He's a man among boys.
Brandon Crawford is 31 years old. He's spent four years in the Marine Corps and has experience working on an assembly line in an automotive factory.
Now, Crawford is a sophomore defensive end playing for the Ball State football team. Yes, that means he is a 31-year-old sophomore.
"I appreciate every day I get to touch that field because I'm living the dream right now to be able to play at this level again," Crawford said. "That's why I try to give my all when I'm out there, whether it's practice or in games, because some day the Lord might take football away from me. … Having it taken from you, you learn to appreciate it a lot more."
* * *
Rewind 12 years to Crawford's senior year of high school.
Crawford and his Fort Wayne South Side team had just won a Friday night game, and one of Crawford's friends was driving to pick him up to go out and celebrate.
Crawford jumped in the back seat of the car. He had no idea it was stolen.
A few minutes later, police sirens were blaring. The car's driver didn't pull over immediately and tried to speed away. When the driver finally pulled over, Crawford panicked. He jumped out of the back seat and ran a few blocks to his mother's house.
Sound asleep, Marva Crawford awoke to pounding at the door. It was the police looking for her son.
A stipulation of one of Crawford's college scholarships was that he couldn't get in trouble with the law. His hopes of going to college were dashed, at least for the time being.
"He got with the wrong people that he thought were his friends," Marva Crawford said. "I knew there were things he was going to have to work out. I couldn't make the decisions for him, but he did what he needed to do, and he got his life straightened out."
Instead of going to college straight out of high school, Crawford found himself working on an assembly line that made parts for Hummers. Then he joined the Marine Corps in 1999.
During his four years as a Marine, Crawford knew he still wanted to go to college and play football, but he wasn't sure it could happen. He could be shipped off to war, and his life could change in an instant.
When Crawford received an honorary discharge from the Marine Corps in 2003, his mother knew her son was different. He had matured.
"He had grown so much, I didn't even recognize him when I saw him," Marva Crawford said. "I just started crying. I said, 'What did they do to my son?' It wasn't negative; it was a positive thing. I just noticed a profound change in him."
Crawford's dream of playing college football was still intact.
* * *
Crawford enrolled at Ball State in the fall of 2006 and was allowed to join the Cardinal football team as a 30-year-old freshman.
Many of Crawford's teammates were fresh out of high school. He became a mentor to some of his teammates, giving advice on relationships and any other situation that might come up. He tried to come off as a big brother more than a father figure.
All the while, Crawford tried to lead his younger teammates by example. He did small things like show up to meetings on time and watch as much game film as possible. He was often one of the first players to arrive for summer workouts and one of the last to leave.
"I just try to show them that this is something you have to be dedicated to in order to be successful," Crawford said. "You can't just come in here and think that position on the field is going to fall into your lap, because it's not. In order for me to be able to be out there and play, I had to work hard."
It had been 11 years since Crawford had played football at a high level, and he admits that getting back into football shape was not easy. Mentally, he said being a Marine had prepared him to handle the rigors of Division I football. Adjusting to the physical aspects of the game was harder.
"A lot of the military stuff you go through is mental," Crawford said. "Football is more demanding, I think, on your body. It was a challenge, but it was something that I was prepared for because of the military experience that I had. I was able to push myself."
* * *
Marva Crawford was trying to watch the Nebraska-Southern California game on television and listen to the Ball State-Navy game on the radio at the same time Saturday night.
When Crawford blocked a Navy field goal attempt as time expired to force overtime, his mother wasn't listening. A couple minutes later, she heard the announcer say Crawford was the player who had the block that sent the game into overtime.
"I said, 'Oh my goodness,'" Marva Crawford said. "I started jumping up and down. I was trying to be quiet because I live in an apartment and didn't want to distract my neighbors. I didn't want them to think there was something wrong with me."
Ball State won 34-31. Crawford had blocked field goals in practice before but never in a game.
Crawford will be in Lincoln on Saturday when the Cardinals play Nebraska at Memorial Stadium. His mother will be listening on the radio or watching on television.
Crawford remembers watching Tommie Frazier and Lawrence Phillips when the Cornhuskers were one of the most dominant teams in college football during the mid-1990s. Now, more than a decade later, Crawford will get his chance against the Huskers.
A lot has changed for Crawford in the past decade. He's certainly not just another fresh-faced college athlete. He's been through rough times. He's been through boot camp, literally. And he's worked at a factory.
Not the typical path of a Division I athlete.
But Marva Crawford never doubted her son. When he makes up his mind to do something, she said, he's going to do it.
Brandon Crawford always wanted to play college football. He just took a different route in getting there.
"He had things in his mind the way he wanted things to go," Marva Crawford said. "Sometimes it didn't always go the way he planned them, but in the end he ended up following his dreams. He's at college doing what he dreamed of doing and playing football for Ball State."
bengouldsmith@dailynebraskan.com
