When good buddies John Peterson and Matt Manifold get together, the stories they swap sound like
testosterone-fueled fantasies.
Affectionately known to each other as "Pete" and "Mutt," the two were roommates during their
playing days at Ohio State in the late 1980s.
Peterson went on to a coaching career and is now the Buckeyes' tight ends coach and recruiting
coordinator.
So he can regale Manifold with tales of big-time football glory - such as being in Ohio Stadium
when No. 1 Ohio State beat
No. 2 Michigan in 2006, or being in Glendale, Ariz., and New Orleans for national championship
games.
Manifold can one-up Peterson, though. He is an F-16 pilot, a 20-year Air Force veteran and a
full colonel at age 43. He has flown more than 200 combat missions, including many over Iraq and
Afghanistan.
"I got to blow a lot of stuff up and shoot a lot of things down," Manifold said
matter-of-factly.
Given that, how Manifold spent last week might seem tame in comparison. At Peterson's
invitation, Manifold took a week off from his job of training pilots at Nellis Air Force Base in
Las Vegas to be a volunteer coach at Ohio State's football camps.
So, on Wednesday, there was battle-hardened Col. Manifold in the Woody Hayes Athletic Center,
barking at grade-schoolers lined up for drills on the facility's indoor field.
"It's been a blast," he said of the experience. "We like to give back to the community, give
back to Ohio State. They gave me a great four, five years of my life."
Peterson and Manifold became good friends soon after both arrived in Columbus in the fall of
1986. Peterson was a scholarship offensive lineman who earned four letters and was a starting guard
in 1990; Manifold was a walk-on tight end.
Manifold did not see much playing time, but he was strongly influenced by his football
experience.
For one thing, he credits former coach Earle Bruce with keeping him on track toward his current
career.
"I had a lot going on, being an aeronautical engineering major and ROTC and playing football,
and I was getting pretty crushed in the schoolhouse, in academics," Manifold said. "And I said,
'Hey, Coach, I've got to get into an easier major. This aeronautical engineering is killing
me.'
"And (Bruce) said, 'Manifold, if you get out of aeronautical engineering, I'm going to kill you.
I've never had a football player graduate in aeronautical engineering, so you don't have a choice.
You're staying in (that major).'
"So I stayed in."
After college, as their careers diverged, Peterson and Manifold kept in touch. It was during a
family spring-break trip to Las Vegas this year that Peterson issued the invitation to help out at
camp.
"Mutt is probably one of the most energetic, passionate guys who loves his job," Peterson said.
"He's a people person, and he has great leadership skills. Every time we get together and talk
about the things that he gets to do. He just truly is an amazing person to have around."
Another lesson Manifold said he learned at Ohio State was how to overcome adversity. He suffered
a broken wrist, broken hand and a blown-out knee while playing football.
"I had a lot of trying times there, but that prepared me for life," Manifold said. "At one
point, I put all my marbles into football. Then I knew after it was all done, I was going to have
to do something else.
"So I did well in school, stayed in the ROTC program and turned into a fighter pilot instead of
a football player, which is pretty good."
kgordon@dispatch.com
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