In the late 1990’s, I played American football with one of the greats. Tom Morello. Also known as the guitar player for the band Rage Against the Machine. Every Sunday afternoon, a group of musicians and other various music biz folks gathered in an empty football field at a middle school in North Hollywood. They divided themselves into teams, and played football. My friend Johnny, bass player in the band Lava Diva, invited me to join this Sunday pickup game tradition. It was thrilling to be tossing the ol’ pigskin with a bunch of rock stars, but the truth is, I was more excited about actually getting to play football after a lifetime of sitting on the sidelines.
I can’t remember a time when I didn’t love football. My first favorite team was the Pittsburgh Steelers. I chose them because every boy in my 4th grade class went on and on about the Dallas Cowboys, so I made their main rivals my chosen team. My favorite player was Defensive Tackle “Mean” Joe Greene. He was massive and brutal and the main component of the relentless “Steel Curtain” that shut down opposing team’s offenses. But he was also the big sweet softie in a TV commercial where he throws his game towel to a kid who offers him a Coca Cola to lessen the sting of a hard game. I was, and still am, a sucker for this dichotomous football player narrative.
Really though, all I ever wanted to do growing up was PLAY football. But as a girl in the 1970’s, the opportunity was not available to me. So, I spent adolescence living for the flag football unit in gym class, and making up my own solo games. One of them consisted of me standing in the doorway of my parents bedroom, throwing an orange nerf football ball towards their bed, and making flying leaps to try and catch it before it was called dead by hitting the mattress. I was a quarterback AND a wide receiver! After each amazing catch, I would go back to the doorway and reenact the spectacular feat, moving in slow motion, creating an instant replay for the cheering stadium of fans I imagined watching me.
It was Tom Morello that fulfilled my lifelong fantasy. On more than one occasion, he made me feel like a football hero. In our Sunday games, Tom’s team always won, so of course I was beside myself when I got to be a part of his brigade. I loved winning, but what meant more is Tom helped me really learn the game. He noticed everything about our opposing team and spelled it all out in the huddle. “Greg doesn’t think you can catch a ball, so he is being really soft on covering you, in fact, he is outright ignoring you today,” Tom would say, riling me up, “So we are going to send you on a down and out right into the endzone. You will be wide open. I’m going to throw it to you, and you are going to catch it for six.” Sure enough, the play would go as Tom outlined, and I would carry the high of scoring a touchdown throughout my entire work week.
After I actually got to play football in this context, I realized I had only been experiencing the surface level of the game. I understood the scoring and rules. I loved the theater of massive muscle and clashing bodies contrasting with the beautifully delicate, precise athleticism of players. And of course, I rode the ups and downs of my favorite team winning and losing. But it was playing in these Sunday pickup games with Tom acting as master quarterback that opened my eyes to the engine that drives the game of football. The mind. It is a complex, mentally demanding game of strategy that requires one to think both in and outside of the box each and every time the ball is snapped. A game where mere brute strength falls consistently to those who play with a sharper mind.
I will always cherish the Sundays I had playing football with a group of people who welcomed everyone to the gridiron. That I got to do it. Play football. And I will forever be grateful to Tom Morello for turning perceived weaknesses into touchdown scoring strengths. A strategy I still have tucked in my pocket and use often in the game of life.
Keep scrolling to read a reprint of a 1997 interview my friend Johnny and I did for my fanzine ZYZXX with Tom about football.
FROM ZYZXX ISSUE #5, Spring Issue 1997:,
Sure, we all know Tom Morello's view on world politics. We know where he stands on social issues. And yeah, yeah we are all quite aware that he graduated from some fancy-schmancy college. What we really want to know is what the hell does this guy do for fun?
Does he spend his days off shredding and throwing the American flag around and clocking presidential candidates mother's in the head with the wadded up pieces? Does he use his free time to strip naked and run wildly across stages in front of millions to protest censorship? No, of course not! He does none of these things. He is a gosh darn American! He plays TOUCH FOOTBALL!!!!
ZYZXX sports reporters Johnny Sabella and Jen Hitchcock had the pleasure of sitting on the one piece of furniture that made it to his beautiful new home (replete with waterfalls, windows and garden area, yet sorely lacking astro-turf, hot dog vendors and cheerleaders) to talk about Tom's unyielding passion for tossing the old pigskin and running up and down a field during his time away from the OTHER thing he does…
TOM: Music and politics get quite boring after a while, let’s get down to what I’m really interested in, and that would be touch football.
JEN: Since I'm somewhat of a new comer, how did the football games begin?
