Thirst and goal: Inside linebacker Mahdavi makes a place for himself

Ben Mahdavi got it only half right.

As part of a second-grade project, Mahdavi had to write a book about his life and what he wanted to do in the future.

Mahdavi wrote that when he grew up, he wanted to be a football player. "And that his hobby will be to make touchdowns," said his mom, Julie, who still has the book.

Flash forward about 15 years and Mahdavi is indeed a football player for the Washington Huskies, a fifth-year senior and one of four team captains.

But while he has scored two rather inexplicable touchdowns in his UW career, he's spent most of his time at Washington trying to stop them as an inside linebacker.

"I've had one goal my whole entire life, and that was to play football forever," Ben Mahdavi said.

It was a passion stoked when in his first pickup game as a kindergartner, he intercepted a pass, a moment he said he remembers as it if was yesterday.

His passion stayed lit even when a standout career at Mercer Island High School failed to bring scholarship offers from any of the colleges he really wanted to attend. Mahdavi took the one Division I scholarship offer he had from Utah, spent two weeks there, then decided to return home and walk on to the team he really wanted to play for — the Huskies.

"It just wasn't a good fit," Julie said of Utah. "I think his blood is purple."

Giving up a scholarship, though, meant that his checkbook usually was red. At the time, Julie Mahdavi — who had been divorced from Ben's father when Ben was 2 — was attempting to put all three of her children through college.

But Julie, who has spent much of her life in grant-writing and fund-raising, told Ben, "Who cares? I'll just get another job if we need to."

That job turned out to be at Husky Stadium, where Julie Mahdavi runs the concession stands on game days and also helps put on pre- and postgame functions at the Dempsey Indoor facility.

Ben, meanwhile, got his own job at a GNC store in Northgate, often working until 11 p.m. after attending classes, team meetings and practice all day.

"I didn't have much of a life," Ben Mahdavi said. "I had my bright GNC shirt and my purple Husky jersey, and those were the only things I wore."

Though his parents divorced, both sides of the family remained close. His father, Fereidoon, was an Iranian Muslim who excelled at soccer and once played against Pele. His mother is Jewish.

"I think Ben is the type of kid he is because he was so enriched by two of the most incredible cultures in the world, being immersed in that and living that life," Julie Mahdavi said.

Ben's father died on May 21 after having been ill for several years.

"That just makes me want to achieve my goals even more," he said. "I always wanted to make my mom and father proud of me and make their lives easier financially. I had goals set out to help my father, and now I won't be able to do that. But I still have the same goals set."

After the divorce, Julie Mahdavi moved the family to Mercer Island because she wanted her children to attend what she thought was the best school system around, even though it meant often working two or three jobs at once.

That was one reason Ben felt he had to take the offer from Utah, to make life easier for everyone financially. But before the 2000 season, UW Coach Rick Neuheisel gave Ben a scholarship, allowing him to quit his job and concentrate on school — he has already graduated in media studies — and football.

Now, he's on his way to being the team's leading tackler for the second year in a row — he has 55 through seven games, which ranks seventh in the Pac-10 — and living out the life he always planned.

"I remember asking him, 'Can't you do something where they don't crunch into you?' " Julie Mahdavi said. "He said, 'Oh no. I like to hit. I like the crunch.' That's how he's been since he was real little."