Why Men Need Meatheads

How Steve Lattimer inspired me to embrace my barbarian instincts, celebrate my masculinity, and find brotherhood.

It’s Thanksgiving Weekend, Barbarians!  It’s time for Family, Food, and Football – a game that continues to serve me long after I stopped playing.

Playing football was always a privilege.  Despite my aging body continuing to ache and break, I still look back on those barbarian days with fondness.  It was a time of heavy weights, cut-off sleeves, daily violence, and 2,000 calorie “fat shakes.”  A brief and glorious span of time, where gaining weight was prized and losing weight was despised. The perfect time to be a meathead. 

Meatheads

Of all the barbarian splinter groups, meatheads are by far my favorite. Like all barbarians, meatheads live with Vigor, Wonder, and Fellowship.  But it’s how meatheads live that really sets them apart.  In the simplest terms, what makes a meathead a meathead is his style.

Meats aren’t just strong, they’re loud and strong -- often grunting during workouts and the occasional keg toss.  Next, meatheads are extreme. Moderation is their kryptonite. Living life at full throttle is their drug.  And finally, let’s talk fashion. Meatheads dress in a way best defined as “barbarian chic.”  They (okay, let’s be honest), WE love wearing bandanas, jewelry, tight shirts, tight jeans, tight everything.  

Because of their in-your-face style, young men (like the 17-year-old me) are drawn to meatheads. That's because young men are hungry for inspiration, and meatheads (on TV, in movies, at the gym) feed that hunger like a 32-ounce steak. They have extreme muscles, extreme intensity, and extreme personalities. And those extremes grab our attention.

Of all the meatheads I’ve loved and emulated, there is one (other than Arnold) who stands above the rest.  His name is Steve Lattimer, his nickname is “Lats,” and he’s arguably the greatest meathead in cinematic history.  Here’s how he inspired me so long ago to get fit, go feral, and find a tribe of barbarians who wanted to do the same.

Earn Your Place at the Table

I was barely seventeen when I first watched The Program, a 1993 movie about big-time college football. Sitting in the theater with some high school pals, I recall a scene early in the film when the team’s starting quarterback joins a few teammates at a bar just before the football season begins. Turning to Lats, the quarterback comments on how noticeably bigger he looks since they last saw each other. 

Looking like he just stepped out of a comic book with long Viking hair, cut-off sleeves, and a pagan cross wrapped around his bulging neck, Steve “Lats” Lattimer turned to his quarterback and said he was tired of riding the bench, so he spent the summer in the gym, packing on thirty-five pounds of muscle. Beer in hand, the square-jawed Lats stared at his teammates and declared his intention: he would start this year.

Fast forward to their late summer training camp. After one hard-hitting practice—featuring the now-outlawed Oklahoma Drill and Bull in the Ring—the camera pans across players sprawled out on the locker room floor groaning from pain and exhaustion. And then… oh but then… we begin to hear faint sounds of grunting and the sweet clanging of forty-five-pound metal plates.

As the camera leaves the locker room and enters the weight room, we see the soon-to-be starting defensive end for the ESU Timberwolves, Steve Lattimer, murdering 315 pounds on overhead presses. After his final rep, Lats drops the weight, dry heaves, and kicks the barbell aside. A wide-eyed coach, watching from a distance, remarks with equal trepidation and excitement that Lattimer is now behaving like an animal.

A few scenes later we see a finger sliding down a list of names on the team bulletin board. Anyone who has ever played college football knows this list. It’s the depth chart and it’s the most honest piece of paper you will ever see. The depth chart tells you (and the entire team) exactly where you stand in the pecking order of talent. Are you first-string, second-string, fifth string? And when you are fifth string, what are you gonna do about it? How hard will you work to move up?

Every morning, a new depth chart is posted, and sometimes there’s a change. The message: If you ease off today, tomorrow you might find yourself a notch down—replaced by a hungrier, more savage teammate.

As the finger slides down the depth chart, it stops at one name: Lattimer. “Yes!” Lats snarls with a closed fist. “Wooooooooo!” he screams with glee, busting out of the locker room door and into the parking lot where he begins smashing his head into car windows to celebrate.

With blood pouring down his face, he raises his arms in victory. After years of busting his ass, after years of seeing other names above his, Lattimer finally earned his place around the tribal fire, and he celebrates like a meathead should—loud, aggressive, and completely over-the-top.

