Travis Belden

He's a bad-ass. He's out for blood. When he sees someone wearing a different color than him, he just wants to hit him. Not those push-you-out-of-bounds, weak-ass, nothing hits. We're talking straight on, helmet-to-helmet, knock-the-daylights-out-of-you hits.

He also plays the piano, performs in church musicals, tutors mentally disabled children and always finds time in his schedule to visit David, a five-year-old boy across the street who has no mother and a sickly father.

Meet Travis Belden, the strong-side linebacker for the Penn football team.

"There's a switch," Belden, a junior, explains. "When you're off the field, you've got to be a nice guy. On the field, I hate to say it, but I would like to hurt people. If I hit a quarterback, I want him out of the game. If I hit a running back, I hope his legs break. I don't want to kill the guy. I don't want him to die, but I want him out of the game.

"I'm not that big of an asshole. I'd like to think of myself as a nice guy. But to be a defender, you've got to want to kill somebody."

Someone who knows Belden best, however, isn't fooled.

"We know the real Travis. And he's a very sweet, loving son," Travis' mom says from her home in Indianapolis, still high off an opening-week Colts victory. "I know its part of the game. I know it's not his true nature. Is that too gooey-gushy?"

Janet Belden stops short, consults with her husband and reports back.

"On the field, he has a nasty side, his father says."

Now that's better.

Belden's father, Randy, was a football player himself in his hey day. He was a fullback for Butler, a division I-AA school in Indiana.

Belden's uncle tossed the pigskin around as well, for the University of Indianapolis. Travis' nephews and cousins also play. Heck, his older sister is even dating a Vanderbilt football player.

Football is in the Belden blood. Travis had no choice but to play. So with his father urging him on, he donned the pads for the first time in third grade. Belden, however, didn't make too many friends in pee-wee league. Little kids were running around aimlessly, and then there was big, bad Travis, twice the size of anyone else, looking to knock the hell out of some little pipsqueak.

"I knocked some helmets off, gave one kid a hernia, another kid had to be carried off in a stretcher," Belden says rather nonchalantly. "I was one of those early sprouters."

A bad-ass even as an eight-yea- old.

"When that happens, you feel horrible as a mother," Janet says, remembering one of the incidents. "But it was a clean hit, and certainly wasn't intentional. The first time he told me he loves hitting... that's not what a mother wants to hear."

And that's why Travis' mother instilled important values in her son. She told him to be well-rounded, to focus on more than just athletics. Football is great, but there has to be a backup plan.

"Whatever our children were interested in, we always supported them," explains Janet, who along with Randy, has been to every one of Travis' football games. "The key is to work hard to keep options open. We encourage them to be in the position when they're in control of their own lives."

And whatever his mother said, Travis listened. Because she certainly didn't bullshit. And Travis loved her for it.

"She's the greatest mom in the world. She's cool where I can talk to her about anything, anything in the world," Belden says. "But she's an ass-kicker sometimes. She can put her foot down. She's the law in my house and I respect that."

"Is that what he said?" Janet says, laughing. "I won't argue with that. I have high ideals and high expectations, and I'm not afraid to speak them and express my opinion."

So Travis obeyed the law, and spent his time studying and playing the piano and acting in school plays. The hard work paid off, and in high school Travis' resume included class president, Top 10 in his class, French Club, Math Club, National Honor Society...

Recite that list, though, and Belden will immediately cut you off. Instead, he'll tell you about the most important experience of his high school career. He'll tell you how he tutored mentally disabled children his senior year at Hamilton Southeastern High School. He'll tell you just how good it feels to help out kids, those same kids you see in the hallway and stop and stare at.

"You could be having a bad day, you could've dropped the winning touchdown pass, you could've gotten dumped by the hottest girl in school," Belden says. "But you walk in that classroom, and they're happy to see you. They don't give a shit about what happened with everything else."

Flip the switch.

And then, of course, there was always football. Belden loved to hit and he loved to tackle and he loved to be mean out there on the field. But more than anything, he loved the camaraderie.

"Football, that's my first love," he says. "There's the contact, there's the physicalness, there's the togetherness, there's the sweat and the blood. Anybody who has ever put on football pads and played with a good team, a close team, knows exactly what I'm talking about. It's like brotherhood out there. You die for your teammates."

And he was damn good at the game too. In high school, he was out there on every play, as a linebacker and a fullback, and even as a member of the special teams. Belden was a three-time All-Metro and two-time All-State honoree and was Indianapolis' Mr. Football as a senior. His team was pretty good, too, and as a senior, Belden led them to the state championship game in the Hoosier Dome.

But high school football just isn't the same in Indiana as it is in, say, West Texas. In Indiana, people live and die with basketball. Belden played some high school roundball, but his team was never any good compared to some of the great Indiana high school programs.

