Pat Tillman’s Legacy Lives On

TEMPE, Ariz. — The ghosts of Pat Tillman are everywhere here in Sun Devil Stadium.

They’re up in the dressing room where he used to shed those flip-flops, that penchant for cussing and that “Hey Dude” vernacular for his football shoes and pads, and then pull that Arizona State University helmet down over his long, blond hair.

They’re out the door, where the moving murals of him now line the walls, and they’re down the long, winding Tillman Tunnel that leads to the field and the place where he first showed the outside world just what a rare desert flower he was.

That’s where, with hair flying out the back of his helmet, he’d literally hurl himself at rival offensive players and, in the process, he turned himself from an undersized, walk-on linebacker into the Pac-10 Defensive Player of the Year and an ASU football legend.

And those ghosts are especially way up there in that light tower 200 feet above the field. That’s where he’d climb at night to get away and think and stare out across the cactus landscape and jagged buttes and see those orange twinkling lights of the airport.

As defensive coordinator Phil Snow told a Georgia newspaper back in 2002: “He was fearless. The planes flew so close to him that he could damn near reach out and touch them.”

That was Tillman, his grasp far exceeded that of other men.

It’s how he became a summa cum laude graduate with a 3.84 grade point average who went on to the NFL as a seventh-round draftee — a 226th long-shot pick — and became a prized safety of the Arizona Cardinals. And then, just as abruptly, he shed stereotype — walked away from a 3-year, $3.6 million deal and an even bigger contract to come — and joined the Army Rangers to fight for his country in Afghanistan.

And that’s where he was killed in April 2004, the first U.S. pro athlete to die in war since the Buffalo Bills’ Bob Kalsu in Vietnam in 1970.

And this time everyone — especially Ohio State’s three starting linebackers, A.J. Hawk, Bobby Carpenter and Anthony Schlegel — realized just what a rare flower of fellow man Tillman had been.

The Buckeye trio, the best linebacker corps in college football this year, dedicated their seasons to Tillman, and Monday afternoon — when Ohio State plays Notre Dame in the Fiesta Bowl at Sun Devil Stadium — they’ll pay him an even bigger tribute.

That’s when they’ll take all those ghosts and turn them into a living memorial — right down to the flying-hair ferocity.

“You can’t mention us in the same breath as Pat Tillman, but it’s just that we wanted to show respect for who he was and what he did,” said Hawk, the All-American from Centerville and this year’s Lombardi Award winner as the nation’s top defensive lineman and linebacker. “It’s an honor for the three of us to play our last college game on the field where he played. He deserves any kind of credit he can get, and I hope in a small way we can give him some.”

That’s the same idea Buckeyes head coach Jim Tressel had in the fall of 2004 when he added several pages on Tillman to the “Winners’ Manual” Tressel hands each player before the start of the season. Some call it the “OSU Bible” because — filled with stories and sayings about positive character traits — it’s sort of a blueprint for being a better man.

The Tillman tale — and how he refused to capitalize on his decision and shunned all interview requests and book and movie deals — struck a chord with the linebackers.

Hawk remembered Tillman from when he played against the Buckeyes in the 1997 Rose Bowl and then later when, at age 27, he followed his convictions and left football.

“I was always a big fan of his. Some people called him crazy for what he did, but I understood completely. I looked at him kind of like he had his priorities in line. He believed in what he did and he did what he felt was right. I respected that,” Hawk said.

Carpenter felt just as strongly.

“He wasn’t the best athlete, didn’t have the most skill, but he just played so hard and willed himself to be the best,” Carpenter said. “I appreciate what he did for Arizona State football and for our country, too.

“What he did is so unique in our society today where there’s so much cultural greed and instant gratification. ‘Why wouldn’t he take the money?’ — that’s what everyone thought. For someone to be so selfless proves to the world that there are more important things out there than just wealth and fame.”

Carpenter said he and Hawk mulled over ways to honor Tillman and decided to let their hair grow long: “We’d all had short hair growing up and in our first years of college, so we decided to change it up a bit. We got Schlegel in on the idea, too, but he’s married, so we had to convince his wife first.”

She finally agreed to the idea, though she did make her linebacker husband cut his hair a year ago in November for a wedding. “The guy did a terrible job,” Schlegel still grouses. “I wasn’t paying attention and I ended up with a mullet.”

Yet, now, even while his hair isn’t quite as long as the other two, he probably understands Tillman’s sacrifice the best. Before transferring to OSU in the spring of 2003, Schlegel played two seasons at the Air Force Academy, where he captained the team as a sophomore.

“For me, it’s a little different,” he said. “I have buddies — guys I played with — who are flying over there in Afghanistan and Iraq right now. I have the utmost respect for anybody who serves. And Tillman didn’t go easy either. He went to the Rangers; that’s an elite group.

“But that was him. When I was younger, I followed everything he did, how people always doubted him and how he proved them wrong. How he was a college walk-on, how he had this unbelievable weight program, how he went to the (NFL) Combine and performed out of his mind and then went out on the field and just hit people. If you play defense, how can you not love that?

“And so with us, it just became three teammates, three friends, who wanted to do something together that would be fun and pay respect at the same time, and it ended up bringing us even closer together.”

As their hair grew, how did the clean-cut, button-down Tressel react?

“He’d make jokes and tell us to get it cut and stuff, but he was never really hard on us,” Hawk laughed.

Another guy who appreciated what the trio was doing was the Buckeyes’ new athletic director, Gene Smith. He had been the AD here at Arizona State before he came to Columbus last March and was in Tempe when Tillman was killed by friendly fire.

“I can remember speaking to groups here and challenging anyone in the room: ‘How many of you would actually walk away from millions of dollars and go to war for your country?’” Smith said. “I’ve never seen a hand raised yet.

“Before I left, the staff and I had started some of these memorials, but I hadn’t seen it completed until now. The tunnel named after him, those plaques and the big display up in the Hall of Fame, it’s really awesome.

“We have to continually find ways to perpetuate Pat Tillman and what he was all about. We just don’t have enough heroes like that and we can’t let it go away. We have to continue to educate. And with our three guys and where they are going, they might help with that.”

And that’s why following Friday’s media day at the stadium, Arizona State officials invited the three Buckeye linebackers to a brief, private session to take in some of the Tillman memories.

Stadium manager Kirt Klingerman led them up the tunnel to the dressing room and the pair of murals — “The American Hero” one where they read the Emerson passage that began, “What I must do is all that concerns me ” and then the “Give ’Em Hell Devils” work with its artist renditions of Tillman as a long-locked ASU linebacker and a square-jawed, buzz-cut Ranger.

Klingerman took off a Tillman wrist band and gave it to Carpenter, saying: “I never had it off before, but I think it’ll mean just as much to you.”

As the players quietly walked back toward the now-deserted field, Carpenter — still not sure if the bone he broke in his right leg will allow him to play against the Irish — said he’ll certainly be on the sidelines as Hawk and Schlegel fling themselves wild-haired into the fray:

“To finish out our careers where Pat Tillman played — to just share something with a guy like that who meant so much to his football team and his country — it’s kind of surreal. It feels pretty special.”

And come Monday, it will be more so because for a few hours the three Bucks will be able to stir the ghosts and make them a living memorial.

Note: The Pat Tillman Foundation is no longer distributing the Never Forget #40 red wristbands. Please visit their site to learn of th other ways you can help honor a truly great man.

By Tom Archdeacon
Original article at DaytonDailyNews.com.