Clumsy Boyd looks for grace on football field

by David Hood - Senior Writer - Wed Dec 21 12:05:07 GMT-04:00 2011

CLEMSON – Tajh Boyd Tajh Boyd
RS So. Quarterback
#10 6-1, 225
Hampton, VA
View Full Profile , college quarterback. Tajh Boyd, ballet dancer?

Clemson’s quarterback has had a stellar year in his first season as the starter, but admitted on Tuesday that he is always looking to improve his game and find ways to make himself a better quarterback.

As a result, the self-described klutz – he said he sometimes falls down while walking – has thought about taking ballet in order to make himself more graceful under center as a runner.

“I didn’t take ballet or anything, but I wish I would have,” a grinning Boyd said to reporters Tuesday. “Honestly, you just have to focus on the small things. But I still have my moments – like the other day at practice I just tripped over my shoelaces. It is just weird situations like that more than anything. I have to focus or it [being clumsy] can get the best of me.”

But ballet? This from a player who admittedly sings a little Phil Collins and Genesis before football games.

“I wish I would have,” he said. “I need to be more graceful. I am trying to find my more artistic side. I have even thought about piano lessons.”

Boyd said that his clumsiness has been something he dealt with from an early age, and as a result has caused him to shun certain sports.

“I dislocated both of my thumbs in a basketball game,” he said. “The guy threw the ball back into bounds, and I was like ‘Ah!’. And when I was little, we were playing ‘night hunt’ in the yard and I fell over a basketball goal and dislocated my shoulder. Ever since then, basketball hasn’t been my thing. I really don’t like it. I don’t know if there is correlation or not.”

Boyd said that his interception against Florida St. – when he fell down running and then tried to heave the ball out of bounds only to have it intercepted and returned for a touchdown – is a perfect example of the fine line he walks between talented athlete and clumsy athlete.

“That was almost a great play right there,” he said. “I was looking the other day, and I think that made the Sporting News Jeer of the Year or something like that. That play sums up how I grew up a little bit. There were all of the bright spots with the athletics, and then something like that happens. You can't even be mad at it.”