If in fact Shane Buechele earns Texas' starting quarterback job as a true freshman, let it be known now that it wouldn't be his most odds-defying feat.

We're not referring to his gravitation to football despite the fact his father, Steve, played 11 major league seasons and is the Rangers' current bench coach.

Or that Shane became a Longhorn even though all four of his siblings are Oklahoma Sooner fanatics, although, hoo-boy, baby brother's decision did jolt them like a burnt-orange lightning bolt.

Those Shane surprises cannot compare with Nancy Buechele's spring-of-1997 realization that she was pregnant with him -- despite Steve's having had a vasectomy.

For the close-knit Buechele family, it's made Shane's Jan. 8, 1998, birth and journey from ultra-hyper kid to calm Arlington Lamar star to early rave reviews in Austin all the more wondrous.

"He's the oops baby who turned out to be the prodigy," laughs Jordan Buechele, 21, the older of Shane's two sisters.

Medical science's flub could be Texas' godsend. Longhorn fans no doubt yearn to anoint him Destiny's Quarterback. But anyone who knows the inherent pressures at Texas and the school's checkered quarterback history should understand this is a tap-the-brakes moment.

Coach Charlie Strong reiterated to reporters Saturday that he expects both Buechele and senior Tyrone Swoopes to play in the Sept. 4 season opener against Notre Dame in Austin, but that he doesn't know whether snaps will be split "50-50, 60-40 or 30-70."

Then Strong coyly said "I kind of know" which quarterback will start against the Fighting Irish, adding, "The decision will be made and then the team will know. I'm not going to put it out there, because I don't want Notre Dame to know who we're going to start at quarterback."

True freshman quarterbacks have started only 23 games at Texas, going 13-10. Whoever starts against Notre Dame will lead a team coming off a 5-7 season, with a projected three senior starters, in front of a Darrell K. Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium crowd of 100,000-plus.

As with all Texas freshmen and newcomers, Buechele is not being made available for media interviews until he earns the opportunity on the field. Part of UT's responsibility, Strong believes, is to manage players' outside distractions while they grow as young men.

Buechele's parents say that if he's feeling internal or external pressure, it isn't evident when he phones home.

"Does he not open up to us? I don't know," Steve Buechele says. "To be honest with you, if I were in his shoes I don't know how calm I would be, but he just seems to be taking it all in stride."

After leading Arlington Lamar to an 11-2 record last fall, Shane graduated in December as a 4.0-average Academic All-State player. He enrolled at Texas in January and made the Big 12 commissioner's honor roll for the spring semester.

Arlington Lamar High School quarterback Shane Buechele (7) runs on a quarterback keeper during the second quarter of their game against Richland High School on Thursday, August 27, 2015 at The Birdville ISD Fine Arts/Athletics Complex in Haltom City, Texas. (Ashley Landis/The Dallas Morning News) 09242015xPUB (Staff Photographer)

What most mattered to Texas fans was what occurred in the April 16 Orange & White spring game, when Buechele completed 22 of 41 passes for 299 yards and two touchdowns in one half before an approaching storm and lack of roster depth led Strong to cancel the second half.

Two weeks later, Shane brought fellow early enrollee Longhorns Collin Johnson, Zach Shackelford and Demarco Boyd to a Rangers game and a stopover in his family's Grand Prairie home.

"We were just gabbing about stuff," Nancy recalls. "And I said, 'I don't think Shane's going to start. They're not going to start a freshman against Notre Dame, of all schools.'"

Nancy says Shane's three young teammates looked incredulous.

"That's my goal, Mom," Shane said, sternly. "To start."

Texas quarterback Shane Buechele (16) looks to throw during a spring NCAA college football game, Saturday, April 16, 2016, in Austin, Texas. (AP Photo/Eric Gay) ORG XMIT: OTK (AP)

California to Texas

Shane's path to Austin seems even more improbable when you consider that Steve and Nancy are native Southern Californians.

They met at a party when they were 16. Steve was a budding baseball standout at an all-male Catholic school, Servite High in Anaheim.

Nancy attended Troy High, the public school that many of Steve's friends attended. On the night they met, Steve got Nancy's friend to fib and say she didn't have enough gas to take Nancy home. Steve, naturally, kindly gave her a ride.

Their on-and-off courtship lasted 10 years. Nancy initially stayed near home, attending California State in Fullerton.

Steve headed 400 miles north to Stanford, where he played baseball for three seasons, helped lead the Cardinal to the '82 College World Series and roomed with teammate John Elway, who also dabbled in football.

When Steve and Nancy married in January 1989, he was entering his fifth season as the Rangers' third baseman.

Garrett, now 26, was born 10 months later, followed by Tanner (25), Jordan (21) and Amber (20).

"I kind of wanted a fifth," Nancy says. "Steve was saying, 'No, we have four healthy kids. We're good.'"

They agreed that Steve would visit Dr. Rick Carter, whose wife, Kristel, was Nancy's friend and tennis partner, for the ol' snip-snip.

