Football
Messin' With Jim Suits Austin Just Fine, and Visa Versa
By John PorentasYou don't tug on Superman's cape, you don't spit in the wind, you don't pull the mask off the ole' Lone Ranger and you don't mess around with Jim, unless of course, you're Austin Spitler.
Songster Jim Croce died long before Austin Spitler and James Laurinaitis arrived on Campus at Ohio State to play linebacker, but the song lyric applies. Austin Spitler loves messing with James "Big Jim" Laurinaitis, and Laurinaitis feels exactly the same way about Spitler.
Austin "Willie McCoy" Spitler "A very interesting human being is Austin," said a grinning Laurinaitis.
"He's just different.
"You know how you can meet somebody and you can remember somebody who is kind of like that new person?
"I can literally say that I've never met anyone else like that kid.
"I don't know what it is, but he's in his own world. He's always is trying to make you smile," said Laurinaitis.
Laurinaitis and Spitler have gotten to know each other well over the years. They spend hours together on the field and in meetings rooms as fellow linebackers, but they also room together on every Buckeye bowl trip. The mutual admiration between the two is evident when they are in the same room. So is the competitive spirit of each. Laurinaitis and Spitler have their own competition going on, a competition to see who can come up with the most effective but fairly harmless prank on one another. At the moment, Big Jim is the reigning king, though he is not ready to give Spitler the satisfaction of admitting he has been busted for the prank.
"I went to lay in my bed and my bed was all wet, soaked in water, and he still won't 'fess up to it," said a laughing and red-faced Spitler.
Spitler was not about to give Laurinaitis the satisfaction of knowing that he had gotten him, so he did what any red-blooded linebacker would do. He pretended like it didn't bother him a bit.
"Big Jim" James "Dumbo" Laurinaitis
Photo by Jim Davidson"I didn't ask the maids to come change my bed so I slept in a wet bed all night. Basically, I slept in a waterbed," said Spitler who took the opportunity to get some verbal revenge on Laurinaitis.
"He's got big ears. We call him Dumbo all the time," said Spitler.
"At first it kind of got to him a little bit but being the big star that he is now I don't think it bothers him too much."
The competition between the two friends has become legend on the football team.
"It's been going on for four years. It's still going to go on for a long time," laughed senior linebacker Marcus Freeman.
"Austin is a different character. Austin is a guy that the things he says just makes you laugh. The way he says it just makes you laugh.
"He's a guy that is easy to make fun of. Austin is a guy that we'll always remember. He's a guy that makes you laugh when you're so concentrated of football and you get frustrated."
Nobody really said how or when the pranks between the two started, but the relationship between the two is legend on the team.
"He and James prank each other all the time," said Freeman.
"James makes fun of Austin all the time. Austin is a guy who will feel the water, say 'Aw Jimmy, why did you do that?' then go to sleep. Austin doesn't care," Freeman said.
Laurinaitis would not admit to being "gotten" by Spitler ever, but did say that as a true freshman when he and Spitler roomed together they were had by a couple of other Buckeyes. Laurinaitis, of course, blamed Spitler for the incident.
"Ryan Williams and Todd Denlinger got me my freshman year when Spitler and I moved in together," said Laurinaitis.
"Spitler was too lazy to bring his key with him to the facility so he put it up in the ceiling tiles which is just asking for someone to go into our room.
"They went in and took our mattresses and put them outside the window on the patio. They remade our beds perfectly like the maids would with just the box springs. We went to lay down right after practice and we laid down right on the box springs," said Laurinaitis.
It was the beginning of the prank career for both of them.
"We got them back but I won't tell the story how we got them back because I don't think it's appropriate, but got them back pretty good," Laurinaitis said.
Laurinaitis says the mattress prank was the last one that anyone succeeded in putting over on him. That will change if Spitler has anything to say about it, and according to Freeman, Spitler will have his day, sooner or later, and the cycle will start over again.
"I don't think Austin got James back, but Austin doesn't forget," said Freeman.
"It might take him a couple days, a couple weeks, but you'll hear him complaining and something is going to happen. You'll hear James saying 'OK, I'll get you back!' It's going on all year."
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