Overview:
Gocong will be one of 13 former Carpinteria High athletes inducted into the Warriors’ Hall of Fame this spring
Art is supposed to imitate life. It might have helped save Chris Gocong’s.
The football wars didn’t end for the former Carpinteria High School star when he mustered out of the National Football League after seven years.
They still reverberated inside Gocong’s head, no matter how many times he visited the doctors.
Post-concussion syndrome, they told him, “is what it is.”
“It showed itself on an everyday basis, almost like a form of PTSD,” Gocong told Noozhawk. “You know, like depression, anxiety, and all these different things.
“I started noticing a year or two after I stopped playing.”
He tried fishing and other ways to relieve his mental anguish, only to find that “the brief respite was followed by symptoms far worse than before.”
The former NFL linebacker eventually turned to painting as the solution.
It’s led to a burgeoning career that put Gocong on center stage 14 months ago at the Kate Oh Gallery on Madison Avenue in New York.
He was one of two artists — both from the South Coast, the other being Santa Barbara sculptor Rod Lathim — showcased in the “Let There Be Light” exhibit.
Gocong brought it closer to home on Saturday by opening a solo exhibition at the Dama Gallery in Midtown Ventura, 1793 E. Main St. His work will be displayed until April 30.
“Early on, when I had my first showing, people were like, ‘What? You paint?’” Gocong recalled. “Some people don’t really take you seriously.
“People see it like, ‘You’re a football player … You’re not a painter.’
“But the people who have seen my stuff, there’s just been so much support.”
His style has been described as impressionistic.
Jim Kent of Dama Gallery noted that Gocong’s work “encompasses poignant portraits, figurative expressions and vibrant abstract creations.”
Gocong shrugs that off as though it were an offensive tackle, saying, “I never went to art school so I don’t know the labels.”
He admitted to feeling a bit of “Imposter’s Syndrome” when he traveled to his exhibition at such an upscale venue in New York.
“But it was cool,” he said. “That’s what I love about art: It levels the playing field.
“You can be talking to a billionaire or somebody from a completely different field, and your opinion is just as valuable as theirs.
“For me, it’s just about following my gut in the composition on the palette.”
Instruments of Success
Those who know Gocong best aren’t surprised by his success as a contemporary artist. His parents, Julie and Bruce Kennedy, raised their sons, Ryan and Chris, to be Renaissance men.
Chris became a voracious reader and studied the piano for seven years during his childhood.
“We grew up without TV in Lancaster, California, before moving here when I was in the sixth grade,” he pointed out. “We were in the desert, and it could get too hot to be outside.
“You’re bored and you figure it out … You read stuff, pick up an instrument, whatever it is.
“Those initial parameters in my life led me to always find something new to learn. I never really felt like doing just one thing.”
He had never played football before enrolling at Carpinteria High. But his size, speed and intelligence soon had him starring as both a quarterback and linebacker.
Gocong earned a spot on the All-CIF Southern Section defensive team in both 2000 and 2001. He made All-State as a senior.
He also won an individual CIF track and field championship in the discus throw just one year after taking up event.
Gocong is one of 13 former Warriors who will be inducted into the school’s Athletic Hall of Fame on May 25 at Carpinteria Valley Memorial Stadium.
“It feels like yesterday even though it’s probably been like 25 years ago when I was working out in the Carp gym and saw the names up there,” he said. “Now I’m on the other side of that … I’ll be one of those names.
“Carp is so close to my heart. To be honored like that, it really does mean a lot to me.”
Gocong was barely noticed by college recruiters. Cal Poly football coach Rich Ellerson offered him an athletic scholarship only after the urging of the school’s track and field coaches.
“They came to us and said, ‘Hey, we need to split (the scholarship) with this guy because we want him to come throw,’” Ellerson said.
Gocong accepted the scholarship mostly for educational reasons. He earned his degree in biomedical engineering.