Steve's playing career had ended two years earlier, with his July 31, 1995, release by the Rangers, after trades to the Pirates (1991) and Cubs ('92).

Six months after Amber's birth, Nancy, feeling symptoms, took an in-home pregnancy test. Uh-oh. Steve was in Colorado, playing in Elway's annual charity golf tournament, so Nancy hauled her four age-7-and-under kids to her doctor's office to take a blood test.

Over the next few hours, Nancy and Steve played phone tag. When she finally reached him, her first words were, "You're going back to Dr. Rick."

To this day, Elway teases Steve that he should have known Shane would be a quarterback by the way he "snuck in."

Fortunately, Shane's siblings were relatively mild-mannered kids, en route to becoming high achievers, athletically and academically. Initially, baby Shane's arrival didn't seem terribly traumatic. That feeling was short-lived.

"He was so loud," Nancy says. "We would travel and he would do things and I'm like, 'Oh my God!'"

A more diplomatic description would be "strong-willed," a trait Texas fans certainly want in a quarterback.

"He was obnoxious," says Jordan, recalling a particularly bad Shane meltdown at an airport when he was about 3. "We just all kind of walked away, leaving him and my mom."

Up against the big kids

It doesn't take a child psychologist to surmise that being the youngest Buechele made Shane more competitive.

It's also true that his siblings sometimes enjoyed egging him on.

"He definitely always wanted to do what everyone else was doing, and if he didn't do it well he got a little frustrated," Garrett says. "He was a feisty little kid."

When Garrett was 12 and Tanner 11, 4-year-old Shane wanted to join a neighborhood street hockey game. Garrett and Tanner made him goalie, cushioning him with football shoulder pads, a hockey girdle, and a catcher's mask, chest-protector and shin padding.

Nancy sometimes asked Garrett and Tanner to go easier on Shane, to which Tanner replied: "Mom, he's never going to be any better if I'm not hard on him."

Shane Buechele playing basketball

The Buecheles still laugh about other Shane tales. Running between every shot while playing nine golf holes with his dad. Losing to his mom in tennis at age 7, practicing for three days and challenging her to a rematch.

Losing a game of H-O-R-S-E to Jordan and throwing the basketball at her face.

"I went up and decked him, slapped him so hard," Jordan says. "He just went upstairs and cried. I think I got grounded for it.

"He had a handprint on his face for a day."

Meanwhile, playing youth football, baseball and basketball against kids his age, Shane often dominated. On Nancy's videotapes of games, opposing parents often were heard exclaiming, "Who is that kid?"

When Shane began competing in middle school sports, though, it was as if a switch flipped in his brain. He was still competitive and often dazzling, but the wild look in his eyes vanished. He became almost eerily composed.

Again, a trait Texas fans no doubt want in their quarterback.

His parents say Shane's youth league coaches no doubt helped. He often was placed in pressure situations and preached to about showing leadership.

Having a professional-athlete father certainly didn't hurt, although Steve says their postgame chats were rarely about specific plays and decisions, but rather his attitude and body language.

Then there was Mom, constantly reminding him of her golden sports rule: "Being humble is just as important as being good."

Shane Buechele as a child

"Maybe he got it out of his system when he was a little kid," Steve says. "Now it's a calm intensity that he has. It's a really unique gift."

Sooners in the family

Tanner was the first Buechele to become an Oklahoma sports fan, although he wound up attending Fullerton College.

Garrett planned to play baseball at Kansas, but on the way back from a visit to Lawrence he and his father stopped in Norman and met with Sooners coaches.

Oklahoma didn't have a roster spot, but Garrett walked on, red-shirted and became 2009's Big 12 Freshman of the Year. During the Buecheles' frequent trips to Norman, Jordan and Amber fell in love with the school, so they, too, enrolled.

Jordan graduated in May and now is a freshman English teacher and JV volleyball coach at Lamar. Amber this week begins her junior year at Oklahoma.

Oklahoma was among the 11 schools that offered Shane a scholarship. So did Steve's alma mater, Stanford. When Shane showed interest in Texas, Nancy's first thought was her dislike of all things Longhorn, mostly derived from UT baseball wins over OU.

She estimates she visited the Texas campus eight times with Shane, often whispering to herself, "Gosh, I really like this school. I'm trying not to."

"Everybody there was unbelievable," she says. "And not to mention every time I went, Coach Strong always made an effort to say, 'Hi, come into my office.'

"And I think I went to OU four times and never met the head coach once."

Still, Nancy wasn't prepared for the Feb. 23, 2015, night on which Shane came downstairs, grinning.

"Did someone else offer you?" she asked.

"Nope. I pulled the trigger."

"What do you mean you pulled the trigger?"

"I committed."

"To who?"

"UT."

He had already phoned his father, who was in Arizona at spring training with the Rangers. After breaking the news to Mom, the next step was texting his Sooner-crazy siblings.

Jordan says some of her guy friends at Oklahoma, figuring Shane "was a shoo-in for OU," said he had let the Sooners down.

