|
|||||||||
 |
|||||||||
|
|||||||||
|
KU linebacker is built Concord (Calif.) tough By J. BRADY McCOLLOUGH LAWRENCE | Rough. Tough. Hard-nosed. Those are the words used by Kansas coach Mark Mangino to describe his middle linebacker, Joe Mortensen. Mangino doesn’t even know. Nobody could, unless they saw Mortensen, a white kid, growing up as a minority in a poor neighborhood near Concord, Calif. Nobody could, unless they were around to see him reign over Oakland’s East Bay back in high school. Yes, Mortensen may look tough now, sporting a bald dome and an array of tattoos. But he has actually softened during his three years at Kansas. “He was one of the tougher kids in Concord,” says Herc Pardi, Mortensen’s high school football coach at Clayton Valley High. “He was probably a legend off the field. He’d be one of the guys I’d want if I was going into a back alley.” Mortensen had a reputation that was rarely challenged. Just ask the Catholic school boys who played on the renowned Concord De La Salle football team, a Clayton Valley rival. “De La Salle and Clayton Valley had a few off-the-field incidents,” Pardi says. “A couple of Clayton Valley kids got jumped. Joe went after the perpetrators and nobody stepped up against him. They backed down.” For Mortensen, toughness wasn’t a choice. Growing up without a father in his life, it was the only way. “He didn’t want anyone to think he was a momma’s boy,” says Terry Bolender, Mortensen’s grandmother. But Mortensen was Tracy Duncan’s boy, and hiding that fact was a trivial pursuit. Tracy divorced Mortensen’s father when Joe was just a baby, and Mortensen would not see his dad again until late in high school. He doesn’t carry his father’s last name; Mortensen is a name from his mother’s side of the family, given to Joe soon after the divorce. You could say that the only thing Mortensen got from his father was a receding hairline — that’s why he goes with the clean shave — but that’s not entirely true. What Mortensen got, more than anything, was motivation. While Mortensen didn’t know his father, he knew the stories. His dad was a star football player at Clayton Valley, too, and was offered a scholarship to Stanford. But he declined the offer and didn’t go to school. Years later, Mortensen would sit on his grandfather’s lap and watch college football. He was just a little boy, but he knew what he wanted. Of course, it wasn’t that easy. Many sacrifices were made along the way so that Mortensen could have a chance to succeed. After the divorce, Tracy didn’t have a stable job. She had no choice but to move Joe and his older sister, Melissa, into a poor neighborhood in nearby Pittsburg. Tracy estimates that it was about 80-percent non-white, making her family a minority. But she was brought up to embrace all races. She wanted the same for Joe. “He was probably one of the only (white kids),” Bolender says. “He got along OK I think because of his athletic ability.” It pained Mortensen greatly when, just before high school, Tracy moved the family back to Concord because she got a better job. That meant he would attend Clayton Valley, a predominantly white school. Luckily, Joe had football, where he’d always feel comfortable. Mortensen would play in the same colors that his father wore at Clayton Valley. He quickly became known for his aggression and big hits as a blitz-crazy middle linebacker. Mortensen’s father heard all the buzz about his son. He tried to re-enter Joe’s life, but Joe wouldn’t let him. Their time to be father and son, in his mind, had passed. By the beginning of his senior year in 2003, Mortensen was being recruited by the likes of Nebraska and Washington. His life had seemingly been leading up to his college decision, and he would not go down the road his father took. He committed to Nebraska, then coached by Frank Solich. But when Nebraska made the switch to Bill Callahan, the school did not honor its offer to Mortensen. Signing day came and went, and Mortensen was out of luck. Then Kansas swooped in. “It was kind of a culture shock when I came out here,” Mortensen says. One shock for Mortensen was in the classroom. In Concord, he wasn’t challenged academically; teachers seemed content to let him skate by on his athletic ability. In Lawrence, that wasn’t the case. During his first year at KU, Mortensen found himself on academic probation. Now, though, Mortensen is on track to graduate with a degree in psychology. He’s grown a lot since that first year. It’s the weirdest thing, his family says, to hear Joe talking about classes instead of football. Mortensen has changed at Kansas. His toughness, for the most part, is reserved for Saturdays. But it’s still easy to see where he comes from. In fact, he’s got two new tattoos, one on each forearm. They say “Captain of my soul” and “Master of my destiny.” “Basically,” Mortensen explains, “it’s knowing that I control my fate. Every decision that I make, whether it’s good or bad, it’s because of me. Some people feel sorry for themselves. I’m the kind of person who says, ‘I’m as good as I want to be.’ “Sometimes, I look down (at the tattoos) when stuff’s
not going my way, and it’s a reminder. You dug yourself in
this hole. You can dig yourself out.” |
|||||||||
|
|||||||||
|
|||||||||
|
|||||||||
|
|
J. Brady McCollough - jbrady@coveringsports.com (email) - 816-868-2621 (cell) |
