Helmet brings memories home
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By Cindy Lange-Kubick / Lincoln Journal Star
Oh, does Matt Grosserode love football.
He's 5 and he's wearing the Chicago Bears uniform he got for Christmas. He won't take it off, not even at dinner.
Now he's 10 and he's wearing blue and gold. He made it to the midget league, like his big brother P.J. Even when he breaks his arm, he keeps coming to practice, soaking it all in from the sidelines.
He always had talent. But he had more than that. He had desire.
"He worked on it all the time, from the time he was little," his father, John, says, "because that's what he wanted to be."
And that's what he became.
Matt starred on two state championship teams at Pius X. Then he went to play with the big boys.
"He had a fire burning inside him all the time," says his Iowa State coach, Dan McCarney.
"Matt just had this passion for the game of football."
He wasn't the best player on the team, but he had more heart than just about anybody. The coach called the the 6-foot, 225-pound fullback the social director because he loved his teammates so much. And he worked his tail off on special teams.
After the Cyclones beat the Huskers in 2002, Matt was the first person the coach found in the locker room.
"We had a hug," McCarney remembers. "I know how much that victory meant to him."
Matt gave up football after three seasons. He'd had two injuries and it was time to concentrate on his studies and the rest of his life, he told his parents.
Then the three-time Big 12 Academic honoree went back to Ames to tell McCarney.
Tears welled up in the player's brown eyes.
"Hey, Matt," the coach told him. "It's OK. You've got to do what's good for you."
A few months later, in the middle of the day in Ames, at a wide-open intersection, a car ran a stop sign and forced a mattress truck into the side of Matt's Honda.
It was Aug. 6, 2003.
Just like that, Matt was gone.
n n n
His big brother spoke at Matt's funeral.
P.J. — 19 months older and 70 pounds lighter — remembered Matt's faith, how much he loved his family, how much he celebrated his friends.
Faithful to God. Loving to family. Loyal to friends. That's what Matt was. And that's what they wrote on his tombstone.
The brother remembered the last words Matt said to him.
P.J. was living in Los Angeles. Matt was 2,000 miles away in Iowa. They were trying to find a way to get together.
"I will figure out some way to come and see you," Matt said.
And, his family said this week, Matt kept his promise — with the help of a young Cyclones fan from Wisconsin.
n n n
The box was on the porch when his mom returned from the cemetery.
She was with a friend. John was picking up their middle son Danny from school.
Matt had been gone a month and it was the night of Danny's first game with the Pius freshman team.
The whole family would be there, their first outing except for church since Matt died.
Anybody who knows the Grosserodes knows they love sports. Joann set track records at Pius in her day. John played basketball and football and ran track every spring. P.J. broke a state record in the 400 meters.
Now Danny was making his mark, while his sister Tara, 12, and little Mitch, 6, were on their way.
Danny wore No. 26. Matt's high school number.
They were excited for Danny's big night. They were bracing themselves, too.
They'd see a lot of people for the first time since the funeral.
They'd be in the stands where they watched Matt play so many times.
And they knew that if Matt were alive, he'd be there with them to see his brother's first game.
Because that's what they did: They cheered each other on. In sports. In school. In life.
Joann picked up the heavy box, another package. They'd been getting lots of those since Aug. 6. She looked at the postmark.
Who did they know in Wisconsin?
She carried the box into the kitchen.
When she opened it, all the air left her body. The tears fell.
She picked up the football helmet nestled inside.
The beat-up helmet, red with a whirling red bird on the side and a faded inscription on the chinstrap: Matt Grosserode.
There was a card inside.
When I heard about Matt I was very sad. I want you to have his helmet and I hope it helps you remember him … Mark Conrad.
She didn't know the boy, but she knew that helmet.
She held it to her face. She breathed in the foam padding that had sheltered Matt's head.
She smelled him. She smelled the little boy who walked in the house all those autumn afternoons happy and tired and sweaty. She smelled the young man she waited for outside Jack Trice stadium in Ames after home games.
He was here. He was here in the kitchen on Devonshire Drive.
It's OK, Mom. I'm OK.
"He was letting us know he's still in this family," his mom says.
"It was a gift from heaven and Mark was the messenger."
n n n
Pius won that night.
The score at halftime: 26-8.
One player scored all those points for Pius. No. 26. Danny Grosserode.
After the game, John called Hartland, Wis.
He talked to a 13-year-old boy. A boy with a Cyclones bedspread and a signed Seneca Wallace jersey and a red and gold ISU clock on his wall and a bookshelf full of Iowa State memorabilia.
A boy who was given a gift: a football helmet his dad found on-line in early 2002 when Iowa State sold its old equipment.
Mark Conrad wore that helmet trick-or-treating. He showed it to his friends. He began to follow the young man whose name was printed inside the chinstrap.
He became a Matt Grosserode fan.
His parents grew up in Iowa. His dad attended ISU. When they listened to the Cyclones on the radio or caught them on TV, they looked for No. 29.
That was Matt's college number.
That was Mark's midget football number, too. And Matt played fullback, just like Mark.
His mom remembers the August day they heard the news that an Iowa State player had died.
"Mom, I can't keep this helmet," her son told her. "I need to send it to his parents."
Denise Conrad can't tell that story without crying. She thinks about her own kids, the hurt of losing one of them, how proud Mark made her feel.
It was a simple decision.
"We boxed it up and sent it to them."
n n n
The Grosserodes are in Ames today. They'll be at Jack Trice stadium to watch the Cyclones take on the Huskers.
They left Friday — John and Joann, P.J., Tara and Mitch, Matt's grandparents.
Danny stayed in Lincoln.
He's varsity now. No. 26 on special teams.
Pius won big Wednesday, and the Thunderbolts are headed for the second round of the Class B state playoffs.
The rest of the family will cheer on Matt's team. They'll hug Kenny Segin and Cale Stubbe, fifth-year seniors, Matt's best buddies and pallbearers.
They'll trade Matt stories with some of the 90 young men who stood in line last fall in Ames at a memorial service, tough football players with tears in their eyes, telling them how sorry they were.
"We're going for the love of our son," John says. "We get to represent him."
In Wisconsin, Mark will listen on the radio with his dad, hoping for a Cyclone victory.
"It's going to be a big deal if we can beat them, but I think it's going to be close," says Mark, now 14.
The Nebraska game was always a big deal to Matt.
He'll be there, too, his mom says.
He'll be right there with them. The family has faith. They've seen the signs.
"He gives us strength," she says.
"Matt just does his work from heaven now."
Reach Cindy Lange-Kubick at 473-7218 or clangekubick@journalstar.com.
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