Lats’ spectacle of broken glass, spilled blood, and raised fists of glory is an extreme exaggeration, and that’s the point. Moderation is the enemy of inspiration. Extreme behavior inspires us to great feats. Think Jocko Wilink training at 4:30 a.m., Hafþór “The Mountain” Björnsson deadlifting eleven hundred pounds, or Tom “the Quadfather” Platz squatting 525 pounds for twenty-three reps.

When we see these extreme feats (particularly when we’re young), we’re inspired to go nuclear with our goals.

A Chance to Be Somebody

The night before their first game, Lattimer’s head coach asks his players what they like most about football. Gathered with his teammates, Lattimer reflects on football as a proving ground—a place of battle, courage, and brotherhood. Within this closed world, he and his teammates are set apart, respected for their strength and daring. Stepping into the violent arena, each of them can be somebody special. As a result, Lats expresses a deep gratitude for football because it is an experience and a brotherhood that he has earned. Through football, Steve Lattimer feels special and loved.

In the next scene just before kickoff, Lats is smearing his face with war paint in the locker room, inspired by pictures of Native American warriors pinned on his locker. As Lats prepares himself for battle, the team’s All-American linebacker Alvin Mack walks up to him. They stand face-to-face, staring at each other like two barbarians about to sack Rome. The doo-ragged Alvin slams his fists on Lats’ shoulder pads. Face-painted Lats slams his fists back on Alvin’s pads. Then Alvin spits in Lats’ mouth. Lats spits back into Alvin’s mouth.

It’s gross and totally fucked up, and at seventeen I loved it! At that moment in that movie theater in Middletown, Rhode Island, I went all-in on my Lattimer stock. I wanted to lift like Lats, hit like Lats, look like Lats, and have teammates like Lats. I wanted to join a tribe of savages and be somebody special.

Focus on the Positive

If you’ve seen The Program, you know Steve Lattimer is no choir boy. He did some awful stuff in that movie, like assaulting a woman—which the movie, of course, blamed on steroids.

After the head coach suspends Lats and orders him to quit the roids, the star linebacker, Alvin Mack, scolds Lats for taking the drugs. Yet, Lats pushed back, telling Mack that because he lacked the linebacker’s athleticism he had to go to extremes to earn his spot on the starting lineup. 

Lats dreamed of playing big-time college football. He worked his ass off for three years and never started a game. Then he had one year left. One year for the rest of his life. So he took the roids, trained like a demon, and earned his place at the table. 

As a teenager, I wasn’t looking for morality. I was looking for inspiration. When I saw Lats, I ignored his negatives and focused on his positives.

By focusing on his positives, I saw a young man who transformed himself from weak to strong, from backup to starter, from normal to savage—and did it with a swaggering meathead style that inspired me to pursue my goals like a charging rhino.

From Boyhood to Manhood to Brotherhood

For eons, the role of young men has been to keep the wolf away.  We men have evolved biologically to seek danger, embrace violence, crave brotherhood, and yes, occasionally do some boastful stupid shit.

But what happens when the world turns modern and civilized? What happens when we’re born into a more gender-neutral society where roles for young men are no longer defined or valued?  What happens when young men (in places like America, though not in Ukraine) are told that their traditional roles as hunters, warriors, and protectors are no longer needed?  What then? 

Well, then is now. Because every week I see another article, book, or speech about how young American men are more alone, obese, and unhappy than ever before. So what can be done? Who can save them?

Meatheads can save them.

Through their style, swagger, and intensity, meatheads like Lattimer can seize a young man’s attention and inspire him to pick up the weights, lace up the cleats, and attack life like a charging rhino. To avoid what is easy and do what is hard. To get out of the house, to find a tribe, set some goals, and celebrate their masculinity -- just as nature intended. 

When your evolutionary virtues of strength and courage are put to the test through contact sports like football, you get an opportunity to prove yourself to other young men. When they see your strength, courage, and toughness, they are drawn to you, just as you are drawn to them for the same reasons. This is how brotherhoods are formed -- it’s how they’ve always formed, from prehistory to today. The world can change all it wants, but what brings men together will never change.   

When you go through a brick wall with other guys – and have some fun along the way – you never forget the guys you did it with.  Doing crazy and intense shit together is how young men form bonds – bonds that can last a lifetime.

Brotherhood - 25 Years Later

The results of these bonds is a lasting tribe – a tribe whose members grow together, love one another, and celebrate their masculinity together. A tribe of big hugs, strong drinks, bad jokes, and the occasional meathead act that brings us even closer together – like this one from my college roommate and teammate, 25 years after we graduated.

Nature makes the rules for us men. All we can do is follow.  

Thanks Lats (and Greg) for leading the way.