MEMPHIS – And it’s a movie you’ll want to see, a cross between Straight Outta Compton and The Notebook, they say. But wait, remember the time Paxton Lynch got too jacked up about his dynasty in a football video game?
“He gets out of bed and full-speed jumps as high as he can – the full 36-inch combine vertical – and busts his head on the ceiling light and completely knocks himself out,” said Jason Stewart, Lynch’s former Memphis teammate and roommate. “I went from laughing to like, ‘Oh, God, is he OK?’”
“Genuine fear?” asked Drew Bishop, grinning across the table.
“Oh yeah, 100% fear,” Stewart said.
“You really hit that thing hard,” Daniel Montiel said to Lynch, who grabbed another bite from a plate of nachos.
“What can you say?” Lynch deadpanned. “You win the national championship with Georgia Tech – I wanted those players to see how excited I was for them.”
On Thursday night, Lynch is expected to be a first-round pick in the NFL draft – a 6-foot-7, 244-pound lump of quarterback clay whose big arm and rare athletic traits capture the imagination of coaches and scouts projecting his potential in a pro-style offense.
But to really get to know Lynch, you have to come to this basketball-loving city, a few blocks from the stadium where he made people notice the football team with 19 wins and consecutive bowl bids the past two years, to the patio at Central BBQ, and try to keep up with the foursome that calls itself “The 102.”
It’s a bromance they believe is destined for the big screen, built on a seemingly endless string of inside jokes and stories over more than two years not only in the same locker room, but living under the same roof.
“We’ve got the creative genius, we’ve got the smarts, the athleticism,” Bishop said, pointing at Stewart, Montiel, Lynch, then himself, “and the looks.”
“Yeah, that’s about all he’s got going for him,” Lynch said, before the conversation turned to more serious subjects, such as which animal you’d rather tangle with to win a million dollars.
It started with Bishop, a receiver who lived with Lynch as freshmen; then Montiel, a tight end who met Lynch the following summer; and finally Stewart, a quarterback who moved into Apartment 102 in the Carpenter Complex on campus after transferring in the spring of 2014, before they all relocated to the rundown house on Kearney Avenue.
“As soon as I saw (Lynch) throw, I knew I wasn’t going to touch the field,” Stewart said. “But every day going to practice was the funnest time ever.”
They can be compelled to talk some football – namely Stewart, who defends Lynch on the question NFL teams raise (Can he pick up an offense, call plays in the huddle and process what he’s seeing?) by expounding on Lynch’s football smarts, the protection checks he had to make and his knack for picking up weekly tweaks to the playbook.
But it’s never long before someone brings up the time they laughed their heads off at a monkey documentary in an otherwise-empty theater, or the victory party that caused the living-room floor to slump, or the 300 stars on the too-low ceiling in Lynch’s upstairs room, or their morning routine.
Once Lynch got everyone awake – Montiel by opening the door, Stewart with a knock, Bishop by grabbing his big toe – they’d ride to the facility in Lynch’s Chevy Suburban and eat breakfast at the same table. They’d have dinner together on Thursday nights before games, phones stacked on the table to eliminate distractions, after deciding where to go with a round-robin coin flip set to the Who Wants To Be a Millionaire? music.
They’d attend each other’s class presentations, camp out in a tent in the backyard, play Xbox 360 golf tournaments for the rights to wear Montiel’s (green) high school letter jacket, sometimes just stare at the wall and have the time of their lives, the four of them and no one else.
“It’s not closed off,” Lynch said. There are additional, honorary members of The 102. But the bond between these four is so close it’s easy to see that, as Lynch said, “It’s a lot to put up with.” (Related: Yes, all four are single.)
When Lynch declared for the draft on New Year’s Eve, Montiel had already left town, so he FaceTimed in on Bishop’s iPhone. That’ll be them on TV at Lynch’s side on draft night at a bowling alley near his hometown of Deltona, Fla.
“Teams have asked me if I’m going to bring anybody” after getting drafted, Lynch said. “I was like, yeah, if I could, I would. But obviously I can’t, because they’ve got ball still.”
While Lynch trained in Orlando and visited teams, Stewart, Bishop and Montiel were in spring ball, each with one year of eligibility remaining. They’ve already signed a new lease and calculated the extra rent, since they’re not letting anyone else move into Lynch’s room.
Long-distance bromances aren’t easy, though.
“The group (text) helps a lot,” Stewart said. “I’m blowing his phone up all the time.”
Once Lynch blows up as an NFL rookie, everyone figures, maybe they’ll find jobs in the same city. Then Stewart can finish the script. And they’ll meet Ice Cube and get him to sign on to direct. And they’ll see if Leonardo DiCaprio or Brad Pitt will play Lynch, who’s unfazed that both seem 20 years too old and 7 inches too short for the role.
It won’t be Entourage, they insist – three guys following around one star. “We all bring our own things to the table,” Bishop said.
Which reminds Lynch no one has given a “Good evening Memphis!” today, so Stewart walks to the edge of the patio and screams the words at the top of his lungs, adding “I feel like a million bucks!” and a guy clearing dishes nearby says “Me too, dude,” and everybody cracks up, and …
Follow Tom Pelissero on Twitter @TomPelissero.
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