An Outlaw’s Refrain : Justin Fix’s Plans for Musical Career Hit Sour Note With Followers of Canyon Football

Follow your nose to find the gym locker of Justin Fix. Plug your nose upon arrival.

Fix, an All-Valley defensive lineman for Canyon High, opens his locker, spilling his dirty practice uniform onto the floor. Rick McKeon, his locker beside Fix’s, dresses for afternoon practice--at a considerable distance from his untidy teammate.

“I haven’t washed my uniform all season,” Fix says with a smile, pulling his grimy jersey and pants over his 6-foot, 3-inch, 230-pound frame. “Not since hell week. There’s no need to. Nice guys don’t play football. You don’t have to smell nice.”

He doesn’t.

“I keep wondering when he’s going to walk his pants out to practice,” McKeon says, waving his hand before his nose. “Cells are beginning to grow. It stinks.”

Fix smiles at the remark, as though he had accomplished something.

“My street clothes aren’t dirty, I’m not a scum,” Fix says. “I do it to get on people’s nerves. Everybody was saying, ‘Wash your uniform’ and whining. So I said, ‘OK, I won’t wash it.’

“One of the things I can’t stand in this world are whiners.”

Fix, untidy, unkempt and proud of it, might be considered a square peg wedged into a round hole. In the highly disciplined, by-the-book “Cowboy Football” society of Coach Harry Welch, Fix, the Cowboys’ senior nose tackle, is an outlaw.

“Everybody I know thinks I have an attitude problem,” Fix says. “I have an attitude. But I wouldn’t say it’s a problem.”

That is debatable. In last season’s 42-6 loss to Channel Islands in the semifinal round of the Coastal Conference playoffs, Fix was ejected in the second half for throwing a punch. On the sideline, he spiked his helmet, sending it ricochetting skyward.

This season, Fix quit the team during summer practice after accusing the coaches of overstepping their disciplinary bounds. He returned less than a week later.

“The coaches wanted me to be a leader,” he said. “I’m not really the leader type. I’m more of an instigator.”

He wears a constant blond shadow of stubble on his face. His blond tuft of hair is mussed. He wears an ear ring in his left ear and leather sandals on his feet. Fix is Cowboy Football’s version of Seattle Seahawks’ linebacker Brian Bosworth.

He plays bass in a rock quartet called “Fine Spine,” formerly known as “Scream So Free,” formerly known as “The Screaming Snow Frogs.” On his locker are 2 stickers advertising obscure rock bands: “Minor Threat” and “Uniform Choice.”

Said Welch: “He’s on his own wavelength.”

Yet Fix is the spearhead of perhaps the most finely tuned defense in Welch’s 7-year tenure. Canyon (9-2), winner of 9 in row, travels to Hawthorne tonight for the second round of the Southern Section Division II playoffs. In the past 6 games, Canyon has surrendered a total of 35 points.

“It’s a swarming defense,” linebacker John Bietsch said. “We put many helmets on the man with the ball.”

The first one often belongs to Fix, despite having to contend with double-team blocking “on every play this season,” according to Welch. In Canyon’s crucial 10-7 Golden League win over Palmdale, Fix played almost the entire first half with a concussion and was taken to a hospital at halftime.

“Sometimes he’s triple-teamed,” Welch said. “He changes the offense on the field. He can take away things. Athletically, he is by far the most talented player on the team.”

And it shows. Fix has attracted the interest of several major Division I colleges, including USC, UCLA, Notre Dame, Oklahoma, Nebraska, Georgia, Florida and Florida State.

But Fix is not interested in them--much. Despite the flood of attention, Fix is surprisingly apathetic toward a college scholarship and is leaning toward a career in music.

“I don’t know if I want to play football for the next five years,” Fix said. “The more you get into it, the more of a business it becomes. When I started playing football, I never had a big game plan to get a 4-year scholarship. I play because I like hitting people and getting out my frustrations.

“The coaches are acting like if I don’t play college football, my life is over. Everybody’s acting like that. If I put as much time into being a musician as I do into Cowboy Football, I’d probably be one of the best around.”

Those close to Fix have trouble understanding his attitude.

“I try to impress on these kids that college is important,” Welch said. “I’ve talked to him at length. But now it’s just up to him. He says, ‘I want to get into music.’ He has a dream and we have to accept that. I don’t think it’s right for me to impose my values.”

Said Bietsch: “I’m really into school. And then he comes in and he’s awesome and gets all these offers and they don’t affect him. It doesn’t seem right. I don’t see anything wrong with what he’s doing. But if I had an offer, I’d go and play football.”

Fix is being triple-teamed by friends, family members and coaches. All are pressuring him, he says, to pursue a college scholarship.

“A lot of people don’t understand,” he said. “I don’t care. People can think what they want to. I’d say right now, I’m doing what I want to do. And I’m going to do what’s best for me and what makes me happy.”

Fix insists that he will attend college “no matter what.” But he says that there is not enough room for football and music. “Whatever I’m going to do,” he said, “I’m going to put 100% into it.”

Fix says he is considering Cal State Northridge and Washington State because of the schools’ music programs. Football is running second. And as for a scholarship, “I’ll just get a job and do it the hard way,” he said.

Susan Fix would like her son to reconsider.

“I would really like to see football become a vehicle for him to continue his education,” she said. “I was telling him how difficult it is to go to work and go to school at the same time. He thinks it’s a piece of cake.”

Actually, being accepted into college is going to be difficult for Fix, whose academic standing is less than satisfactory. Bill Fix, who was divorced from Justin’s mother when Justin was 3, hired a mathematics tutor in an attempt to improve his son’s grade-point average and satisfy college entrance requirements. Some colleges, he said, already are losing interest because of his poor academic record.

“If I sold everything I had, I couldn’t afford to send him to half the schools that are starting to turn him down,” Bill Fix said. “There are thousands of guitar players out there, guys who can stand on their head and play with their teeth. But how many guys are college football players for a No. 1 team?

“I love him and I want him to have everything. But I don’t see him getting it by playing guitar.”

Fix says his grade-point average is 2.1 among college preparatory classes. He admits that he probably will have to attend summer school in order to prepare himself for college.

“I’ll do it even if I don’t play college ball,” Fix said. “I don’t even think about colleges looking at me. I’m not saying I won’t go. I’ll just decide at the end of the season.”

Is Fix for real? Is he really prepared to forgo a free Division I ride for a one-in-a-million shot at a career in music?

“He’s just a little confused on things,” defensive end Sean McCune said. “He’s trying to get things straight. He may say sometimes that he doesn’t feel like playing, but deep down inside he does. That’s why he came back this year.”

Said Susan Fix: “Lately, I’ve tried not to pressure him. But I told him, ‘Right now, no big music company is offering you a big contract. But you’re being offered a scholarship by many different schools. Right now, there really is no choice--except where you want to go.’ ”

The only thing Fix has decided to do at the end of the season is wash his uniform. But perhaps he should burn it, never to suit up again.

“Everybody thinks I’m real strange, anyway,” Fix said. “So I don’t really worry about it. My whole life, people have told me, ‘You’re not going to be good at this.’ But I know I’ll be a success at whatever I do.”