Steve Kelley / Times staff columnist
Hasselbeck's ascent began in Jamaica

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In the winter of 1996, Matt Hasselbeck was just another quarterback at Boston College.

Still several months away from the beginning of spring football, Hasselbeck, a junior, was in a fight for the starting position. He was second on the depth chart, and the last thing his coaches wanted him to do was take a trip into the teeming slums of Jamaica.

Hasselbeck, his coaches believed, should be in the weight room, not some ramshackle classroom. He should be working on timing patterns, not spending time in a leper colony.

"They were dead set against me going," Hasselbeck said. "The coaches, athletic directors and just people were telling me it was a bad idea."

The coaches were worried he would get hurt or catch some serious disease. They questioned his commitment to the game. This spring was going to be his chance to be a starting quarterback. Why would he want to go to Jamaica?

"I think in a way, I wish my motives for going on the trip were better in the first place," Hasselbeck said. "I think I wanted to go even a little more because the coaches didn't want me to go. But also, at B.C., you play football, you go to class and that's it. You don't get involved in the campus. You're not friends with anybody else. It was kind of unhealthy, I thought."

Besides, football wasn't going all that well. Hasselbeck had a thousand excuses why.

"I would use stupid buzz words that I hear immature players use now, like 'It's political,' or 'My coach doesn't like me,' or 'I should have picked another school,' " he said. "In retrospect, that was really selfish and immature. It was hurting me more than helping."

In the winter of 1996, Hasselbeck grew up. He went to Jamaica and saw real life. He went to Jamaica and realized no coach was holding him back. He saw real pain and found real perspective.

In Jamaica, he developed his social conscience. He was part of B.C.'s Ignacio Volunteers, 16 students who for a year studied the history, culture and economics of the country, then went there to teach and feed the poor.
 
This wasn't some fun retreat where students hung out on the beaches. It wasn't Spring Break '96. This was hard work, living in the small homes of rural families, among the cows and goats. Living with barely a trickle of running water. Experiencing their poverty up close.

"I had a huge foundation in my family and friends, but I just needed to be smacked across the face," Hasselbeck said, sitting in a golf cart in Cheney just before the Seahawks broke camp. "I needed to be told to wake up, that, 'You need to get your priorities straight. Stop making excuses and start making solutions.' "

That season he threw for 1,990 yards. And he finished his college career fifth on Boston College's career passing list.

"It was about perspective," Hasselbeck said. "In Jamaica, I think that's what that whole experience brought. When I was there, for instance, there was a 4-year-old kid who died when he fell into a hole they used for a toilet. It was a devastating thing to me. I witnessed it and I remember vomiting after I saw it."

Wonder how Hasselbeck was able to handle his first season here, when he was handed the starting quarterback job, then hammered by blitzing defenses, demanding coaches, skeptical fans and a critical media? The seeds for that strength were sown in Jamaica.

In that 2001 season, he lost his starting spot to Trent Dilfer. He threw more interceptions than touchdown passes. His quarterback rating was a lowly 70.9. He could have faded under the heat.

"I don't know if I hadn't had all of the tough stuff I'd already been through, if I would have made it through here," said Hasselbeck, who became a Pro Bowl quarterback last season. "Jamaica was a 10-day wakeup call for me. You know, 'How lucky am I just to be born in this country?' Stuff like that.

"We went there thinking we were going to help them because they had nothing and we have everything. It turned out to be just totally the opposite. It turned out like we wanted what they had. We wanted the peace that they had. After we went there, we all knew we would never be the same."

Hasselbeck met people who changed his life. He remembers a man named George McPhee, a leper who had no fingers but played harmonica every night and sang songs that were full of hope and thanks.

"We were in this home for lepers, and we were singing songs," Hasselbeck said. "I was sitting next to this guy, and he was badly deformed. He had leprosy, and he was playing these songs and thanking God for blessing him.

"And hearing him sing that — and at a time when I wasn't thankful enough for what I had and the opportunities that I was going to have that this man never had — it was definitely a wake-up call for me."

Hasselbeck went to Jamaica to help. But like so much volunteer work, it was the people he was helping, people like George McPhee, who made an enduring difference in his life.

And helped mold a Pro Bowl career.

Steve Kelley: 206-464-2176 or skelley@seattletimes.com.