Joe Rexrode

DOWAGIAC – Roughly twice his size and age, Culver-Stockton College defensive tackle Andy Staten enveloped the Central Methodist University running back with one of those plays that sticks in the mind long after it is made.

"He pushes one blocker off with his right hand," Culver-Stockton coach Jeff Duvendeck said of Staten during a game last season in their home stadium in Canton, Mo. "Then he pushes the other off with his left hand. And he's just standing there, waiting for the running back to run into his arms."

That is the kind of beastly moment one might expect from a 6-foot-5, 295-pound nose tackle. The thing is, this one is 39 years old.

He survived a head-on collision as a passenger that left him with a broken back 19 years ago, and then Staten spent 15 years as a laborer, welding and pouring asphalt and cutting trees. The back gives him searing pain in the morning and random numbness in his legs, and it receives regular resets from two chiropractors who ask him how he possibly could continue to play college football.

"My lower back's gone," Staten said. "My lower-five lumbars, I've got complete deterioration; there's nothing between them. And then the two above it, one is bulging one way, one is bulging the other way."

But he has one more season in him. The father of two, brother of Michigan State University offensive line coach Mark Staten and son of a man who played for University of Michigan coaching legend Bo Schembechler owes himself this second chance to play football.

He will suit up and start for Culver-Stockton at nose tackle Saturday — 18 days before his 40th birthday — because he loves the game. Because he thinks the Wildcats can win a championship. Because that was the expectation when he signed with the NAIA school in 2012 and got his $50,000-a-year tuition paid.

And because he is determined to follow his sons — Clay, 16, and Luke, 12 — wherever his ex-wife takes them and use the business degree he is scheduled to earn in December 2015 to improve their life.

"The hardest part of this whole journey is being away from them," Staten said last month in his hometown of Dowagiac, where he sells cars and has his boys in the summer. "But they've got my back — they were all for this. They're why I'm doing this. I never would have been able to go back to school, work, pay child support, the whole deal. I looked at it, and it was, 'Boom.' A chance to do it all over."

A gritty foundation

Among the many tidbits of advice and motivation the late Schembechler gave to Mark Staten over the years was this note when Mark was a defensive tackle at Miami (Ohio): "Be as tough as your dad."

Mark lived with Schembechler's son Shemy at Miami — they later stood up in each other's weddings and remain close friends — after their parents made sure they met upon arrival in 1988.

A quarter century earlier, Schembechler took over the Miami program and went to great lengths to recruit a defensive tackle who had signed with the previous Miami coach but didn't want to play for "Woody Hayes Jr." Jerry Staten finally agreed to meet Schembechler, and they ended up talking for hours about Jerry's life, what he wanted out of it, the path to coaching and teaching.

"On that day, my whole life changed," Jerry said. "Next to my dad, there's no greater man than Bo Schembechler in my book."

Jerry lettered in 1964-66, starting as a junior and senior, the smallest defensive tackle in the Mid-American Conference (6-1, 210 pounds) for teams that won consecutive championships. Early in his junior season, he suffered a torn anterior cruciate ligament in his right knee and was given a choice — career-ending surgery or play through the pain.

"I taped it up every week," said Jerry, 69, who had the knee replaced 20 years ago. "If you play this game, you're gonna have physical pain."

Schembechler went on to a legendary career at Michigan. Jerry and his college sweetheart, Gloria, married and eventually settled in Dowagiac. They taught, and Jerry's 30-year coaching career included a state title with Dowagiac Union High in 1990 when Andy was a sophomore.

Their oldest, Holly, went on to Northwestern as a National Merit Scholar. Mark started four years at defensive tackle at Miami before two seasons in the NFL, three years as an actor in Los Angeles and a coaching career that has had him at MSU, assisting Mark Dantonio, since 2007.

Andy was a prospect, too, though his grades in high school were shaky. He chose Ferris State, redshirted in the fall of 1993 and quit after spring ball. It was simple.