TOM: I believe the football games even preceded Johnny. We've been playing out there for almost ten years now. When Adam Jones (guitar player for Tool) moved to North Hollywood there was a field not too far from his house. We had played football back in Illinois and I had a football so we started playing. I think we started in 1987.
JEN: So when you and Johnny met, you invited her to play along?
TOM: Yes. Actually I don't remember the first time, but Johnny has greatly facilitated the rise of the league by bringing in lots of recruits. The one thing that is always very important about our football games and what makes it really fun is that every level of talent is represented on the field and at different times. At all levels of talent people excel.
JOHNNY: Right! All ages, all sexes.
TOM: It's a great relief from the week. Last Sunday my business manager was out there playing. He has so many things to worry about during his week it's so great to just have to worry about running the down and out pattern.
JOHNNY: It's also nice that we all get to know most of the people better through football. When we meet people through Lava Diva and we want to get to know them better, we invite them to play. We get to know their personalities, and how they interact with other people. That's one thing I like about doing that on Sundays.
JEN: See, I know Tom more as the football guy and then the Rage guy. To me he's the guy that plays on the winning team all the time.
JOHNNY: That was one of my questions. I don't look at you as being a bad sport, but I do look at you as being competitive.There is nothing wrong with that, obviously if no one wanted to win it would be a very boring game. Do you feel that you are also competitive with playing guitar?
TOM: No.
JOHNNY: If you are doing a tour with more than one band and you see someone playing guitar really good, does that drive you to play harder?
TOM: Not the guitar playing. When we play on a multi-band bill, I don't feel competitive with other guitar players because I'm pretty confident in what I do within the context of Rage and I'm not going to compete with a blues guitar player or Yngwie Malmsteen. But if it's a festival show and there is a lot of bands, I don't feel any remorse about kicking everyone's ass. It's all about 'hope you don't have to go on after us! I will say with regards to the football playing, I feel much, much less competitive now than when we played originally.
JOHNNY: I think after you've won your three hundredth game–three hundred out of three hundred–you start to relax a little!
TOM: I don’t even understand that. I wish it would just stop. Then it wouldn’t be an issue so much.
JOHNNY: I notice what happens when we're on the same team and we're playing, is if we're in the lead you're very relaxed. If all of a sudden we're behind, even by a little, you get so serious.
JEN: That's when you begin to hone in on everybody's weaknesses. You'll look around and be like 'ok, Greg seems to have a bit of a limp so.... You always notice all these things that I don't notice, like who is not covering who. So when we're playing football are you watching the whole spectrum? Do you look at it more as a game of mental strategy?
TOM: Absolutely. Absolutely. Completely.
JEN: So it's more mental strategy then physical?
TOM: That may be the only thing that sort of explains my impressive record on the field. There are a lot of people out there that can run faster, throw further and jump higher. I'm kind of into the strategy part. That's what's fun, and it makes for some good Statue Of Liberty plays as well. I think the things that come first are one, everybody has to participate from the lowest to the highest. Two, you have to have fun and funny plays. And with those two as a given, then you try to kick ass. One thing rarely an issue is the testosterone thing. Sometimes when we play there are more women then men. Two weekends ago it got a little bit out of control, there was a little bit of arguing, which there almost never is!
JOHNNY: Did you ever play sports in high school or college?
TOM: I've played sports my whole life but I've never played on a high school team.
JOHNNY: Did you ever want to?
TOM: No. Not really. I never liked that there was a competitiveness and a violence to it, I was not into that. I love running out for a pass and catching it but not doing eight thousand push ups and learning iron discipline and "winning for your high-school team". That never mattered to me.
JOHNNY: When you're out on the road for any length of time, obviously you can't throw a football game together. Are there any other sports or games you take on the road with you?
TOM: It's very, very different. The competitive atmosphere on the tour bus is one which is around the Sega football game. It is considerably more testosterone orientated than it is out on our little field in North Hollywood.
JOHNNY: Have any Gameboys been smashed against the wall?
TOM: That’s a silly question.
JOHNNY: So how did Family Feud get started?
JEN: Yeah, Johnny has mentioned to me your obsession with Family Feud. Do you have Family Feud parties?
TOM: It will only be if we're having a party or something and as it's winding down someone will suggest, often it is myself, getting out the Family Feud home version, which I believe we have six different editions of the game. People give them as gifts. I bought one, but it's like when you admit to collecting something.
JOHNNY: That's something you can obviously take on tour, but you don't play that?
