IT DOESN’T TAKE MUCH FOR STEVE ODABASHIAN TO CHANNEL EAGLES HEAD COACH ANDY REID. BUT PHILLY FANS CAN’T GET ENOUGH.
by Daniel McQuade
PW-Philadelphia Weekly, PA
3
Oct 31 2007
Headset of the Class
"Yo, Andy. You gonna run the ball today?"
Tailgating before an Eagles game sometimes starts before the sun is
up. By two hours before game time-and on the Sunday before the Bears
game earlier this month, which had a 4:15 start-the parking lots
around Lincoln Financial Field are a sea of green-painted buses,
4-by-6 Eagles flags and beer cans.
In the center of it all, dressed in an Eagles coat, a Motorola headset
and a pair of small glasses is Eagles coach Andy Reid. Wait.
He only looks a lot like Eagles coach Andy Reid.
His name is actually Steve Odabashian, and he just plays Andy Reid.
Nearly everybody in the parking lot is wearing some sort of Eagles
paraphernalia. There must be millions of dollars spent each year
on official T-shirts, hats, jerseys, flags and giant inflatable
cartoon-style Eagles players, not to mention all the money spent on
nonofficial items-bootleg T-shirts and enough green paint to cover
an entire school bus. There are even flat-screen TVs propped up on
the sides of RVs.
Double trouble: Andy Reid (above) sometimes doesn’t enjoy being Andy
Reid as much as Steve Odabashian (below) does.
Some tailgaters have it down to a science: a giant Mack truck, complete
with foldout awning, covering a living room setup costing thousands
of dollars. The tailgaters range from couples in complementary
jerseys-say, a Donovan McNabb and a Reggie Brown-drinking a six-pack of
Natty Ice in the back of their Toyota to a double-decker bus roaming
around the Wachovia Complex parking lot to corporate-style tailgating
packages bought off websites.
On this unseasonably warm afternoon Odabashian, 38, is dressed in
a winter Eagles coat and long pants. He has an Eagles polo shirt on
underneath, but because "it doesn’t really look as good," he keeps
the coat on for the character.
Hey, nobody said playing Andy Reid was easy.
"Yo, Andy!" a man yells as Odabashian walks through the Spectrum
parking lot. "You gonna run the ball this week?"
Steve Odabashian is really smart.
You don’t graduate from law school and pass the Jeopardy! test four
times without being a little knowledgeable.
Steve Odabashian as Andy Reid.
But growing up, he wasn’t all that adept at schoolwork. He focused
on sports-he wrestled and threw the discus in high school-watched
the Eagles like everybody else and, frankly, didn’t like to read.
"Every excuse I come up with isn’t going to be valid," he says. "But
I don’t like to read for pleasure." A 1987 graduate of Lower Merion
High School, he knew he was headed to college, but it didn’t look like
it would be one of the premier schools like the University of Virginia.
"The application was a complete joke," he remembers. "In the last
section, which asked if there was anything else I wanted to add,
I wrote, ‘I do not like to read. My favorite movies are History of
the World Part I and Revenge of the Nerds. I enjoy backgammon.’ When
I got waitlisted, I wrote the letter asking them to still consider
me in green ink."
Somehow Odabashian got in. But after a college career full of skipped
classes-"There was always a party to go to or a Saved by the Bell
episode to watch"-Odabashian didn’t expect much to follow. But by
the time he was a senior in college he says he had test-taking down
to a science. A few weeks of studying, and he had an LSAT score
that would gain him acceptance to a top-10 law school-if he had the
grades. He didn’t, but he did get into a few quality law schools,
including Rutgers-Camden.
Having grown up on the Main Line, Odabashian wanted to study law
at Villanova. When he was waitlisted, he did the only sensible
thing: He showed up at every orientation session, attended every
get-to-know-you Villanova mixer, and went to mock classes during
orientation. Eventually everybody at Villanova-including the dean of
the law school-knew who he was and how he was trying to ingratiate
himself to get accepted. Everyone who heard his story thought it was
just ridiculous enough to work. He says half the class wanted him in
the school.
On orientation day, his birthday, there was a keg party. It was
getting late. People had been drinking. He got a message: The dean
wanted to talk to him.
