Playing in the previous two American Century Championship celebrity golf events in South Lake Tahoe, Nev., A.J. Hawk has mixed booming drives (including a win in the event’s long-drive contest at 322 yards in 2009) with frustrating moments. The Green Bay Packers linebacker hears about it from the gallery.
“I expect him to be good at everything,” Laura said. “If he has a bad day on the golf course, I’m hard on him. 'What happened there? Where did that drive go?’ ”
Seemingly gifted at every athletic endeavor growing up in Centerville, Hawk has reached the pinnacle of professional football. He’ll take the field with the Packers tonight in Super Bowl XLV as one of the team’s defensive captains and its leading tackler.
The 27-year-old Hawk, who also starred with the Elks and Ohio State, has built his athletic gifts into a 6-foot-1, 247-pound frame that has produced an average of 102 tackles in his five professional seasons.
Hawk’s hardworking and charitable personality also has made him a favorite with teammates and even other celebrities. Charles Barkley rushed right up to say hello in Lake Tahoe. Carson Palmer said he’s a big fan.
And in golf — like in working toward his pilot’s license — Hawk has found another challenge to keep him sharp. Even if the course pays the price in divots.
“I have to keep him calm,” said older brother Ryan, a former Centerville star quarterback who serves as A.J.’s caddy.
“I have to be there with, 'Don’t worry about it, who cares. C’mon, look at Michael Bolton. You’re killin’ him!’ ”
For Hawk, it’s family first
Laura Hawk awoke in a slight panic. Next to her, A.J. Hawk was asleep. She shook him.
“I obviously haven’t done this before,” she said to her husband, “but I think my water just broke.”
Their daughter wasn’t due for two more weeks, but she was trying to arrive on Saturday, Dec. 4, the day before the Green Bay Packers and Hawk would host the San Francisco 49ers.
Family and friends rushed to the house. Hawk’s parents, Keith and Judy, drove from the home they own in Green Bay. Hawk’s former Ohio State teammate, Doug Datish, and his wife were staying at the house. Datish would serve as cameraman.
Not usually concerned about his attire, Hawk told his father he needed to change before they left for the hospital. He returned in a Beatles T-shirt.
Hawk was thrilled that his first child was a girl, because he never had a sister, but two brothers. Starting what will become a theme of rock ’n’ roll names for their children, they had agreed on the name Lennon Noel.
Hawk has been in many football pressure situations through his career at Centerville High School, Ohio State and Green Bay. But this was different.
“I was there the whole time,” Hawk said. “It was nuts. She came out awesome.”
Lennon arrived at 6:44 p.m. Hospital staff brought in a cot, and Hawk slept in the room that night.
At 9 a.m. the next day, Keith picked him up at the hospital and dropped him off at work at the 73,128-seat Lambeau Field. Hawk put in a full day, making four tackles in a 34-16 win.
As Hawk prepared to complete his journey from a quiet Centerville cul-de-sac to Ohio State national champion to the Super Bowl, those closest to him reflected about the linebacker’s unique persona and the importance of his off-field life, including his family’s new addition.
He is a professional football player, a popular player on one of the sport’s more popular teams. But that is a small percentage of his life and makeup, family and friends said.
He’s not a tough linebacker all the time. On his wedding day, as he recited his vows and brother Ryan, his best man, continued wiping his tears with his tuxedo sleeve, Hawk cried.
“We’ve seen him cry ... once?” Judy Hawk said.
A.J. Hawk talks softly to his new daughter. He furiously reads books (a recent favorite is “The Compound Effect” about the culmination of small choices, a variation from the Vietnam and Navy SEALS choices of his youth). He falls asleep to the Discovery Channel and pulls out the cornhole boards when visitors arrive.
Staying close to his roots, he lives in Columbus in the offseason.
Family members described him as honest, reliable, helpful, caring, hard-working and, when among friends, the life of the party.
Now, they’re all preparing for the biggest party of all: Super Bowl XLV.
“He would’ve been a good Boy Scout,” Keith Hawk said, “but he was just too busy with sports.”
Building a linebacker
Keith Hawk met his future wife on a blind date.
The Sabina, Ohio, native had moved to Dayton when a co-worker mentioned that she had a sister, Judy.
Keith jokes that he was sold on the relationship when he went to one of Judy’s family reunions and spent time with two of her cousins, former University of Dayton basketball greats Don and Ken May.
They settled in Centerville, building the house where they still live. A sign next to the front door marks the occasion with, “The Hawks, Est. 1991.”
A side area of the basement served as the workout room, from which clanging at 6:30 a.m. used to wake Keith. With two older brothers, A.J. had measuring sticks from the beginning, and his parents worked to encourage that athleticism. Keith earned his nickname by showing his sons numerous Pete Maravich videos, and it sticks to this day. The framed Brett Favre autographed jersey in his basement that A.J. gave him reads, “To Pistol.”
Keith remembers taking A.J. along when Ryan tried out for a fourth-grade basketball team. The team asked second-grader A.J. to try out, and he made the roster.
How nice, Keith thought, that they’ll let him be on the team. By the first game, he was the starting point guard.
As a 10-year-old, A.J. finished fourth nationally in the NFL’s Punt, Pass & Kick competition in San Diego before a Chargers playoff game.
While setting Centerville team records for most tackles in a game (31), season (192) and career (583) — including two years as a teammate of brother Ryan, who would go on to quarterbacking careers at Miami University, Ohio University and the Arena Football League — A.J.’s workouts grew in fame. Once, while joining the Buckeyes for a training session before his freshman season, the team held a dip contest. A.J. beat them all.