"It just kind of shocked everyone," she says. "It shocked me. It shocked my family."

Yet when Strong, offensive coordinator Sterlin Gilbert and offensive line coach Matt Mattox visited the Buechele home, he suggested going outside to take a picture with the Sooner sisters and encouraged them to pose with the Horns-down sign, though he politely declined the girls' request to do so himself.

L-R UT offensive coordinator Sterlin Gilbert; Amber Buechele (Shane's sister, who currently attends OU); Charlie Strong; Jordan Buechele (Shane's other sister, who at the time was a senior at OU); Shane Buechele; UT offensive line coach Matt Mattox. (Buechele family)

"He was like, 'I'm part of the family, too,'" Jordan says. "He just fit right in. He was so nice. We love Charlie Strong. He has a great heart, and I think he knows what's best for his team."

Dream doubleheader

On Sept. 4, the Sunday on which his son might make his college football debut, Steve Buechele and the Rangers have a 2:05 p.m. home game against the Astros.

The Longhorns and Fighting Irish kick off at 6:30 p.m.

Steve says that if Shane is named the starter, he probably will figure out a way to get to Austin in time. Even if Shane doesn't start, how could Steve miss the chance to see him run out of the Royal-Memorial Stadium tunnel for his first game?

"All those games we saw in high school, and I'm talking about all of our kids, I never really had that deep butterfly feeling for any of the games," Steve says. "I'm sure this one, for me, it'll be overwhelming."

Shane's athletic rise coincided with Steve's return to pro baseball, initially as a Rangers spring training "legacy alumni coach" in 2008.

L-R: Garrett Buechele, Jordan Buechele, Shane Buechele, Steve Buechele, Nancy Buechele, Amber Buechele, Tanner Buechele

That led to Steve's managing the Rangers' minor league team in Bakersfield, Calif., in 2009, the Double-A team in Frisco from 2010 to 2013 and Triple-A Round Rock in 2014 before becoming the major league bench coach last season.

It has meant that for eight months of each year, Nancy and the four older Buechele siblings have been Shane's primary support system. Tanner, an assistant golf pro, accompanied Nancy and Shane on many of their college visits.

"We're lucky, really lucky, to have five really good kids," Steve says. "They like each other, like being around each other. It just so happens Shane's the baby and he's getting all the headlines right now."

Garrett Buechele played two seasons in the Giants' organization. He is beginning his third year as head soccer coach at Pearland High School, where he also teaches special education. His wife, Suzy, a former All-America volleyball player at Oklahoma, is the volleyball coach at Alvin High School.

Garrett and Suzy plan to attend the Notre Dame game, though Garrett says, "It's going to be weird being around that much burnt orange."

As for the Oct. 8 Texas-Oklahoma game, well, let's first see how the Buecheles -- Shane included -- handle the Notre Dame game.

"Today we were at the store and my dad wanted me to try on a burnt orange vest," Jordan says. "I had it on. I was like, 'I just can't do it.'

"I think when I go to the game, I'll maybe stick to a neutral color, like gray or white and maybe wear earrings with a flare of burnt orange."

The Buecheles know that Texas fans are hopeful that Shane becomes the quality of quarterback they have craved since Colt McCoy's 2010 departure.

Steve Buechele, who played baseball's hot corner, also understands that Texas has been a cauldron for pedigreed quarterbacks who have failed to live up to expectations. Former Longhorns and current Rangers interim third-base coach Spike Owen is a friend of Garrett Gilbert's family.

"Shoot, the kid that went down to Texas from [Arlington] Bowie, Sherrod Harris, I know what the hype was for him," Steve Buechele says. "You just don't know what's going to come about.

"For me, hope is hope," he adds of Texas fans. "For me, hard as it is, trying not to get overly involved in it, it's exciting, for sure. And my wish is that it becomes more tangible than just hope."

For years, Steve and Nancy never told their kids about the vasectomy that didn't take. Not that they were hiding that fact. It just didn't seem like a big deal.

Rick and Kristel Carter, though, never forgot. For years, the running joke was that the doctor and his wife would help pay Shane's college tuition.

But wouldn't you know it? The Carters are Longhorns fans. Two of their kids went to Texas. Now the Carters jokingly wonder if they should get a kickback.

About two years ago, Steve and Nancy finally told Shane and his siblings about the failed vasectomy. Shane even got to meet Dr. Carter at Garrett and Suzy's wedding.

Shane shook the doctor's hand and smiled.

"Thank you very much."

Twitter: @townbrad

L-R: Sister Jordan Buechele, Shane Buechele, sister Amber Buechele

Shane Buechele playing baseball

Texas quarterback Shane Buechele (16) during a spring NCAA college football game, Saturday, April 16, 2016, in Austin, Texas. (AP Photo/Eric Gay) ORG XMIT: OTK (AP)

*Though true freshmen were not eligible in most conference until 1972, Texas and many other schools made an exception during World War II, when teams were short on players.

Source: University of Texas