Gridiron.

Smelters · week 6 · 2010

The old man can still play

Ruth Fairbanks, features

Jalen Mustachio TE
Smelters

Jalen Mustachio is 40 and averaging 10.4 a week. He reads Fragile, which makes the mileage harder to explain, not easier.

10,834 yards over eighteen seasons. 112 touchdowns. 249 games. His best was 1,282. This is not that, yet. Four clubs have had him.

He is forty, out of Ashfork, Arizona. Around the building he is popular in a way that does not show up anywhere useful. He was a mid-round pick who was the fourth-best player on his own college team. In another life he kept bees.

Smelters are 3-3 through six weeks. Donte Massengale is new. There is one year left on the deal.

He keeps his father's work gloves in his locker, and always has.

This feature ran in the paper in week 6 of 2010. The rest of the season is there too.

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