"We mostly got our butts kicked by amazing athletes and amazing players," Belden recalls. "But going to a sectional game and seeing 10,000 people there... you kind of wish you got the same support for football."

And once Belden began to bulk up for football, he lost his jump-shot and basically had one role on the team.

"I was the designated fouler," he says. "I think I fouled out of 10 out of our 20-something games."

A bad-ass as an eight-year-old. A bad-ass on the basketball court.

But Travis knew where his future was out of high school. He knew it was on the football field. He also knew that it was on defense.

"If I had a choice of getting hit or hitting, I'd definitely rather hit," Belden says, explaining his position choice. "Some of the fullbacks [at Penn], I give them a hard time because we usually hit each other a lot in practice. They have head problems. They go out of college stupider than when they come into college. I don't want to mess with that. I like my defense."

As a linebacker, Belden got a couple of scholarship offers from some lower-tier Division I-A schools like Northern Illinois and Ball State. But when it came right down to it, Belden wanted to be in the Ivy League. And he certainly had the grades to do it. Like his mom always said, he had to keep his options open. And he did.

When it came down to which Ivy school Belden would attend, it was really no contest. He chose the school with the best football program and the best business school. The move from Indianapolis to West Philadelphia, though, was not your typical change.

"It was certainly a culture-shock the first time I got here," Belden remembers. "[My friend and I] will take a five-minute ride down to the stadium and he'll use his horn more than I've used it in my entire life. People here are just much more uptight.

"But I've got great friends, great coaches and a great team to help me adjust. I can handle the change."

And he has handled it superbly. In two seasons, Belden has emerged as a defensive force for the Quakers.

"He's a great linebacker," says senior captain Dan Morris, who knows a little about the position himself, having started there for the past two seasons. "He's awesome against the run, has great football instincts, reads plays really quickly. He's on top of the blockers in a heartbeat. He's probably the toughest linebacker to run at in the whole league."

And his intensity on the field and love for the game is certainly unmatched.

"I haven't seen too many guys with a passion for football like Travis has," Penn linebackers coach Cliff Schwenke says. "He's one of the best kids I've coached in 27 years. In terms of passion and demeanor, he's got what it takes to be a linebacker. I can't say enough good words about the kid."

The Quakers have certainly recognized Belden's enormous talent.

After being named Penn's Defensive Rookie of the Year in '99, Belden was recognized as the defense's Most Valuable Player last season. What's next on the list for the linebacker's junior season?

Like he does to a running back giving a straight arm, Belden brushes it off. "Individual awards are good, but it's all about wearing another ring next year. I don't care about all that other stuff.... If I had to choose between Ivy League Player of the Year and another ring, I'd take another ring in a second."

Suddenly, Belden begins to think about what it's going to take to get that ring. He thinks about how badly he wants to play Brown again this year after Penn's dramatic come-from-behind win last season, which ended in a bench-clearing scuffle. He thinks about Bears wide receiver Chas Gessner, and how he'd like to send his pompous, showboat, no-talent ass back to Rhode Island with another loss.

"If I had one hit left in my life," Belden says, "it would probably be on him."

He then thinks about all the important people in his life and how they all have that same no-nonsense, no-bullshit, in-your-face-approach -- his mom, his dad, Schwenke, his linebackers coach in high school.

They're all the same way, and they've all rubbed off on Belden. Every Saturday, Travis goes out on the field, flips on that switch, turns into Maximus -- as some of his teammates jokingly call him -- and for a few hours, plays like a gladiator.

"On our team this year, there's a lot of attitude. We're pricks basically," Belden says of himself and his tight-knit defensive teammates. "[Defensive end] Ed Galan, he's a prick. And he's a stud on the football field. You think some of the old guys -- [Dick] Butkus, Jack Lambert -- all those guys were assholes. If you're a mean person on the field, then you're going to play mean."

The Penn defense has to be mean. They have to shut down every team that steps on the field with them. Because Belden and the rest of the Quakers defense knows that the road to another Ivy title goes right through them.

"[The offense] gets all the press. This year, the defenses are going to be gunning for them. They're not going to surprise anybody. Gavin Hoffman had his breakout year. They're going to shut 'em down and it's going to come down to us," Belden says. "It's going to come down to the defense this year. If the defense plays well, we're going to win. If we don't play well, we're not going to win. So they can get all their little press, as long as we take care of business on Saturday."

And Belden would like nothing more than to win another Ivy title, to wear another ring.

"To get your team, your name down in the record books as an Ivy champion is a feeling that's indescribable," he says. "Just to be part of the tradition of the Ivy League... we'll be remembered forever."

Belden is ready for another go at the Ivy title game. And in that game, Belden might be on the giving end of some gruesome hits. He might knock the quarterback out of the game or send the running back to the hospital. He might even do a little taunting.

But don't be fooled by what you see on that field that day. You know the real Travis Belden.

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