Veteran Birk leads Ravens' young O-line

Ravens center Matt Birk is a Harvard man. There is a decent chance you already knew this.

In fact, if you know anything about him beyond his abilities as a football player, it's probably that he graduated from Harvard. This is, at least in part, because people tend to bring it up when they talk about Birk, a six-time Pro Bowl selection entering his 12th NFL season, his first with the Ravens after leaving the Minnesota Vikings as a free agent.

Birk's Ivy League education - he graduated in 1998 with a degree in economics - is usually mentioned with playful disbelief or mock surprise, as if it had not occurred to anyone that it was possible for NFL players to come from Harvard. Just about every feature that has been written about him, or story edited together by a television producer, makes mention of his degree right away, the subtle implication being that one never has to worry about Birk's missing an assignment or forgetting a snap count because he's probably the smartest guy in the huddle.

Harvard, Harvard, Harvard. It's a steady drumbeat that has followed the 6-foot-4, 310-pound St. Paul, Minn., native everywhere since he was a sixth-round draft pick in 1998.

So with his Ravens career about to begin, it seemed appropriate to ask him: Does it ever get old listening to people gush over the fact that he is the only NFL starter with a Harvard degree? Does he ever get tired of talking about it?

"I guess I don't," Birk said recently, grinning and still sweating hard after an intense morning practice. "For me, that was a heck of an accomplishment. You talk about working hard, battling your way through, that's what I had to do. It's something I'm proud of just because of the work that went in. ... Every group of kids that I ever talk to, I tell them my degree is what I'm most proud of and it's what's going to serve me for a longer period of time. I wouldn't be playing pro football if I didn't have good grades, because there weren't any other schools trying to recruit me. My football career would have been over."

A big part of Birk's competitive focus didn't actually emerge until he showed up at Harvard, where he learned there were no entitlements for Ivy League athletes.

"It was tough. You spent 20 hours a week practicing football, and then you have to compete in class against kids who have those 20 hours to study," Birk said. "But you just do it. You make it happen and do whatever you have to do because it's important to get the grades and graduate. It's probably one of the few places in life where athletes are not placed on a pedestal. In the culture of Harvard, you're probably knocked down a notch or two."

People often make the assumption that real-life smarts should translate into football smarts, but most coaches will tell you it doesn't usually work like that. There are plenty of aspiring astronauts and nuclear physicists playing football in the Ivy League or enrolled in the U.S. military academies who find themselves baffled every Saturday by weak-side linebacker blitzes, and there are other players barely capable of scraping together a respectable SAT score on a fourth try who look like Mensa candidates when asked to sniff out a reverse in front of 90,000 screaming fans.

Part of what makes Birk special - and part of what made the Ravens pursue him after Jason Brown left for the St. Louis Rams as a free agent, signing him to a three-year, $12 million deal - is that he's intelligent on and off the field.

"I've known some guys who have coached at Harvard, and they've got this thing called 'football-lexia,' " Ravens coach John Harbaugh said. "They have these real smart guys who can't figure out football. Matt's not one of those guys. He knows football, and he's very smart. He gives us a guy in the middle who can direct our line, and it's a young line, so we really needed that."

The fact that Birk, 32, ended up swapping a purple Vikings jersey for a purple Ravens jersey in the offseason was a bit of a surprise to just about everyone, and you can include the Ravens in that group. It seemed like conventional wisdom that Birk was using Baltimore as leverage to get a better deal from the Vikings, considering he was born and raised in Minnesota and wouldn't want to uproot his family or leave behind the lakes where he loved to fish.

But Birk was serious about pursuing a Super Bowl ring, and it didn't look like that was going to happen in Minnesota. The Vikings' quarterback situation had become equal parts comedy and tragedy with daily, never-ending drama surrounding Brett Favre's potential signing. Birk had always liked what he had heard about the Ravens' organization, and when he and his wife, Adrianna, took a tour of Baltimore, it felt right.

"It was hard in the sense that I was leaving behind everything I knew," Birk said. "I'd played there my whole career, and all my family and friends are there. But I told Coach Harbaugh before I came out here, 'I'm serious.' I was intrigued by what little I knew about the Ravens. What we saw in the neighborhoods and the schools, and I looked at the football side of things, we said: 'What the heck? Why not make the change?' There is nothing bad about [Minnesota]. I just think it's healthy sometimes to leave your comfort zone and try something new. I just got a great vibe from everyone here."

Birk has never been afraid to do the opposite of what people presume he might, or should, do. He's one of the few active players who has been an outspoken advocate for retired NFL players, arguing that they deserve quality health care even if it has to come out of the pockets of the current players. A few of them, Birk says, are younger than he is, and they don't have a voice once they leave the game.

"There are a lot of guys out there that are hurting that shouldn't be," Birk said. "They sacrificed a lot for today's game and for today's player. They're in situations where some health care would make their lives a heck of a lot better. It just seems like if that's what can help these guys out, then it really shouldn't be a problem with the economic strength of today's game."

Birk is hesitant, however, to speak out much when it comes to on-the-field matters, at least for now. Although he was one of the team leaders with the Vikings, he has been slow to make it seem like he deserves to be one with the Ravens. During training camp, when players older than 30 were given a day off, Birk showed up in shorts to watch from the sideline, a sign to the team that he didn't feel he was entitled to anything.

"Leaders are not anointed," Birk said. "People say, 'Oh, you're the leader of the O-line because it has a lot of young guys.' Well, that's not true. I'm part of the group, and I'm trying to fit in and figure out how we do things here. I have a lot of respect for the guys here regardless of their age. Age doesn't mean anything to me."

But in the eyes of some of his teammates, Birk might have that role thrust upon him whether he believes it's appropriate or not.

"When I heard we were getting him, I knew he'd fill Jason's shoes," said Ravens guard Ben Grubbs, who lines up next to Birk. "He brings experience and knowledge to the offensive line. He's not afraid to lead. He does so well with his verbal communication. We look to him for a lot of things. He fit in right off the bat. He is the leader of our line, whether he thinks it or not."

Birk is the latest example of the way Harbaugh has slowly gotten the Ravens to buy into his philosophy of how a team should function - there are no special exemptions for superstars and no room for covering up substance with style.

"It's hard for me to imagine a guy at this stage of his career who could work harder than he does," Harbaugh said. "He's probably our hardest-working lineman, in the weight room in the offseason, conditioning stuff, on the field and walk-throughs. You can see why he's been so successful and looks like a 27-year-old guy out there even though he's 32."

Birk can't help but chuckle when he's asked whether the 18-year-old version of himself saw his life playing out this way. His original plan when he entered Harvard was to become a Wall Street tycoon, chasing the next big deal. Now he spends much of his free time chasing his four kids, Madison (7), Sydney (4), Ava (2) and Grant (1), whose names are tattooed on his left shoulder.

"Ten years ago, I was just trying to hold on, just trying to stay on the team, and that's still how I feel now," he said. "Back then, I looked at the older guys and thought: 'It looks really easy for them. They seem like they're always in control.' I've learned now that it's never easy, whether you're young or old. You just have to keep that mind-set forever. Your game is never a finished product."