For seniors who may be unsure about their plans after graduation, the question always lingers. It echoes from the tonsils of elderly family members and scarcely-seen acquaintances alike: “So what are you doing next year?”
This question leaves soon-to-be college grads feeling like they’ve been punched in the stomach, but for Hoya football players Matt Bassuener and Brent Craft, that question just got a whole lot easier to answer. The socked-in-the-gut sensation won’t be going away anytime soon, though. It comes with the territory when you play professional football, and both Bassuener and Craft will be continuing their football careers in the minor-league version of the Arena Football League. The two friends have signed contracts and will soon be playing for the AFL2’s Louisville Fire in Kentucky.
Tired from an evening of workouts and classes, both spent part of their Tuesday night slouched between the grimy couch cushions of their 33rd Street townhouse watching tape of their new team. No surprise there. Bassuener is well-known to his Georgetown teammates for being a video fanatic. In the darkly-lit living room (hey, they have utilities to pay), the setting was similar to that of a Georgetown film room. But instead of holding the remote, Bassuener was sewing a hole in a pair of jeans owned by senior Darren Alberti, cornerback on the football team. His glossy-eyed stare dissected something other than the tendencies of the “jack” linebacker—a position specific to Arena League football.
The TV screen that lit Bassuener and Craft’s tired faces was projecting a part of what will be their lives for the next two or three years. Louisville. Freedom Hall. Arena Football. Louisville’s a place where the receivers get running starts, players are pinned up against walls and passes are live off the netting behind the end zones.
The friends believe Arena football will fit their specific skill sets. Accuracy and quickness rule this league, not cannon arms and break-away speed. Still, everything will take some getting used to.
Last weekend, Craft and the rest of his housemates threw a surprise going away party for Bassuener, who will be heading to the Fire’s preseason camp for two-a-days starting March 10. He graduated from the School of Foreign Service at the end of the fall semester and has since been working for the NFL Players’ Association.
A giant poster with Bassuener’s picture set against a flaming backdrop (courtesy of the Louisville Fire website) covered one wall of the living room as part of the decorations, while the opposite wall bared an illustrated timeline of all the stops in the road the quarterback has had on his way to Louisville. Wisconsin, Finland, Ohio, Mexico and Washington are all there.
“It’s going to be tough,” Bassuener said of leaving campus two months before his other friends and teammates. “I’ve been a lot of places, so the moving to a new place isn’t bad. But you spend the last four years here and you get connected.”
Luckily for him, come May, the familiar face of his favorite receiver will be joining him in Louisville. Craft postmarked his signed AFL2 contract on Monday and plans to hop a plane fresh out of his cap and gown to join the team—that is, if he doesn’t join some of his other housemates on the first leg of their post-graduation cross-country trip. Georgetown’s graduation weekend does mark the beginning of the Fire’s bye week, after all.
But Bassuener, who will have a legitimate shot at becoming the Fire’s starter right away, will be itching to have Craft around. Fixtures on the Multi-Sport Field throwing to each other after dark, the teammates have a priceless connection that they believe will help them continue to excel in the Arena game.
It all started during a swampy August on the Hilltop when the two first met as walk-ons. Craft was the team’s last receiver on the depth chart and Bassuener was forced to play defensive back since his chances at landing the job of field general were slim.
“I thought he was a weirdo,” Craft said. “He was always wearing tie-dye shirts to practice and the coaches would make fun of him.”
The two have since become each-others’ go-to friend on the football team. Craft has brought Bassuener to his home in Florida while Bassuener showed Craft a fiesta down in Monterrey, Mexico—the place where the Wisconsin boy played football for a year.
Between the road trips on I-95 and running routes in The Yard, Craft helped Bassuener to Hoya single-season records of 211 completions and 67 percent passing last season. Craft reeled in 29 passes and one touchdown, several of which peppered his highlight tape and looked acrobatic enough to warrant attention from several AFL2 teams.
“Louisville seemed like the best fit for me because the coaches showed a lot of interest,” Craft said. “But when Matt decided to go there that helped my decision a lot because we work so well together and we’re always pushing each other to get better.”
The goal for both, ultimately, is to be like Kurt. Warner, that is, the NFL quarterback who went from stocking grocery shelves and playing Arena football to winning a SuperBowl in 1999.
AFL2 teams pay their players just $250 dollars a week, but these Georgetown grads won’t be nixing their diplomas to ring registers any time soon. Bassuener is in the process of taking the Foreign Service exam and will be looking to use his fluency in Spanish and Portuguese to land a corporate job in the Louisville area. Craft, who graduates from the McDonough School of Business in May, is thinking of using his athletic-training experience and entrepreneurial skill to start a speed camp for high school athletes. He’ll try and rope Bassuener into the endeavor, too.
Whatever the pursuit, their time as Hoya teammates and friends will have them off to a running start.