“I really only played football because it was fun, not because I thought I could go to the NFL or anything like that,” he said.
And he never did throw the discus for Cal Poly.
Gocong and Mustang teammate Kyle Shotwell, a former Dos Pueblos High star, showed their versatility in another way — joining several others in a band called Void.
“It sounded kind of like a Jack Johnson rip-off, but it was fun,” he said. “I’ve always liked having different outlets.
“I was a piano player growing up and then I picked up guitar. I played bass in the band.”
He also played a mean defensive end. He set an NCAA Division I-AA record with 23½ quarterback sacks during his senior season in 2005. It earned him the Buck Buchanan Award as the nation’s top defensive player in I-AA.
Philadelphia Story
The Philadelphia Eagles selected Gocong in the third round of 2006 NFL Draft. It was enough to get his parents to finally subscribe to cable television.
“We’re getting DirecTV’s Sunday Ticket so at least we’re guaranteed of seeing all of the Eagles’ games,” his father said at the time.
“We won’t watch anything but these games. We’ll avoid the temptation.”
But a preseason injury to the nerves in Gocong’s neck and shoulder, known in football circles as a “stinger,” forced him to miss the entire 2006 season.
Gocong played all 16 games the following year, making 92 tackles as a converted linebacker. The first sack of his career was of New England Patriots star Tom Brady during a game on Nov. 25, 2007.
He played through several injuries while missing only one game over a span of five seasons — three in Philadelphia and two more for the Cleveland Browns.
Perhaps his greatest sequence of downs came with the Browns during his final season of 2011.
“I had a goal-line stand against the Steelers that’s probably one of my most favorite memories of playing football,” he said.
Gocong tackled Pittsburgh running back Rashard Mendenhall on four consecutive plays — the first two solo stops, the last two assisted — after the Steelers had gained a first-and-goal situation at Cleveland’s two-yard line.
The first hit was helmet-to-helmet. That type of blow would be penalized today, but in 2011 it was only called when delivered against the quarterback.
“He’s not a protected species in this league,” the television announcer said of Mendenhall. “Bang! Great hit by Gocong!”
Gocong’s vulnerability to those kind of blows would manifest itself later.
But it took a torn Achilles tendon suffered during training camp the following year to end his playing career.
Homecoming
He returned to Carpinteria with his wife, Mandy. They have since added two daughters to their roster: Layla, 10, and Gia, 7. They moved into a house they built in Santa Barbara two years ago.
“My oldest is quite an athlete and she loves it,” Gocong said. “Whatever she does, she just picks it up.
“And the same with my youngest, although she’s more into art.
“I’ll be painting, and she’ll come in … I’ve got tarps down everywhere, so she’ll go to town on whatever she wants to do.”
Gocong said he paints more for the meditative benefits than the financial ones.
“When I feel like painting, I paint,” he said. “When I don’t, I don’t.”
He does push himself to stay in shape. He’s trimmed down his 6-foot-2 frame from his NFL playing weight of 263 pounds.
“I just turned 40 in November,” Gocong said. “In the morning, I would say that I feel like an old, beat-up Chevy truck where you’ve got to pump the gas a couple of times to get it going.
“I probably broke six or seven of my fingers by playing football, and they’re a little bit ugly, but they do work (for painting). It’s more the neck and back that bugs.
“I still have nerve damage. My shoulders don’t fire the same.”
Acrylic paint, however, has done wonders for the working parts in his head.
“I do see the benefits,” Gocong said. “My mind’s more clear and I have more space in my head.”
He’s excited about the upcoming Super Bowl but follows the NFL only occasionally.
“I caught a few of the Eagles’ games this year but I think I might’ve been bad luck for them,” he said. “Every one that I saw, they lost.
“I do hope that Cleveland gets a ring in the next couple of years. They’ve gone through some challenging times.”
The Browns did enjoy one of their best years in memory.
And so did their old linebacker.
