Re-posting from last year, because it seems suddenly relevant again.

 

Reader email:

A guy I work with [redacted] went to Penn Charter high school with Matt Ryan. Look at Matty Ice front and center at Prom in the top hat and cane (which his buddy is holding for him). Note he’s a sophomore here, going to prom, and is towering above his buddies who are all juniors and seniors.

Thought this might be cool to post to the Ringer.* Also note my coworker claims that he invented the nickname “Matty Ice”, which was originally his older brother [redacted] nickname which was passed along to Matt Ryan. Let me know if you’d want to talk with him about playing high school football (and baseball) with Matt Ryan. Bonus points if you can prove he’s bullshitting about making up the nickname.

By my elementary level math, this would put the prom photo in 2001, which is when my senior prom was. If only I could find the photo taken in my driveway with the limo driver who, upon reflection, I think was a sex criminal. Alas.

Sure does. These tuxes reek of the Smalls prom special. Everyone had a buddy who bit on the slate vest and long tie, or the white jacket, or the fucking white-on-white bow tie douche beacon. But I feel like only the Alpha male in the school who knew he was going to the NFL and would play in the Super Bowl one day could unironically attempt the top hat and cane. Like, every prom had exactly two people who wore accessories– the class clown who didn’t take himself too seriously and was disarmingly acceptable to girls, and the mathlete dumpster gremlin who pulled an impossibly hot college chick who was a “friend of the family” (but really his cousin) out of nowhere and walked around like the biggest swinging dick in the room even though both you and he knew all along that he’d probably blow up the school before graduation because his cousin rebuffed his sexual advances in a Wendy’s parking lot at 1 a.m. that night. But Ryan is neither here. Somehow he pulls it off, and I can only assume that he slept with all of those guys’ dates, simultaneously and separately, during the afterparty. And he’s going to win the Super Bowl on Sunday. Life is good being a quarterback.

*Yeah, he fucking typed “The Ringer.” Thanks!