His was a football life, outsized in body and commitment. At 6-foot-7, Johanningmeier would often rest his elbow on the shoulders of teammates. It was a gentle reminder of his enormous frame and a silent reassurance he would keep them safe.

But former elite athletes in their 30s don’t normally die without warning. During his playing career, Johanningmeier underwent seven surgeries, on his wrist, ankle, knees, shoulder and back. Pain wore him down.

“You can’t rewrite history. You can’t think about what might have been,” said Adam Reed, a center who played alongside Johanningmeier at Colorado. “Where does any one chain of events start? Where does the train get off track from whatever your original fate was?”

Johanningmeier was a dominating lineman at Colorado. As a junior, in 1998, he was among an elite class. Seven of the 10 linemen ahead of him on the all-Big 12 Conference first and second teams played in the NFL. Playboy magazine selected Johanningmeier for its 1999 preseason All-America team and flew him to Phoenix for a weekend party. As he did on CU’s line, Johanningmeier found himself standing next to quarterbacks.

Tennessee’s Peyton Manning, the 1998 All-American quarterback and a recent No. 1 draft choice by the Indianapolis Colts, was there to welcome the new crop. He and Johanningmeier posed for a photo.

“They look like they’re babies,” Curfman said. “It’s so cute.”

Their paths would soon go in wildly different directions. Manning was ready to launch what would become a record-setting NFL career. Johanningmeier was preparing for what would become a painful senior season.

“If Ryan doesn’t get hurt, maybe he’s still playing ball,” Reed said. “Maybe he plays two years and burns out. Who knows?”

While no one knew it at the time, everything changed after Johanningmeier took a hit to his back in the CU spring game in 1999, an injury that would, in subsequent years, send him into a spiral.

A pile of players chased a fumble. Johanningmeier ran over to help. He hurdled two players and targeted the safety for a block. When he planted his feet, defensive players hit him from each side, straight at his shoulders and square in his back. He bent over backward and landed in the grass.

The pain was severe. But no one knew the damage. By August, he was ready for preseason drills. When CU’s season began, he was listed on practice reports as “day to day with back spasms.”

“He tried to handle everything himself,” said his father, B.J. Johanningmeier. “He always wanted to be stoic.”

By the third week of the season, trainers discovered the source of his pain. Johanningmeier had three compressed vertebrae in his back, almost certainly the result of that hit in the spring game. But he kept playing.

“There’s a curse of football,” Reed said. “You get back in and you go. You don’t think about it. There’s a little bit of meathead to it. But that’s required. That’s the culture. You’re a member of a team. You don’t want to let anybody down. You sacrifice yourself for the betterment of the group.”

Johanningmeier, a co-captain, played through pain all season, helping CU to a 7-5 record and an Insight.com Bowl victory over Boston College. Cortisone shots — football’s go-to remedy to get injured players back on the field — helped keep him going.

It seemed Johanningmeier, with his skill and toughness, was positioned well for the NFL draft. Instead it was the beginning of the end of his time on a football field.

“If we could have intervened at any time, that’s when we should have,” his mother said with the benefit of hindsight. “We should have encouraged him he was done. But we didn’t know at the time.

“It was his body, his choice. He was young. You don’t think you’re going to be crippled the rest of your life.”