April 5, 2015
(Editor's Note: This is the first in a series of monthly articles about former student-athletes, current student-athletes, coaches and administrators written exclusively for the Nittany Lion Club website.)
By: Steve Sampsell
For many Nittany Lion Club members and Penn State football fans, memories of Matt Rice appropriately begin and end with his performance on the football field.
An athletic 6-foot-4, 256-pound linebacker and defensive end who wore uniform No. 55, Rice certainly made an impact for the Nittany Lions during his career wearing blue and white. Rice was impressive physically and easy to spot because he was always around the action on the field.
He was honored as a All-Big Ten selection and signed to a professional contract by the Buffalo Bills after the NFL Draft. He was later signed by the St. Louis Rams and later the New York Giants and Detroit Lions. At one point he allocated to the Rhein Fire of NFL Europe, but Rice was eventually sidelined by an injury -- and not some ordinary injury. His mistake was not treating brain surgery seriously.
He began having seizures in August 2007. CAT scans and MRIs found a tumor on the right front of his brain and surgery was suggested to prevent additional seizures.
"I basically made the decision to have full-fledged brain surgery eight days before I had to return to training camp, and then I treated the injury and surgery almost like it was a broken arm or leg -- and that was totally wrong," Rice said. "It was such a confusing process. One morning I'm having a seizure, then seeing specialists and then finding out I needed surgery."
Rice continues to deal with epilepsy on a daily basis and he has become an advocate for people with brain injuries. While the illness ended his football career, it did nothing to dampen his competitive fire or passion. Rice has simply channeled his energy into art, building a career that has grown beyond his emotional and impressive pop art efforts on canvas to large-scale murals, commissioned art projects, fashion design and interior decorating.
Nittany Lion Club members got a glimpse of Rice's work, some of which was used on the cover of the latest NLC Newsletter and as part of future thank you mailings to members. That artwork was an update of a Penn State football piece he initially painted a decade ago.
Rice's work -- through his company Mateo Blue -- consistently gets featured at art galleries and draws a strong response. For example, his show titled "Abstracts and Facts" at the U.B. Blake Cultural Arts Center in his hometown of Baltimore that was scheduled to last a month was extended to three months before it recently ended. Plus, his work will be included as part of an art opening titled "Smocks and Jocks" sponsored by the NFL Players Association around the Super Bowl.
His efforts with interior decorating range from personal homes to business and government buildings. He has completed three 18-foot by 40-foot murals (two in Texas, one in Alabama) at housing projects for at-risk, high school-age students. And his passion for helping others shines through in his commitment to things such as art classes for children in Baltimore -- something done under the auspices of his non-profit foundation, and that he recently expanded to children as well as their families.
"I come from a neighborhood in Baltimore where you don't expect to go to college and you don't really expect to reach the age of 18," Rice said. "I'm about to celebrate my 33rd birthday. I'm considered an old guy, an OG. Being 33 from where I'm from is like you're saying you're 88. I know I'm just starting to live and it's important for me to give back."
Rice credits Penn State with making much of what he has possible. He often doodled on notebooks, but that was the extent of his exposure to anything artistic until he attended a variety of art classes at the University. He earned two Penn State degrees, a bachelor's in integrative arts and a bachelor's in African-American studies.
Additionally, he brings the same work ethic that served him so well on campus and the football field to his artistic endeavors.
As a football player, Rice was a linebacker and defensive and, if you ask him, he was athletic enough to take a few snaps in the defensive backfield as well. Plus, he benefitted from the Penn State system, knowing what it means to thrive while busy, balance a variety of responsibilities and meet high expectations.
Rice sees important similarities between art and football -- especially in how he approaches his work, and how he reacts to what happens.
"You don't really get injured in the art world, but it's such a mental game," Rice said. "For me there's a game plan to every project, just like if we were playing Ohio State, Michigan or whomever. In art and football you have to focus. You have to block out whatever else that could be on your mind and focus on what you're doing to do it the best."
Rice draws much of his artistic motivation from his personal life, and his versatility shines through in both the quality and variety of his work.
"There's something of me in everything I produce, even the commercial projects. They're coming to you for what they want, and also for what you bring to it," Rice said. "I create things that are different."
Finally, just as Rice tackles different artistic challenges, he does so while balancing different roles. He's the artist, the leader of a growing business, the marketing director and so much more. He knows art represents an expensive habit and a difficult way to make a living, but he embraces the associated challenges.
Basically, my life's purpose is being creative through the arts. That really would not have been possible without Penn State, and I approach art like football -- I fight for it hard," Rice said. "It's self-guided, self-promoted business, and all that has put me where I am today. I don't want to be known as just a Penn State artist. I want to jump out there in the wide world of art and bring that back to Penn State."