 pounds.

Sabetti's efforts did not go unnoticed as he grabbed a spot on the second string; but since Craig Beling preceded him on the roster it didn't look like Sabetti would get his chance to break into the varsity line-up.

Then came the first quarter of the University of Massachusetts, when The Beling suffered ligament damage in his left knee and Sabetti was called to play in his first varsity game.

If the North House resident was nervous, it didn't show, and after the game coach Joe Restic described his performance as "super."

But Sabetti followed in Beling's footsteps a little too closely and at the Dartmouth game his fourth appearance of the season, Sabetti injured himself.

Calcium deposits in his ankle kept Sabetti out of the line-up until the last game of the season where once again his action was cut short.

In the second half on the Yale game, Sabetti was injured again when Eli guard Peter Maples fell on the ankle while trying to cut-block him.

So the season that had begun for Sabetti because of an injury ended for him the same way. And to add irony to injury, Maples and Sabetti had been teammates on the Newton South High School football team four years earlier.

Sabetti, however, was not discouraged by the less-than-perfect season.

Over the summer, the economics major lifted weights with former Mr. Universe Serge Nubret in Paris, where Sabetti was working for Citibank.

"Everyone told me that when I came back from France I'd be a skinny frog, so I had to make sure they were wrong," he said.

Sabetti suceeded as he bulked out to 220 pounds and became undoubtedly the number one Crimson linebacker.

While Sabetti originally had to make up for his lack of natural physical ability, he was always mentally strong.

"I have this craziness out on the field. I want to the the best so I get my mind in a state where I tell myself to do something and then I push myself to the limit to do it," he said.

"When I play football I'm competing against myself to try to get the most out of myself--for the same reason I like to do well in school, keep a job and see different types of people in addition to playing sports," he added.

Yet football is more than just a sport to Sabetti--it's a part of him.

"I've been playing football a long time, it's what I know. It's like brushing my teeth in the morning. I like contact sports--they're like a throwback to the Middle Ages when guys ran at each other with spears."

Whether Sabetti is a knight in King Arthur's court, a linebacker in Harvard Stadium or Iggy Pop with a bomb, he should be successful in his quest to "search and destroy."