"I realized at that point I was in," Odabashian says. "There was no
way the dean wanted to talk to me if I wasn’t getting in."
He says he just really wanted to go to Villanova. "I don’t want to
use a cliche," he says, "but I just had to go for it."
Odabashian became president of Villanova Law student government,
and was a top student.
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Nobody ever said Eagles fans-especially drunk fans, especially drunk
fans turning out to watch a sub-.500 Eagles team-are nice.
Steve Odabashian has taken some shit.
"Yo, Andy!" a man yells. "Why are your kids so fucked up?"
As most every Philadelphian knows by now, two of Andy Reid’s
sons have had their share of troubles. Britt Reid, 21, got into
a confrontation with another driver and admitted to brandishing a
gun during an argument. And that same day Reid’s son Garrett, 23,
crashed into another motorist in Plymouth Township, later admitting
he was on heroin at the time of the accident.
Because the headlines keep coming, Odabashian has gotten a lot of
static about Andy Reid’s sons.
"Everyone thinks they’re the first person to come up with yelling
that," he says after getting heckled.
He can’t say much in response-it would be breaking character. But he
does have a couple lines he routinely uses, suggesting, for instance,
he’ll call "chicken cheesesteak" in the next game as he reads off
his play chart-actually a pizza menu.
He’s had to work on it, but his impression of Reid has become
near-perfect. "Most people try to do his voice too deep," he says.
On this day, though, the references to Reid’s sons are relatively
few. The No. 1 thing shouted-by roughly a 5-to-1 margin, even over "Can
your sons get me some heroin?"-is whether he plans to run the ball.
Odabashian likes Reid, both as a coach and from the few times he’s
met him. Reid smiled broadly-about as excited as he gets-the first
time he saw Odabashian in character.
He has a couple of the usual complaints about Reid most Eagles fans
have: His drafts have been hit-or-miss, he’s excellent at preparation
but not as good on game day. Odabashian says he hasn’t followed
the troubles of Reid’s sons much, hearing about them mostly through
strangers’ yells.
Apparently Philadelphians don’t really care all that much about
the trouble Reid’s sons get into-they’re adults, after all. But not
running the ball? That’s unacceptable to Eagles fans.
Reid has been vilified on and off in the media and on sports talk radio
for not running the ball for years, and since fans rarely-if ever-get
a chance to yell at Reid himself, his impersonator will have to do.
When Odabashian enters the stadium dressed as Andy Reid, he sings
with the ubiquitous local cover band Mr. Greengenes, which sets up
just inside the stadium. Search YouTube, and you’ll see a video of
Odabashian thrashing around onstage with them, singing.
The fan favorite is a modified version of "Should I Stay or Should
I Go?" with the lyrics "Should I Run or Should I Throw?"
The fans usually want him to run.
When the game’s in progress, Odabashian just mills around the stadium,
looking for friends and posing for fan photos. Most of the security
guards know him by now, and he grabs open seats, moving when he
needs to.
"I’m kind of just like a seat filler at the Oscars," he says.
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After graduating from law school, Odabashian worked as a defense
attorney in what he describes as "a faceless, bland Philadelphia law
firm." After a year Odabashian, who’d never before left the country-"I
didn’t even have a passport"-left for a four-month stint in Japan to
work at a law firm.
He later returned to Japan with no job and no place to live. Tokyo
is expensive, but Odabashian persevered. He eventually found a job at
a Tokyo law firm, doing what he calls "the easiest job in the world."
Basically, he says, law firms in Tokyo that do business in the United
States usually want one American on staff to handle any American things
they might need. For example, he explains, "They’d come to me with
a letter that needed to be addressed to Frank. I’d tell them Frank
is a man. Sometimes with names like Terry, it could go either way,
so we’d address it ‘To whom it may concern.’
"My job was to sit there and be American. I was like a mascot."
In Japan Odabashian began playing piano professionally. He’d always
played the piano, studying at the Bryn Mawr Conservatory as a child
and taking lessons until he was 18. He fell into a job playing piano
in Japan, and became a popular player at an Irish pub in Tokyo.
"The smallest bill in Japan is 1,000 yen, which was then about eight
bucks," he says. "So unless they wanted to give me coins, the tips
were great."