He was a three-year starter and two-time All-American for the Buckeyes, taking part in the 2003 national championship game as a freshman. As a celebrated senior in 2005, he won the Lombardi Award as the nation’s top lineman or linebacker and was named an All-American for the second time.
But he didn’t care much for trophies. When A.J.’s college career ended and he moved out of the Columbus house in which he lived for three and a half years, he called his father.
“Pistol,” he said, “there might be some stuff lying around the house you would want.”
There, Keith found the three-foot-tall Chevrolet Division I Defensive Player of the Year award for 2005. Next to the washing machine.
The Big Time
The Packers locker room buzzed with reporters last week during a session for media to roam and chat with players.
Wooden lockers line the walls of the 64-by-120 foot room that debuted in 2002 inside the legendary 53-year-old stadium. It is more ballroom than dressing room. A giant 50-foot Packers logo is sewn into the floor, and six flat-screen televisions alert players to the day’s schedule, beginning at 6:30 a.m. with a team breakfast and treatments.
Hawk’s locker is one of five grouped near the entry to the locker room, three down from quarterback Aaron Rodgers. It’s mostly empty except for equipment and a pair of gray DC shoes.
But Hawk didn’t enter the room and make himself available to reporters. He exited into a quiet hallway for a postpractice interview with the Dayton Daily News, spending 25 minutes discussing his season, daughter, flying lessons, famously long hair, three dogs, workouts and appreciation for his high school’s coaches.
“I’m pretty much the same guy I was when I was at Centerville,” he said.
Family and friends stressed that the NFL hasn’t changed the core of Hawk’s personality and values.
He’s practical, for instance. When he got to Green Bay, he needed a car, so he did a commercial and autograph session for a local dealership. Then his wife needed a car, so he did another.
In the Lambeau Field hallway, he wore a Packers stocking cap and team sweatsuit, which is a common wardrobe choice.
“You get past his boat and his house,” Keith said, “and he doesn’t spend any money.”
He doesn’t celebrate much, either, moving swiftly back to the huddle after a tackle is made. Packers outside linebackers coach Kevin Greene has joked that Hawk should do more, maybe come up with a small dance.
But, can he?
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen him dance,” Ryan said. “Not fast dance.”
Packers Playhouse
Hawk was hesitant when Country Music Television called and asked him to appear on “CMT Cribs.” Laura, an interior designer, loved the idea, and Hawk warmed up when he realized he could show off his three dogs.
One is a well-trained Belgian Malinois. He also has a German Shepherd and a 3 ½-pound Chihuahua. Why not share them with the country?
Wearing a long-sleeve plaid shirt and cap turned backward, Hawk boasted that a 50-bucks-at-Walmart television in the kitchen was his favorite.
He’s not lying, Laura said. And he knows his way around a kitchen. During her pregnancy, when she had fits of nausea, Hawk and teammate Brady Poppinga did the cooking, including one memorable spread of butternut squash risotto.
Onto the fridge, where it’s just the basics, not the meat-heavy diet one might think for an NFL player. In fact, Laura is a vegetarian, which changed Hawk’s habits some.
His Ohio State diploma hangs in his home office, significant because he finished the degree in criminology on time before entering the NFL. Datish has a cameo playing a cowbell, and the Belgian Malinois made a brief backyard appearance.
“I did all this cool stuff,” Hawk said, “and it was like 10 seconds (with the dogs).”
The show focused on the 6,800-square-foot structure that has become a de facto home for unwed and unattached Packers. Linebacker Clay Matthews helps with the baby. The four bedrooms often are full, especially after games, when the Hawks host friends for pizza and Pepsi.
A.J., the fifth pick in the 2006 NFL draft, enjoys the crowd and seemingly is unaffected by the hits.
“Sometimes after a game, I look at him and I’m thinking, ‘You were just in 15 car wrecks, and you’re sitting here like you just got back from the office,’ ” Keith Hawk said.
But no injury has caused Hawk to miss a football game, either at Ohio State or with the Packers, making him one of the more reliable and popular Green Bay players. He’s just as reliable at home, Laura said, faithfully taking the trash to the curb every Monday night.
“As solid a human being,” she said, “as the day I met him.”
Thinking of home
Oct. 15 was a tough morning for Ron Ullery, the longtime Centerville football coach.
The night before, the Elks lost a nationally televised home game against Wayne, 34-10. Hawk has kept up e-mail correspondence with his old coach during the years, but they usually are brief.
Ullery found a long note waiting for him that Friday morning.
“This will be tough for me to say,” Ullery said last week while trying to not let his voice break.
“His concern was me and the team. He said, ‘I watched you, you did a lot of great things, sorry the outcome wasn’t what you wanted, but your guys played hard.’
“He’s not even thinking about himself and what he has going on. He’s thinking about his old high school coach and how he’s feeling after a game like that.”
Hawk has maintained a connection with Centerville while his popularity and success have increased. After finishing an interview, Hawk quietly asks that a story about him contain his appreciation to Ullery, former Centerville coach Bob Gregg, former assistant coach Larry Noffsinger and others involved with the Elks football program.
He doesn’t have much time to reflect, but he remembers where his success began.
“I try to stay where I am in the present, live in the moment,” Hawk said. “But I try to think about (home) as much as I can.”
Contact this reporter at (937) 225-7389 or knagel@DaytonDailyNews.com.
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