He's Harvard's captain marvel

Matt Curtis is sitting in the lounge at Dillon Field House with the stadium looming behind him, reflecting upon the considerable wonder of his last four years.

"It's amazing," Harvard's football captain says. "The people I've met here, the things I've been able to do. Kids back where I'm from can never really grasp that. They have a tough time understanding. Even when I try to explain it, they never really get it. A poor kid from Lynn, being a student at this school . . ."

Most people on campus know something about his story now. How his father, a recovered alcoholic, died when Curtis was in high school, how his mother still struggles with drugs. How Curtis lived for a time in public housing, how he subsisted on whatever the Salvation Army handed out.

"I never wanted to use it as a crutch, I never wanted people to feel bad for me," he says. "But at the same time, it was the truth. I'm not going to sit here and lie or hide from the truth. I am what I am and I've come from what I've come from."

Which is why Curtis marvels about where he is now.

"I feel I'm so blessed to be able to go to a school like this," he says. "I'm able to take classes with the smartest people in the world taught by the smartest people in the world. I've been able to play Yale for an Ivy League championship in front of 50,000 people. Unless you've gone through it, you never will fully understand how amazing it is."

On Saturday, before a capacity crowd and a TV audience, the Crimson's 135th captain will lead his teammates onto the field for the 125th meeting with their archrivals and complete the journey that began in the summer of 2005, when Curtis started a new life by strapping on a helmet inside the ancient concrete horseshoe by the Charles.

Curtis might have been a poor kid from Lynn, but he quickly found himself an equal on the football team.

"There's no hazing, no animosity between seniors and freshmen," he says. "Everybody accepts you and embraces you. Right from when you step on campus, you have 110 friends."

Failure not an option

Curtis, who made all-state at Lynn English, joined a varsity that was coming off the best Harvard season in 103 years, yet he played in every game at defensive tackle and earned his letter.

"I was a little surprised," he says. "I'd be lying if I said I wasn't, because I knew a lot of freshmen don't get on the field. But I also expected myself to be a player."

Curtis was less certain about how he'd fit in on a campus where nearly everyone else was richer and many were smarter.

"There were times early on when I questioned if I wanted to be here, like any freshman," he says. "It was really hard. But I just kept thinking about what my brother said to me: 'No matter what happens, you have to succeed. You have to do it. This is an opportunity nobody I know of gets.' It was a lot of pressure, but that pressure enabled me to do great things."

What had been negatives in Lynn turned out to be positives in Cambridge. Curtis, who'd been on his own for most of his life, needed no hand-holding.

"It was an extremely easy transition," he says. "I've been taking care of myself for a long, long time, so I knew how to call the doctor's office and get prescriptions. I knew how to do my own laundry. I wasn't afraid of taking the T into Boston. I wasn't afraid of being out at night in a city. I didn't really know how to tie a tie, so I guess there were some drawbacks. But I did learn."

Curtis also learned that nobody but the football coaches who recruited him knew how he'd grown up.

"It was great for me," he says, "because I got to become friends with people based off who I was and not where I came from."

When his story was told candidly two years ago in a Globe article by Jackie MacMullan, many people back home were startled.

"It took a lot of people by surprise," Curtis says. "There were people who'd known me for years who didn't know that situation and didn't know what to say."

The response, particularly from strangers, was gratifying.

"I got letters from anonymous people telling me to make sure I continue to do well," he says.

That imperative is what has gotten Curtis through the challenging days in college.

"I really couldn't fail," he says. "I didn't have another option. I had to have that mentality. At the end of the day, I didn't have a backup plan. My back was against the wall and it's still against the wall. I don't take anything for granted."

Broadened horizons

So Curtis approaches each day with a grateful urgency. He was done surviving, he vowed when he entered Harvard. It was time to start living.

"I feel like I've got the world in my hands," he says. "I feel like I can do anything. I can be anything I want. That's the beauty of going to a school like Harvard."

Yet Curtis has managed to be who he is without abandoning who he was.

"Matt's got a great wholesomeness, a heart of gold," says coach Tim Murphy. "He's a tremendously positive kid despite a very humble upbringing. He's more worldly, in a good way. He's more sophisticated, not in a bad way. But he's still extremely appreciative of this opportunity. He feels like, in some respects, Harvard saved his life."

It certainly has broadened his horizon (his roommates come from California, Virginia, Nebraska, Maryland, and parts between) and expanded his family.

"I have 110 brothers downstairs in the locker room every single day," Curtis says.

His father died of kidney cancer before his son's final year at Lynn English. "The beautiful thing with me and my father is that we came to our peace before he passed away," Curtis says. "I wasn't mad at him and he wasn't mad at me."

He sees his mother once a year, before training camp.

"She's a wonderful person inside and she means really well," Curtis says. "We're at different points in our lives, but she knows that I love her and I know that she loves me and nothing's going to change that."

His siblings - brother Mike and sisters Michelle and Amanda - come to every game, home and away. Last year, when Curtis was elected captain at the team's end-of-season banquet, Michelle burst into tears when she heard his name.

"It was the most amazing moment of my life," Curtis says. "To have that honor, to have the kids you consider family to vote you as the only captain to represent them, I can't even put it into words. From someone like myself to come from where I've come from to be the captain . . ."

For Curtis, Harvard has not been so much an escape as an evolution. He could not have achieved what he has in Cambridge, he believes, if he hadn't grown up as he did in Lynn.

"I take a lot of pride in where I've come from and the things I've overcome and they've really aided me," Curtis says. "I'd like to think I'm a tougher kid for going through it. It's given me a unique perception on how important it is to help other people and it's given me a unique perception on God. Before all this happened, I was very critical of a higher being. But having come from where I've come from and being able to be where I am now, I definitely didn't go it alone."

Twice more before he leaves, Curtis will go it alone. He'll walk to midfield at noon Saturday and shake hands with Yale counterpart Bobby Abare, another Massachusetts guy. And in June, he'll walk up to receive his diploma.

"It's going to be extremely sad and extremely rewarding, a very bittersweet moment, but I'm very accepting of when things have to come to an end," Curtis says. "I'm only 22 years old and I've lived an old man's life, but I'll have the rest of my life to live. Fifty or 60 years from now when I have grandchildren, I'll be an extremely happy man for what I've done here."

John Powers can be reached at jpowers@globe.com