"I was pretty wild," Andy said. "I was immature. I was a typical 18-year-old. I just wasn't ready."

He also wasn't ready for the Honda Accord that passed a tractor-trailer on a hill near Berrien Springs and crashed into his Pontiac 6000 on a November day in 1995. He was launched sideways from the passenger side — his girlfriend was driving — but his hip caught and prevented him from exiting through the windshield. Broken vertebrae, broken ribs and two weeks in intensive care resulted.

The biggest blind side came in 2009, when his wife, Jennifer, asked for a divorce. It was final a year later, their 14th of marriage.

Andy was stunned. He worried about seeing his children enough and providing for them. He switched from paving to farming, and one winter day he sat down with his father, still shivering after hours of cutting down trees.

"He said he figured he'd need to work for another 25 years," Jerry recalled. "He said, 'Dad, I don't want to do this for another 25 years. I can't do it.' "

Then came one of those life-changing conversations.

Risk and sacrifice

Duvendeck, 36 and from Flushing, relates well to his players because he once was like them — playing football into his 20s with little reward. He was a walk-on running back at Central Michigan University, taking daily poundings to help the first-team defense get ready.

"The scholarship guys would ask me all the time why I do it, getting hit like that without getting paid for it," said Duvendeck, who lettered as a senior in 2000. "It's a different mentality. You have to love the game."

The Wildcats play in Ellison A. Poulton stadium, capacity 1,800 with crowds usually several hundred short of that. There's no band. No TV, no media time-outs.

Duvendeck said the talent level in the Heart of America Athletic Conference — arguably the best NAIA league, with four teams in the preseason top 25 — is a shade below that of the Division II Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference. There aren't many guys who look like Andy Staten.

"But trust me, it's intense," said Culver-Stockton trainer Rob Carmichael, entering his 21st season. "These kids care, and they play at a high level."

NAIA schools are allowed 24 full scholarships in football, and Duvendeck must spread that money around a roster of 99. He got the job in 2011 after spending the 2010 season as an MSU graduate assistant working with wide receivers. After that first season, Mark Staten called him and asked him how things were going.

"We're pretty small, and we're pretty weak," Duvendeck told Mark of a team that went 1-10 in his first season.

"What about my brother?" Mark said.

They had a laugh, but Duvendeck had met Andy and knew he was a specimen. The physical labor, though rough on his back, had kept him sculpted. Mark and Andy had casually discussed a return to the field before, but Andy's NCAA "clock" started in 1993 at Ferris State and was long past expired.

On a late November day in 2011, Mark called Andy and told him he would be getting a call in an hour, and that he should take it. Andy had a one-word response to Jeff's pitch: "Huh?!"

"I said, 'I'm too old,' " Andy recalled. " 'I'm four years older than you!' "

Older, in fact, than everyone on Duvendeck's coaching staff. That was one of many questions as they talked it through.

Could he take coaching from younger men? Could he hold up physically? Could he handle being away for so long from his boys, who were moving to Florida with their mother? And what about the financial impact?

Andy was fine with the young coaches — he had worked for younger bosses — and he was excited for another chance to play the game. Clay and Luke were the most adamant that he should do it, and this was the only way he'd ever have another shot at a degree and a different career.

Financially, it has been a juggle. Full tuition is huge, but that still leaves living expenses to go with child support and no time to work during the school year.

Andy lives with his parents and sons in the summer and sells cars at C. Wimberley Ford in Dowagiac — the dealership asked him to stay before he headed back to school Aug. 9. He sold his own car, too.

His mother has put off retirement from teaching to provide more support. Gloria Staten will welcome a new third-grade class this week at Patrick Hamilton Elementary in Dowagiac.

"Honestly, I still feel called to teach," said Gloria, 66, who is starting her 33rd year. "It may just be the excuse I'm using. I do love this."

More than she loves watching family members take violent hits. She said she dated Jerry at Miami despite his involvement with the sport, and she thought she was done watching her children play it before Andy's sudden return.

