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RC Everbeck: meet the 48-year-old college football player who never gave up on his dream
(Courtesy: @RCEverbeck/Twitter)

RC Everbeck: meet the 48-year-old college football player who never gave up on his dream

SANTA MONICA, Calif. — Born on Nov. 5th, 1969, Richard Charles Everbeck Jr. attended USC from 1991-95. He graduated with a bachelor’s degree in finance with filmmaking as his minor.

In 2018, this man’s story came to light in some sit-down interviews. This was because as at the time, he was the second oldest college football player. He was 48 years old! You read that right!

At an age where many athletes retire from competing, RC Everbeck chose to rip normative narratives apart. He had decided to chase an acting character earlier in his life. His charismatic persona certainly didn’t go to waste as he spent over three-decade in the industry as an actor and producer. He appeared in several movies over those years, most notably Lie Detector in 2013.

As fate will have it, years later, he took guitar lessons at Santa Monica College. He crossed paths with a friend on his quest to learn how to play the guitar. And as the strings in a guitar strike against each other to create something beautiful, RC Everbeck’s friend stroke his passion for the beautiful sport of football.

In his own words, “I was just taking a class at a time…then my friend told me that I should come play football,” he said. “I was like ‘I can’t, I already used up my eligibility,’ but he goes, ‘Nah, it doesn’t work that way. If you’ve never played football or played a sport at a two-year school, you got two years for life,’ and I was like ‘really?’”

With this huge possibility and opportunity to play football after all these years, Everbeck was told by the college’s athletic director that he could, “technically play football.”

Without hesitation, Everbeck took no chance. He said, “I went to this summer camp and was like, how do I make this team?” He also said. “That was the goal at the time, to make the team, and I did.”

After making the team, he fought for a starting position. At the time, the goal was to defy the odds. He said, “I mean, look, Tom Brady’s gonna play until he’s 45, I’ll show ’em what it’s like to play until you’re 50!”

He eventually won his place on the team and went on to play to the 50, as he stated. His head coach, Kelly Ledwith, had a lot of praise for his work ethic and its effect on the team.

“RC was already part of the program when I joined last spring, and I just started coaching him as we went through the spring workouts,” Ledwith said. “I was impressed by his work ethic and desire to learn everything he could about the game and how we wanted to do things.”

This dedication emanated from the passion for the game that drove his mission.

In RC Everbeck’s first season with the team, he spent quite a lot of time playing on special teams before he was given the nod for his first start. This start was in a game against Moorpark. He was certainly excited and elated about the experience, “It was the best feeling ever because you worked hard for it, and it motivated me for next season, and now the training that I do is pretty crazy.”

He went on to say, “I’m up at 3:45 in the morning, and I’m at the track at 4:15, and I workout until seven. So, every 12 hours during the week, I’m doing another heavy workout. I think a lot of athletes have that mentality. You find out what the shortcomings are, and if you’re a true athlete, you work on that.”

And from his longevity, Everbeck sure worked on his.

Back then, he also mentioned the highlights of his young football career. Among these moments was the first start of his career. He said, “The next one was taking my helmet off and saluting the flag to ‘The Star-Spangled Banner.’ I got teary-eyed about that one, I’m a real American, and ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’ means a lot to me.

Everbeck said, “I’m not reliving glory days; I’m making them right now.”

These words from the then 48-year-old Santa Monica College defensive back are powerful and inspiring. A testament to chase and never give up on your dream.

This is an unedited user writing submission. The views, information, or opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of Best Version Media or its employees.