TOM: I actually tried to take that on tour, and no one would play with me. One day I was up in the front of the tour bus setting up the little board with the little pieces and the cards and was like 'Come on guys, we're going to play Family Feud tonight on our way to Detroit!' They were like, 'Uh, I’ll be in the back watching Goodfellas.'
JEN: I hear you usually play Richard Dawson.
TOM: Anybody is welcome to step up as Richard Dawson.
JOHNNY: Oh please! Please!
TOM: I'm not saying I'm not skilled as Richard Dawson, if that's what the kids enjoy most…
JEN: Back to football. When you do lose, how do you feel inside?
JOHNNY: Wait, who said he has ever lost?
JEN: Ok, IF you were to lose, are you a good loser?
TOM: It's all good, it's all good! I can actually think of a specific incident two weeks ago when it was like, over! It was towards the end of the day, we had written it off, we were like 'Good game fellas, good game.' We happened to come back and win in the last second, but I was fine with it!
JOHNNY: Would you come back the next week and be more serious? YES!
TOM: I think that it is kind of odd. If the record my teams have had was more even, I would be more comfortable with it. It's kind of uncanny, to the point where it becomes an issue of, is Tom's team going to win, rather than let's just play football and have a good time.
JOHNNY: It's funny because you always have me split the teams up and I always look at who wasn't on Tom's team last week because they we're getting kind of upset that they were losing. I try to make it even that way. Most of the time it has been mostly my friends, so I know the personalities, who gets along and who won't get too upset with each other. Maybe that is where I use my psychology.
TOM: You have excellent skills in that area. I think that Jen, you should recount the story in this interview, of your most heroic touchdown catch.
JEN: You threw it!
TOM: But the circumstances, there were several. I mean, there's been more than one dramatic game winning touchdown catch.
JEN: I can’t remember…
TOM: It was a close game. I believe that we had tried to get the ball to you a couple of times unsuccessfully. Short passes. They were looking for it, they were looking for the short pass. The sun was setting, it was getting to the time to go home. We sent you on the long down, out and go route to isolate you deep in the endzone. I saw you break free. To this point, in the history of our playing I don't know whether I had ever seen you catch a ball. I don't believe that we had seen that happen. It was a really long, super long pass. I remember it was a missile landing and no one was more surprised then you! That was just the beginning of a very successful career as a wide receiver.
JEN: I think that was what made me want to continue coming to the games. There was one game I think you completed like three to me and I went home LOVING FOOTBALL! Then next week I was probably dropping them. Do you ever worry about hurting your hands playing?
TOM: I figure that the time that I get my hands hurt is when I start being all prissy about keeping them safe. I've played football my whole life, I'm not going to pretend I'm all frail now.
JEN: How does the rush of throwing the winning touchdown pass–and I wrote here on my paper, to me, but of course it could be to anybody–compare to playing in front of thousands and thousands of people?
TOM: That's a good question. Few things in this life are more satisfying then throwing the winning touchdown pass. To you in particular it is very, very satisfying. I am very fortunate in that those two things both occasionally happen in my life. I don't want to rank them, but I would not say that throwing the winning touchdown pass is a far second, not at all. That's one of the things I look forward to most every week, is football.
JOHNNY: Now when you do something like a Lollapalooza, you have tons of bands and tons of people around everyday, isn't there a way to get some kind of game going whether it be Family Feud or football?
TOM: Family Feud, I never tried Family Feud at Lollapalooza. I guess that would be the place to do it. Get Alice In Chains and Primus to sit there. Les Claypool, he's the most likely candidate! Occasionally people will throw the football around but there is a very good spirit to the games we play at home. It never feels mean in a way that it can get when it's a bunch of fellas backstage. There is no field immediately adjacent to the venue where you can knock on the tour bus doors and get a game going. The closest equivalent to that is when we’re in Europe, we play soccer with our European crew. But those are pitched, deadly matches. And they win…
JOHNNY: There you go-- they win!
TOM: I'm very humble with that. I have no skills on that game, but that is a thing we do regularly over there.
JOHNNY: It just seems that it would be something that you miss.
TOM: I love to come home to it. When we play, it's sort of a controlled atmosphere, one that works. There's no sort of room for that meanness which you can get if it's just a pick up game in Tennessee. There is sort of an understanding that everybody's going to participate and it's one hand touch.
JOHNNY: I think that is the attitude, that everyone really wants to take care of each other. Even if you don't know a person that well, when you start playing you're really on their side. Whether you are on the opposite team or not.
JEN: Yeah, you get psyched when everyone scores. Except for Chumpy. We always like to see him go down. Last but far from least, how about sketching out for the ZYZXX readers what a typical Tom Morello play might be.