MAMA?S BOY
Tough love helped prepare Dublin native Brady Quinn for the challenge of being Notre Dame quarterback
Friday, September 15, 2006
Rob Oller
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH
Robin Quinn learned to deal with losses in her life, an ability she passed on to her children.
Only the mop of hair looks flustered. Under it, Brady Quinn remains the level quarterback shaped by a mother as tender as commercial-grade sandpaper.
Many athlete-parent relationships follow a pattern of demanding father and doting mother. Brady and his mother, Robin, put that pattern to death. Ty Quinn taught his son never to settle; Robin told him to settle down.
Whenever Brady whined, Robin went to work.
When a young Brady went to pieces watching a documentary about a boy who died after being hit in the chest by a baseball, it was mom who worked him through it to pitch again.
And it was Robin who stood silent when a 6-year-old Brady looked up during a wrestling match and croaked, "Mom, he?s trying to cut off my air supply," as an opponent put him in a headlock.
"He wanted to quit after that. I told him that Quinns aren?t quitters and that he had to finish the season," she said. "I?m not one to pass out warm and fuzzies to my kids. I?m not diplomatic, but I am honest."
The brutal honesty honed Brady, from uptight Dublin adolescent into more stable starting quarterback at Notre Dame. As the No. 2 Fighting Irish prepare to play host to Michigan on Saturday, Quinn qualifies as one of the most emotionally-level players to set foot on the field, steeled by a lifetime of constructive criticism rather than coddling.
As a quarterback at Dublin Coffman, Quinn would mutter after throwing an interception, only to catch Robin?s stern expression as he left the field.
"It was like, ?Whew, there?s my mom,? " Robin said, recalling Brady?s shivering reaction.
Robin?s tough love hardened him for what was to come: two difficult seasons of physical punishment and mental stress as a freshman and sophomore starter at Notre Dame, followed by the past two years of having to stomach the stinging comments cast his way by coach Charlie Weis.
"I?m looking for his best material now," Quinn said of Weis? wisecracks. "I feel I can always take it. My mom is someone who has always been pretty critical of me, more than anyone else when I was growing up, so it?s been kind of easy for me to, I guess, take criticism from coach Weis."
Instead of melting under such criticism, the perfectionist son, a chip off the perfectionist mother, has thrived by turning Weis? negatives into positives. It?s not only Brady?s physical tools that have enabled him to become a leading Heisman Trophy candidate, but also his ability to remain cool under pressure. He neither gets too high nor sinks too low, whether throwing for 287 yards and three touchdowns in a 41-17 win against Penn State last week or struggling with 246 yards without a TD in a 14-10 win over Georgia Tech the week before.
"I like to be focused, calm and even-keeled as far as my emotions," he said in a teleconference Wednesday from South Bend, Ind. "Take the good and bad the same."
Two days earlier and 275 miles away in a Sawmill Road coffee shop, the tree sounded a lot like the apple that has not fallen far from it: "I?m going to be 50," Robin Quinn said. "You get to the point where you?ve seen a lot in life and is it worth getting yourself all worked up about? "
Not if you are mother and son Quinn, who are cut from the same emotional cloth ? burlap.
Robin never cries after ND wins and losses. Brady seldom smiles during games. Never has, although his mother senses that he enjoys himself more than he used to.
"I think growing up maybe I was too serious," he said. "At the same time, that seriousness is necessary when you?re playing (quarterback)."
Robin thinks her son is a bit obsessive-compulsive; Brady counters that it takes one to know one.
"I?m sure (mom) is pretty uptight like that, too," he said.
But uptight should not be confused with tyrant.
Yes, Robin still lives by the philosophy that "it will feel better when it quits hurting," which was instilled in her by her father, Scott Slates, who used to chuckle when his daughter threw up during high school track practice in rural Carrollton, Ohio.
But the tough-love approach is heavier on love than tough. Underneath the armor exterior is a mother, wife and family confidant who is always available to listen ? and talk.
"I still call home and talk about different things with her, at least a couple times a week. She likes to talk, too, but I don?t have the hours for that," said Brady, flashing the trademark Quinn wit.
"He talks to me because he wants the honest opinion," Robin said. "There can be reasoning, but don?t make excuses."
The discussions date to when mother drove son around Ohio to play in baseball tournaments. They would talk school, girls, sports and faith, a bulwark of the Quinn family.
"My kids get that life isn?t perfect, that God has a plan for you and there are going to be good times and bad times and it?s how you get through it that matters," she said.
Brady, his younger sister Kelly and older sister Laura, who recently married former Ohio State linebacker A.J. Hawk, come by their compassion honestly.
"The principle of my family goes way back," Robin said, explaining that her father turned down college scholarship offers to take care of his father, who suffered from multiple sclerosis.
"I was 9 years old and looking at bedsores on my grandpa?s body. I grew up around a lot of misfortune," she said.
Robin also has experienced a lot of pain. Her father died in a car crash in 1991 at age 55. When she was 20, in 1977, her first husband suffered a brain aneurysm and died seven weeks later. In the 1990s, she and Ty lost five close relatives within a five-year period.
There is sadness but no bitterness over those losses, no waving an angry fist at God, no wallowing in pity or whining about the unfairness of it all. There is only the placing of one foot in front of the other and the expectation that our abilities should intersect with a divine plan.
It?s why Robin Quinn does not tolerate taking the easy way and why every week she writes a note to Brady that contains a Bible verse and her own personal encouragement.
"I remind him that this is by design and that you work to perfect the talent that has been God-given to you," she said.
And if anyone misses the mark? Don?t come crying to Robin Quinn. She doesn?t want to hear it.
But her son does.
"When Brady first left for college, he wrote me the sweetest e-mail," she said. "He commented that ?Sometimes you give me a hard time, but I love you and think you helped prepare me for what my life is about.? "
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I can't recall seeing a bigger whiner ever. I suppose we were supposed to say "Notra-Dame" was still the better team even after we reemed them, and that we all wish we could have gone to "Notra Dame" instead of our horribly ineffectual state school. I love it...a new coaching hire gives them visions of never losing another game, and when it becomes obvious they still can't win a significant game with Saint Charlie, they whine about how other fans point that out. 
