Doug Brzezinski figures if he’s ever going to take up a more staid, white-collar profession, that’s why the long-sleeve shirt was invented.

“I can put on long sleeves, speak English, make complete sentences and all that stuff,” he said. “I think I can fake my way through.”

The gregarious Carolina guard’s upper body is a colorful and imaginative array of religious symbolism, personal spirituality and the battle between good and evil.

“A product of 15 years of Catholic education is what happened here,” Brzezinski joked. “I was repressed.”

The first tattoo came during his sophomore year at Boston College, a tribal symbol that’s since been covered by other ink. He trusts only tattoo artist Mike Leboff of R.C.’s Tattoos in Folsom, Pa., to do the work.

“People see tattoos and they think a negative thing, but I think a lot of the tattoos I have are positive,” Brzezinski said. “Just little reminders, like a personal notebook.”

The 27-year-old said he has got no tattoos that he’d be ashamed to show his mother and has stayed away from anything he’d later regret, like the names of specific teams or women.

Mom’s OK with her son’s passion as long as he’s happy and while dad grumbled a bit, his only comment was that now his son could never work for the FBI or CIA.

“I couldn’t go undercover, they’d know it’s me,” Brzezinski said. “I told (dad) that really wasn’t something I was thinking about anyway.”

The longest he’s sat for a design was 11 hours and Brzezinski likens the process to getting a haircut.

He hopes to one day travel to Japan — where the technique provides a smoother look — to have work done on his back and legs. He’s thinking of an octopus on his back and a tiger on his chest.

“In Chinese mythology, the tiger and the dragon represent the spiritual and physical so the tiger would balance out my dragon,” Brzezinski said.

“I just wish I had more arms because I have more and more ideas that I think about all the time.”

Eric Boynton can be reached at

562-7272 or eric.boynton@shj.com.

A TOUR OF DOUG BRZEZINSKI Left arm: A design containing two koi fish. Right shoulder: Two samurai in a boat. Left chest: A fighting dragon crawling in from his arm. Back right shoulder: Portrait of Raiden, the Japanese god of thunder. Left shoulder and arm: A silhouette of Jesus, with the sacred heart in the middle and fighting angels and devils surrounding it.