[Vision2020] Playing in a Bigger Game

[Tom Hansen]

>From the November 10, 2006 edition of Sports Illustrated -

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Playing in a Bigger Game
By Steve Rushin

Felix and Oscar, meet Carl and Kierstan, roommates in a small apartment near
the University of Oklahoma campus, where Carl plays defensive tackle for the
Sooners and Kierstan plays video games while scarfing down Carl's groceries.
Carl is a clean freak, "anal about neatness -- my friends say I'm OCD."
Kierstan squeezes the toothpaste from the top of the tube, bathes with
reluctance and walks around the living room half-naked. "Put some clothes
on, man," sighs Carl. 

Carl is reserved, Kierstan outgoing. "It's easy to make friends," says
Kierstan, who transferred to Norman this fall and instantly became a campus
chick magnet. "You just go up to someone and say, 'Hi, do you want to be my
friend?'" Carl, too, is a kind of people person -- a person who likes to hit
people. "The opportunity to nail a quarterback is priceless," he says. "It's
almost scary when you make that sack and 85,000 people erupt." 

Funny thing: Carl and Kierstan are opposites, like Felix and Oscar, but
they're also inseparable, like Chang and Eng. "Kierstan has given me a lot
of wisdom and taught me a lot of patience," says Carl. And then he excuses
himself for 30 minutes to draw Kierstan a bath, check his homework and tuck
him into bed. Carl Pendleton, 22, is father, mother and brother to Kierstan
Pendleton, his 10-year-old biological cousin. 

Father: Carl wakes Kierstan every morning at 6:15 -- singing -- at which
time they recite a morning devotional. "I'm tough on him, because I want him
to be great," says Carl, who has started 20 games in three years for the
Sooners. "He's a smart kid, and it's best to get the laziness out of him at
an early age." 

Mother: Carl cooks Kierstan's dinner, washes Kierstan's clothes and buys
Kierstan sneakers whenever he runs a hole through a sole. "I just bought him
those shoes," says the 6'5", 269-pound everymom. "But how do you tell a kid
not to play?" 

Brother: Carl and Kierstan are brothers. Carl's parents, Carl and Nechia,
adopted Kierstan when he was nine months old and a so-called crack baby --
an epithet presumed to doom him to a life of despair. "A lot of times in
life, people tell you what your circumstances are," says Carl. "But God gave
him these amazing abilities." 

Kierstan weighs only 72 pounds, but it's all brains, energy and exuberance.
He begs Carl to let him play tackle football, but his brother -- sounding
more like his mother -- has refused, partly to protect his body and partly
to protect his grades. 

Kierstan and Carl became roommates this past summer, when their parents --
going through a shattering divorce -- decided it was the best arrangement
for everyone. 

Soon after, Carl was asked to speak to a church group, which offered him an
honorarium. "That's not necessary," he demurred. "We don't need it." 

"But we're broke!" shouted Kierstan. 

When Carl stopped laughing, he told Kierstan, "Don't worry about it. God
will always take care of us." 

Two Thursdays ago, Carl and Kierstan came home from the Switzer Center to
find a FedEx envelope at their door. It was from the National Football
Foundation, to which Carl -- who has another year of eligibility remaining
at Oklahoma -- had applied for a postgraduate academic scholarship. More
nervous than he expected to be, Carl unzipped the envelope. 

"Congratulations," began the letter, which granted Carl $18,000 toward
future tuition and named him a finalist for the Draddy Award, the "academic
Heisman," given to college football's top scholar-athlete. The two brothers
were jumping and screaming in their living room when Kierstan shouted, "You
were right!" 

"About what?" said Carl. 

"God does provide for us." 

That's when Carl made the decision that had been weighing on him for months:
After this season, he'll give up the game he loves to concentrate on
Kierstan and studying education in graduate school at OU. "Kierstan is
watching and registering everything I do," says Carl. "He challenges me to
do what's right." 

Oklahoma coach Bob Stoops, a father of three, applauds Carl's choice, as
does university president David Boren, who says, "I can think of no
student-athlete who serves as a better role model for young people than
Carl." 

Soon, that post-hyphenate -- "athlete" -- will wither away forever.
"Football isn't like tennis," says Carl. "When you take the helmet off, it's
off for good. You can't strap on pads and knock someone over in the street.
So that season of my life is about to end. And there will never be another
one." On campus, he'll no longer know how it feels to be treated as the Man.
But he'll be showing Kierstan what it means to be a man.

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Seeya round town, Moscow.

Tom Hansen
Moscow, Idaho

"Life should NOT be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving
safely in an attractive and well preserved body, but rather to skid in
sideways, chocolate in one hand, a drink in the other, body thoroughly used
up, totally worn out and screaming 'WOO HOO. What a ride!'"