Southern's Alexander: Every game a gift

• By PERRYN KEYS
• Advocate sportswriter
• Published: Nov 10, 2009 - Page: 1C

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Every afternoon, Southern tight end Evan Alexander checks into the basement of the F.G. Clark Activity Center, checks his ego at the locker-room door and gets ready for the daily beating.

It comes before practice.

For Alexander, the only sixth-year senior on Southern’s roster, the verbal jabs and cutdowns start early, and they last all afternoon. Teammates call him “Grandpa.” Southern quarterback Bryant Lee said he can still teach the old dog — Alexander — new tricks. Offensive linemen add their own dash of trash, implying the 6-foot-3, 240-pound New Orleans native is such a poor blocker, he can’t slow down a grocery-store checkout line.

Alexander returned to the Jaguars for this. Stranger still, he said he loves it.

“I always knew I was going to come back. Just for the camaraderie of my teammates,” he said. “It’s something that you’ll never get to experience. That everyday grind — there’s nothing like it. It’s like a big family.”

Albeit a strange, silly one.

To be sure, Alexander is nobody’s fool; he has a degree in engineering, and he’s working on a master’s in business administration.

He knows the barrage of insults is a thinly disguised a show of respect.

“He keeps us together. He’s the type of guy that’s going to come out and work,” receiver Juamorris Stewart said. “When it comes to him, you know he’s going to do his part. You know he’s going to be a good teammate and keep us focused.”

Maybe that’s because Alexander knows, better than anyone, what it’s like to lose football.

When training camp began this summer, Alexander hadn’t thrown on a set of shoulder pads in 16 months. He’d already taken one redshirt after he tore the anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) in one knee as a freshman.

Then, during the 2008 spring game, he tore the other one.

The first time, he felt his knee pop. The second time didn’t even hurt that much; it felt more like a sprain.