"I still can't look when I start hearing that noise," Gloria said. "That crunch. I close my eyes, and then I open them and look to see if he's OK."

There's some making up to do in 2014 after Jerry and Gloria missed most of the 2013 season. The Staten family is coming off its toughest year yet.

Down, not out

Jerry Staten played football at 39, too — suiting up for a Miami alumni team that beat the current team in an exhibition. He lifted with his sons and still had a powerful physique well into his 50s.

So it was strange, on top of difficult, for everyone to see him in a bed at Kalamazoo's Borgess Medical Center for 18 days last September. A double-bypass surgery and valve replacement led to complications, and later to the discovery of a cancerous tumor on Jerry's thyroid.

"It's been really hard," Mark said. "The toughest man I've known in my life has been laying in hospital beds multiple times."

That did not stop Jerry from making it to Culver-Stockton's final home game last season, his only one. It didn't stop him from putting on the red suit and beard and appearing as Santa Claus all over Dowagiac during the holidays, as usual.

The thyroid was removed in May, and Jerry has been free of cancer since, with no chemotherapy needed.

"I'm not ready to check out yet," he said. "I'm blessed with so much in my life right now. I've got seven grandkids. I've got football to watch. My dad was at every game I ever played, and I've tried to be the same way."

Jerry and Gloria will get to as many MSU and Culver-Stockton games as they can. Andy will play in as many as he can. He missed two in his first season because of a knee infection. He missed two last season after a crackback block from a receiver left him with four broken ribs on his left side.

"(He) speared me," he said.

In the morning, Andy often wakes up with back pain "I can't possibly describe," he said.

"It takes a special kind of person to do this," said Carmichael, who has come up with an extensive, daily stretching routine to help the back. "He plays with pain, he plays with swelling — probably against my better judgment at times. But if it's a risk he's willing to take, that's his decision."

The Wildcats went 2-9 last season, but four losses were by a total of 16 points. Duvendeck said he believes this could be a special team. The defense relies heavily on Andy as "a plugger," Duvendeck said, and he has played every snap in several games.

The payoff is in the classroom, where Andy has a 3.4 grade-point average and has embraced the opportunity to learn again. He mentors his young teammates — he lived in a fraternity house his first year and now lives in a dormitory — and warns them against being too focused on revelry and not enough on responsibility, as he was at their age.

Gregarious and outgoing like the rest of his family, Andy is a natural salesman. He might have a chance to get into real estate with his former in-laws when he is done, and he definitely will be in South Carolina, where his ex-wife and sons recently moved. There are just three semesters to go, and one football season.

Probably.

"I've been in so much pain," Andy said. "But if I can get out of this one healthy and I'm feeling OK … who knows?"

Contact Joe Rexrode: jrexrode@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @joerexrode.

The Andy Staten file

Who: Culver-Stockton College (Mo.) junior defensive tackle.

From: Dowagiac.

Age: 39 (turns 40 on Sept. 24).

Height/weight: 6-feet-5, 295 pounds.

Major: Business (organizational management).

Stats: 57 tackles, 3½ for losses with a sack and two blocked kicks in two seasons.

Family: Sons Clay, 16, and Luke, 12.

Michigan State tie: Andy's brother, Mark Staten, is MSU's offensive line coach and has been an assistant for Mark Dantonio since 2004 at Cincinnati.

Michigan tie: Andy's father, Jerry Staten, played for Bo Schembechler at Miami (Ohio) in 1963-66 and remained close friends with Schembechler throughout his tenure at U-M and retirement.

Other well-aged college football players

■ Alan Moore, placekicker for Faulkner University in Montgomery, Ala., in 2011 at age 61.

■ Tom Thompson, placekicker for Austin College in Sherman, Texas, in 2009 at age 61

■ Tim (Pops) Frisby, receiver for South Carolina in 2004-05 at age 39 and 40.

■ Mike Flynt, linebacker for Sul Ross State in Alpine, Texas, in 2007 at age 59.