Randy Peterson

rpeterson@dmreg.com





AMES, Ia. – It's different around the Iowa State football practice field these days. Little Colden Bray still shows up, and he's always welcome, but it's not the same as back when he and his sister, Sydney, ran around with their dad after the big guys finished working out.

That changed one day last January as coaches started to assemble at the office. It changed when assistant coach Curtis Bray, their dad, died at age 43 of a pulmonary embolism shortly after arriving around 7 a.m., the time most coaches start their long days.

Work stopped. Co-workers were stunned.

A good-guy member of the coaching staff, one of coach Paul Rhoads' initial hires, was suddenly gone.

For Heather Bray, who lost a husband Jan. 15, she knows the drill this time of year.

"It's football season," she says, almost as a matter of fact.

She's seen it from the inside out. She's Curtis' wife. She's mom to Sydney and Colden. She's still popular among veteran players, some of whom playfully hooted and hollered within earshot as Bray and a reporter chatted two weeks ago.

"That's the stuff I miss," she said, acknowledging every one of them as they walked by.

Colden, 7, shows up occasionally, mostly hanging with his best bud, starting defensive end Cory Morrissey. Heather and 9-year-old Sydney stop by the football complex as well, because as Rhoads emphatically says:

"The Brays will always be part of the Iowa State football family."

They'll be back in Jack Trice Stadium on Aug. 30 for the North Dakota State game, sitting in the same section in which they've sat for the past five years, cheering on the Cyclones.

"It's going to be tough, but I can't imagine not going, either," Heather said while sitting, appropriately, just outside the inner sanctum of the football offices. "Football is a huge part of who we are as a family; it's kind of all we know.

"Our lifestyles are based around football."

It's different now, but she's tough. She's handling it.

"You have to be tough when you're a coach's wife," she said.

It's that toughness — she's from Pennsylvania, and like Curtis, a Pitt graduate — that allows her to look forward.

"I'd rather be talking about how everyone — and I mean everyone in the Ames and the Iowa State community — have embraced us since Curtis died," Heather said. "That's what I'd prefer to be discussing."

She's honored that players will sport a "C.B." decal on the back of their helmets, but she'd prefer talking about the Curtis Bray Memorial Fund.

"It's been unbelievable," Heather said. "Through the Boys and Girls Club, we sent some kids to the Little Cyclones volleyball camp and the Little Cyclones football camp.

"We're being active with the fund in the Ames community and in the Pittsburgh area."

She's pleasant when someone offers belated condolences, but she prefers expounding — at great length — about Morrissey, the senior who even changed his uniform number to honor his fallen position coach.

"Cory had a special relationship with Curtis that I initially was unaware of," Heather said. "Cory comes over to the house frequently. Colden thinks he's the greatest.

"Cory could be part of the family; I'd be OK with that."

Morrissey, a strapping 6-foot-4, 260-pound senior, wouldn't have it any other way.

"I've gone to his basketball games, his soccer games," Morrissey said. "I hang out with him. We go to McDonald's. He's like my little brother."

Colden will be there, too, not only for the season-opening game, but at the six home games that follow, because as Heather says:

"Once football gets in your blood, it's always in your blood."