Today Odabashian plays Fridays at Cascamorto, a piano bar at 20th and
Arch streets. Though he didn’t sing much in Japan, he’ll now play or
sing whatever the customer wants.
On a recent night the only song request he turned down was the Super
Mario Bros. theme, choosing to play the Pac-Man intro music on the
piano instead. (He even adds in the "wah wah wah wah" dot-eating
noise with his mouth afterward.)
He plays by ear, so the real question, he says, is, "Can I sing
it?"-not "Can I play it?" His set list is full of old and new rock
and pop tunes-he doesn’t want to play show tunes or standards, or
jazz. The top of his playlist contains the phrase, "If you don’t see
what you want on this list, please request it anyway."
His "partial playlist" has everything from the Animals’ "House of
the Rising Sun" to Pearl Jam’s "Jeremy" to Radiohead’s "Creep" and
"Karma Police" to Rupert Holmes’ "Escape," aka "The Piña Colada
Song." He knows all the words to that one too.
When he plays "Rock Me Amadeus," he pulls out a Mozart-style wig and
goes from the Falco song immediately to singing the preamble of the
Constitution. His voice isn’t the best-he says he’s gotten better-but
he knows how to put on a great show, which is really what you want
at a Friday happy hour.
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Oddly enough, Steve Odabashian doesn’t really look like Andy
Reid-except when he’s being Andy Reid.
When you first meet him-as Steve the comedian, or Steve the lawyer,
or Steve the pianist-the likeness isn’t particularly striking.
Odabashian is heavy, like Reid, and a little shorter, but is more of
a jolly big guy than Reid’s no-nonsense self. But put a fake mustache
on him and add some head coach Eagles gear, and he looks like Andy’s
doppelganger.
His first gig as Reid came in an attempt to win a trip to Miami for
the Eagles game against the Dolphins in 2003. After winning a Forman
Mills contest at an Eagles game earlier in the year, he was one of
six finalists competing for the trip at Egypt on Delaware Avenue. The
organizers told him to prepare a skit, and he knew there was only
one thing to do: Dress up as Andy Reid.
Odabashian didn’t win the contest-"I don’t know how you didn’t win,"
judge A.J. Feeley told him afterward. But the people at Forman Mills
knew a good thing when they saw it. They offered him a free ticket
if he dressed up like Andy Reid the following week, and hung out at
their booth.
He continued his game of Andy Reid dress-up for the rest of the regular
season and into the playoffs, and Forman Mills eventually began paying
him for his impersonation. When the Fox TV cameras happened to catch
his act during a game, suddenly national TV crews were on it. He even
appeared with Andy Reid during the coach’s radio show.
Then one day he got a call from his mom. "Gary Papa wants to talk to
you," she says.
The 6 ABC sports anchor was furiously attempting to find Odabashian
to put him on the air. Odabashian was working on City Avenue at the
time, right down the street from the Action News studios, and the
conversation went something like this:
"Steve, is there a time you can come by?"
"Well, actually, I work right on City Avenue."
"Can you come over now?"
"Uh, well, I’m at work. I’m not dressed like Andy Reid all the time."
Things got bigger in 2004. With Donovan McNabb and Terrell Owens
having a standout year, the Eagles opened the season 7-0, and lost
only one game until they rested the starters after clinching the
home-field advantage for the playoffs.
Odabashian, as Andy Reid, was in big demand. He ended up signing
an exclusive contract with Forman Mills to do appearances. He
represented the store at games, and appeared at stores when players
made appearances. He did taped segments for both Letterman and Leno
for the Super Bowl, but after the Eagles lost to New England, the
segments were cut.
"I don’t know how many people have been cut from Letterman and Leno
in the same night," he says, "but I managed to do that."
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After almost four years is Odabashian tired of playing Andy Reid?
"A little bit," he says. "And I’m sure some other people are tired
of me too. But being Andy Reid has certainly opened a lot of doors."
He’s been a lawyer, an options trader, a piano player, a standup
comedian, a standardized-test teacher and, of course, Andy Reid.
There’s really not much else to do, right?
Wait. Just the other day he was on the radio discussing the Armenian
genocide resolution. It seems he may be able to do anything.
He may even let the Eagles run the ball.
–Boundary_(ID_OL7Pic8uq49+UA3sPkadSw)–