CHULA VISTA, Calif. -- At 55 years-old, a Chula Vista man living in his van decided to try playing organized football for the first time.
Dave Wade started college four years ago and signed up for a summer football training class at Southwestern College.
“I've always wanted to play but I never got that opportunity,” Wade said. “One day, Coach Ed Carberry saw me run sprints and said, ‘Oh, he runs pretty good and I like his energy.’”
Wade asked Carberry if he could try out for the team.
“Next thing you know, we're lining up for physicals and there's Dave,” Carberry said. “And I go, ‘OK. We’ll see what’s going to happen.”
Wade started participating in practices. When Carberry found out that he was 55-years-old, he couldn’t believe it.
Coach Carberry, just two years older than Wade, eventually gave the rookie a spot on the kickoff coverage team. Wade played in a game for the first time on October 8 against San Bernadino Valley College.
“I was nervous and I was scared,” Wade said. “I just said, ‘Okay, just focus in. Run as fast as you can. Try to make the tackle.’”
What happened next will quite possibly go down as the stiff-arm heard around Southwestern.
“The guy kicks the ball,” Wade said. “I run down there as fast as I can and out of the corner of my eye I see this guy running up the middle super-fast with the ball. The guy had me beat so all I did was stick my left arm out. I caught him right underneath the chin strap and clotheslined him. The guy just went straight down.”
“The team erupted and started slapping me on the helmet,” he said. “It was great. I'd never felt a feeling like that. It was really fun.”
Wade earned Southwestern’s Special Teams Player of the Week honors for his tackle.
“Everybody on the bench went nuts,” Carberry added. “We're on the field, the officials wanted to give us a delay-of-game penalty. And we go, ‘No, no you can't do that it's Dave.’”
Besides his age, Wade has overcome a great deal to play with the Jaguars. Most glaring is the fact that he is homeless and lives out of a van in the Southwestern College parking lot.
A carpenter before he lost his job due to the poor economy in 2007, Wade converted a 1995 van into his home, where he says he has lived for the past four years.
He built wood boxes to hold his tools, school supplies and some food and water. He cut a piece of foam to make a mattress that he puts on the floor of the van for sleeping.
“I'm not going to be here forever,” Wade said. “That's why I'm trying to get this degree and get out of here and just move forward.”
He receives grants and loans that cover his tuition and other expenses. He said he eats mostly at inexpensive fast-food places or with the team.
Wade said he plans to graduate from City College next year with a degree in manufacturing engineering which he hopes leads to a job, and a more permanent place to live.
“I just felt I needed to do something different,” Wade said. “I thought to myself, ‘Well the more you know the more chances you have of getting a job.’”
Wade became an inspiration to the Jaguars who finished their season last Saturday. The 5-foot, 6-inches, 170-pounder said he tore his rotator cuff and ruptured a tendon in his finger while playing. He also said he learned far more than just how to take a beating.
“Don't look at somebody and start making assessments on them,” Wade said. “Just wait till you talk to them and find out about them before you even say anything. That's mostly what I've learned.”
