EAST LANSING - One of the most fearsome defensive ends in college football is also one of the most jovial.

Michigan State's Shilique Calhoun has a simple explanation for his upbeat disposition.

"You never know how you can affect someone's life,'' said Calhoun, who wears a constant smile and often finishes sentences with a laugh. "You don't know what they're going through. That, and I think you want to just be happy, and have a great appreciation for life.''

Calhoun certainly has much to look forward to as the No. 8-ranked Spartans prepare for Friday night's season opener against Jacksonville State.

A fourth-year junior, Calhoun is on schedule to graduate with his degree in criminal justice next spring. The 6-foot-5, 256-pounder is also widely projected as a first-round pick in the 2015 NFL draft.

But the story behind Calhoun's disposition has more to do with his past than the promise of a lucrative future.

The fire

Calhoun says his mother and father worked hard to provide for him and his six siblings — three older, three younger. The family was hardly affluent, but the children had everything they needed.

Until one day they didn't.

Cynthia Mimes, Calhoun's mother, remembers how her youngest daughter, Star, came downstairs in the family condominium and said: "Mom, smoke!''

Star and her twin brother, Kaymar Mimes, had been playing in Calhoun's room and knocked over an electric heater, setting a mattress afire.

"The fire started so fast and there was smoke everywhere,'' said Cynthia Mimes, recalling that 2002 day in Lakewood, N.J., where the family had lived for almost eight years. "I was on my hands and knees calling for Kaymar. I couldn't see a thing, but I could hear him, and after I got him I brought him downstairs and got him out of the house.''

Calhoun and his other brothers and sisters were at school at the time of the fire.

"It was pretty devastating,'' Calhoun said. "I remember all I could think was, 'it's all gone, everything is gone.' ''

The first of five moves in five months for the family of eight was into a hotel.

From there, Cynthia Mimes found living arrangements with other families on two occasions — both short term with hotel lodging in between.

"It was horrible," she said. "It took so long to get ourselves together after that.''

Eventually, Calhoun's family found a house in New Jersey that served as home the next eight years.

"It all just happened at such a crucial time in life,'' Calhoun said of the fire and its aftermath. "I remember losing all my possessions. We'd had no clothes and no place to live.''

But Calhoun and his brothers and sisters had each other, and through it Calhoun said he learned about "appreciating everything a lot more, even just being alive, because I could have been in that house, or my family could have been in that house."

Another message that shaped Calhoun's philosophy was delivered during a school assembly when he was in seventh grade.

"They called us to the auditorium and told a story about a kid who wrote a suicide note that said, 'If one person stops me as I'm walking toward this bridge, I won't jump. All it takes is one person ... ''' Calhoun said, his signature smile suddenly gone. "Well no one said 'Hi,' and that led him to commit suicide."

Calhoun often remembers that story, and it plays a role into his daily approach to life.

"So each and every day, I try to come out and give people a greeting or a hello, because if something that small can make a person's day, I can do it," he said. "Even if I'm not in that person's life, it can make a difference.''

Mimes noticed a difference in how her son treated people from that day forward.

"Before, Shilique was very shy,'' she said. "But from that day on, he's been happy with everyone and has wanted to make other people smile.''

Path to Michigan State

Basketball was Calhoun's game growing up — not football.

Joe Trezza, Calhoun's football coach at Middletown High School North, remembers first seeing Calhoun as he was finishing up eighth grade.

"We were in the weight room, and all the sudden he came in and I was like, 'Wow, look at this kid,''' Trezza said. "He was a basketball kid, and he would have been a college scholarship basketball player, that's how good he was. But I see someone 6-foot-4 that looked like him, so as a football coach, I'm going to be all over him."

Calhoun played as a receiver and defensive back through the halfway point of his junior year before being moved to the defensive line "more out of necessity,'' Trezza said.

Rutgers and Boston College were the first two schools to offer scholarships to Calhoun, and then came a visit to West Virginia before North Carolina State, Pittsburgh and Michigan State got involved.

Calhoun said he didn't really know much about any of the schools but started realizing "there's a bigger world out there" when his options expanded.

Trezza said Calhoun returned from his visit to Michigan State impressed with head coach Mark Dantonio and defensive coordinator Pat Narduzzi.

As a first-year starter in 2013 for Michigan State, Calhoun spearheaded one of the finest defenses in the nation and was named the Big Ten's Defensive Lineman of the year.

The NFL scouts noticed, too. Calhoun was projected to have a first-round draft grade and be selected early had he declared himself eligible for the 2014 draft.

Calhoun maintained that he was intent on staying in school to get his degree like he promised his mother he would.

Mimes confirmed that all it took was one short telephone conversation.

"He called me and said he had so many people in his ear saying he should leave, and I said, 'It's your decision, but I still say no, you shouldn't,'' she said. "I said you've been in school three years, and you're not too far from graduating. We all know football is not for long.'

"I said, 'I don't have to talk to you anymore about this, because we have already talked about this before.' ''

Calhoun enters this season on watch lists for a variety of awards. He's been named a first-team preseason All-American by at least four media entities, including Sports Illustrated and USA Today.

But Calhoun says inspiring a positive attitude is as much a part of his role with the Spartans as sacking quarterbacks, and his teammates clearly appreciate that, having recently voted him a team captain.

"I try to stay positive for my team, and I want to be positive because of my role with the team,'' Calhoun said. "You never know how you can affect someone's life. So you have to stay on task and make sure the other guys are happy and ready to go in practice, and have a good time, because football is only a game.''