Bengals homecoming special for A.J. Hawk

The text messages were flying, pinging from Cincinnati to Dayton. A.J. Hawk hasn’t had to date in over a decade, and this is about as close to that part of life he’s experienced since meeting his future wife.

It was spring, and Hawk was making a visit with the Cincinnati Bengals as a free agent. He hoped to be impressed - wooed by the team he long dreamed of playing for.

What if? Could it happen?

He tried to keep expectations low. First, a meeting with Bengals head coach Marvin Lewis. Then a conversation with linebackers coach Matt Burke. Dinner with defensive coordinator Paul Guenther. Hawk was impressed. The texts to his wife Laura had to be quick, discreet.

They were hitting it off. Things looked promising.

Could it be real?

Hawk is a seasoned, polished professional. He is measured, thoughtful. Yet there he was in March, days after becoming a free agent for the first time, excitedly keeping his family in the loop of what was, quite literally, the beginning of a dream coming to reality.

The right fit

Hawk knows the business of football more than most. He was cut for the first time by Green Bay in 2011 to help the team’s salary cap situation, and then re-signed the next day. Two years later, he was asked to restructure his deal again.

Conversations would occur over the years. It’s natural. What if the Packers let you go? What about Cincinnati?

There was already a built-in comfort level with the Bengals. Hawk’s longtime friend and former grade school, high school and college teammate Mike Nugent was already there. And, coincidentally, Hawk’s father, Keith, had gotten to know Lewis casually over the years.

The fact that the Bengals are perennial AFC playoff participants made them that much more attractive.

“That was huge,” Hawk admitted. “If they were going 2-14 every year, I don’t think I would have been nearly as excited about it. I knew from watching them on film a little bit how much talent they have.”

The Bengals' coaching staff felt Hawk would be a solid addition to that mix. It’s why the team put on the hard sell.

Hawk’s signing coincided with one of the birthdays of his nephews, a son of his oldest brother, Matt Bourquin, an electrician in Dayton. The family was supposed to get together at a Chili’s, but the gathering was delayed as the texts bounced from one phone to another.

“It was exciting to listen to,” Bourquin said. “It was really exciting to listen to how excited he was about it all. We were all pulling for it at the time.”

Then, it happened. Name to paper. Official.

“It was just a really big emotional moment for our whole family when we found it’s done, man, and he signed and he’s coming home,” said Ryan Hawk, A.J.’s second-oldest brother, a former quarterback at Miami University and Ohio University.

A.J. shot his dad a text:

I never thought this would really happen. I never thought this could happen.

Keith smiled.

“He really wanted it.”

In A.J.’s childhood home in Centerville, Ohio, Judy Hawk wrapped her hands around a coffee cup.

“He could be in Oakland now,” A.J.’s mom said. “We’d have no house to go to. It could’ve been more, not difficult – but this couldn’t be more perfect. It really couldn’t. With his wife, too, and the kids. In other places that wouldn’t be the case.”

Nugent’s phone blew up, too. But he didn’t believe it. After all, it was just fun conversation between friends over the years.

So he sent his own text to ferret out the truth.

“There’s so many other teams he could go to, and there’s a no-way-it-could-happen kind of thing,” Nugent said.

“It’s kind of too good to be true.”

The favorite son returns

Not every player gets his name on a marquee, let alone outside the McDonald’s on Route 48 in Centerville. And not every player can create a rumble through a high school when the news of his signing is read over the public address system.

But that excitement around Hawk’s homecoming is very real.

“A lot of people are proud of him,” Centerville High School principal Jon Wesney said. “The fact he played here, had a lot of success here, played at Ohio State. There’s a lot of pride that he’s back in Ohio.”

And as Nugent said, it’s almost too good to be true.

Take the first time Hawk stepped foot on an NFL field. It was at Riverfront Stadium, outfitted in full black and orange regalia, as he competed in a Punt, Pass and Kick competition.

“He knocked it out of the park there, too, and took us to San Diego,” Bourquin said with a laugh. “He wasn’t even intimidated at that point down there.”

There is little room for sentimentality in sports, and sometimes when a player returns “home,” it seems forced. But this – this is different.

It’s visceral.

Bourquin felt it on family day. His son played touch football. He watched his nieces, A.J and Ryan’s daughters, perform cheer routines.

Little brother brought the family together again on the field. It resonates.

“It does,” Bourquin said “Just to watch it all.”

Coming home means leaving one

Even though the Bengals opened the door for a new home, it meant he’d have to pull closed the other.

It wasn’t the business that made that hard.

It was figuring out a way to tell his 4-year-old daughter, Lennon, she wouldn’t see Uncle Clay, Uncle Aaron, Uncle Jordy and her friends in Wisconsin, that they wouldn’t be going to “Green Bay house” for the first time.

“I’m going to break down telling her,” Hawk remembered thinking. “I don’t know how to handle it. That was one of my biggest worries, like how do I do this, how do you explain that to a little kid?”

Green Bay is where he and Laura began their marriage, their family, where they shared the highlights of life.

“People forget about that when it comes to professional athletes,” said Ryan Hawk. “That’s not the easiest thing.”

There was a solution, though, at least when it came to Lennon.

Her dad pulled up a picture of the striped helmet and the tiger logo.

“She’s like 'oh, OK, dad, I like that,' ” A.J. said with a laugh. “I was smart enough to use the easy stuff.”

After all, that easy stuff worked just as well for him when he was that age. He rocked back in a chair in an office just off the equipment room in Paul Brown Stadium and looked over his right shoulder at the helmet.

So much for the Bengals' uniforms long being considered the ugliest in the league.

“Not for me or my kids,” he laughed. “Not for the 31-year-old and the 4-year-old.”

The big finish?

He knows how it looks.

Hawk runs his hand through his blonde hair, sweeping it back as he smiles.

He’s entering his 10th year in the league. He’s had quiet offseason surgeries and rehabilitation programs for wrist, calf, chest and ankle injuries. He’ll turn 32 just days after the regular season ends, and he signed a two-year contract.

“Like it’s a capper on my career or something?” he asked. “I haven’t it looked at it like that. I really haven’t.”

Hawk knows he’s been blessed with relatively good health, missing just two games in nine years. He knows there is life after football and has said he’d like to get into broadcasting. His podcast, “The HawkCast,” is a popular venture that has featured guests from the sports and entertainment worlds.

But no one that he’s close to will say this is the end of the line for him as a player. He doesn’t know if he’ll play out this contract, or move on to play three more years after that.

That won’t keep him, or his family and friends – or the cities of Centerville, Columbus, Dayton or Cincinnati – from enjoying this.

“It almost doesn’t feel … sometimes I have to remind myself I’m like, wow, I’m actually going to be here in Ohio during the season,” Hawk began. “That’s what’s weird to me, still.

“The fact that that is even an option is crazy to me. It’s awesome. It still feels weird but it’s a great one. I never thought it was going to be a reality.”