No Time To Wait – Ohio State Buckeyes
9/10/2005 12:00:00 AM | Football
Sept. 10, 2005
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A.J. Hawk wanted to answer the question. He really did. But Ohio State coach Jim Tressel told him to wait.
A.J. Hawk was not used to waiting. Ever.
The question – if he would accept a scholarship to play football at Ohio State – was an easy one for Hawk. Easy as it was, however, he consented to Tressel’s request and headed back home to Centerville, Ohio, where, for Hawk, it all began.
Hawk never had to wait in Centerville. His development as an athlete, unmistakably advanced since he was a child, had propelled him onto the teams of older kids since he was in the third grade. It made him a varsity football starter as a freshman and eventually one of the top prep football players in Ohio heading into his senior season.
But at that moment, sitting in Tressel’s office where Hawk could think of nothing finer than playing for his home-state Buckeyes, the Ohio State mentor gave him a homework assignment.
“Before I could answer he told me to talk to my parents,” Hawk said. “I could have committed right then, but it was alright. I knew.”
When Keith Hawk, A.J.’s father, walked into the Woody Hayes Athletic Center that summer afternoon in 2001 to pick up his son from what was the final day of the advanced-level skills camp, he could tell something had happened. “I remember that day very well,” Keith Hawk said. “When I walked in, Coach Jim Heacock saw me, walked over to me and said, `Tress just offered A.J. Just wanted you to know.'”
Translated from coach-speak, that meant A.J. was offered a scholarship. When the Hawks called back five days later to announce their acceptance of the offer, they had to wait again, albeit briefly and for a good reason.
“Mark Snyder answered the phone when A.J. called and he told A.J., `That’s great. Let’s do this right – call back in 10 minutes,'” Keith Hawk said. “When A.J. called back, the entire coaching staff was in the room on speaker phone and they all offered their congratulations. They did it first class.”
Perhaps Tressel and the Buckeye coaching staff knew what they had. In the coming years, Hawk would lead the Buckeye defense in tackles as a sophomore and junior and earn first-team All-America honors as a junior. Heading into his senior campaign in 2005, he is on the watch list for every major college football defensive award and earned Big Ten Preseason Defensive Player of the Year honors for the second time.
Hawk is used to doing things early. Growing up, he jumped up one level, sometimes two, above his own age group in the youth football and basketball leagues in Centerville. In a community youth football league divided into separate age groups, Centerville saw Hawk play on the fourth-grade team when he was a third grader and so on until it was impossible for him to go up any higher.
Perhaps Hawk was destined for speed. His given name, Aaron James Hawk, is significant for two reasons. First because his mother liked the name Aaron, but second because his father would successfully “rename” him A.J. in honor of hall of fame race car driver A.J. Foyt, a contemporary of Keith Hawk’s father, who was also competitive in the sport.
Fast and talented as he was, Hawk’s classmates had to catch up to him eventually. He spent two years in the sixth-grade league waiting for kids his own age to join him before they would allow Hawk to join the junior high team.
While his peers were chasing Hawk, he was running after his older brothers, Matt and Ryan. The three brothers have always been close, but especially tight are A.J. and Ryan, who are just two years apart. As the three boys burst into adolescence, their parents, Keith and Judy, built a new house in Centerville that backed up to the community’s Forest Field Park.
“A.J. was always around my friends and me,” Ryan Hawk, who recently wrapped up his football career at Ohio University, said. “We were always playing tennis, pick-up baseball games, home run derby, anything. We played all kinds of sports. We had a great basketball hoop up in our driveway, too. There was a ton of room. It was perfect.”
Their natural athletic ability aside, the Hawk boys’ residence next to the park had a profound impact on their development as all-around athletes, and their parents knew it.
“They were in organized sports, but in their free time they played at the park all the time,” Judy Hawk said. “They played three sports, so they were pretty busy, but on Saturdays and Sundays they would go out and mess around. And they played basketball in the driveway all hours of the day.”
In fact it was basketball that was Hawk’s first love. With his goal of being a Duke point guard, the Hawk driveway would host games that featured A.J. and Ryan and the Nugent brothers – Mike, who would go on to earn All-America honors twice at Ohio State, and Kevin, who is in his senior season on the Buckeye soccer team. John Thomas, Hawk’s neighbor and one of his best friends since the duo was 5 years old, was usually in on the games, as well. The two have not just remained close over the years – they have been college roommates at Ohio State.
Having a community park so near to the location of the new house was no accident.
“It factored in quite a bit,” Keith Hawk said. “They had shown a big inclination they loved sports. We were right next to ball diamonds and tennis courts. We had a lot of sports in mind when we moved there.”
Not that Hawk needed an invitation to jump into anything sports related, of course. From the first moment they could, Ryan and A.J. were always playing – and competing.
“A.J. and I were about as competitive as two people can be,” Ryan Hawk said. “Actually, competitive is a big understatement. It could be in golf, poker, basketball – we just compete. That’s a big reason why we both have done so well in competitive situations. It’s a huge part of us.”
That spirited and feisty relationship did not go unnoticed by their parents, but it was not looked down upon.
“Both of them became what they are because of the other one,” Keith Hawk said. “They pushed each other so hard, and they still do it today. They are constantly giving credit to the other.”
As the two boys ventured off to college, their competitive streak was funneled into their own quest for success. Ryan began his collegiate career at Miami (Ohio), but when Ben Roethlisberger, a future NFL first-round draft pick, took hold of the starting quarterback job, Ryan transferred to Ohio University. He would go on to be the starting quarterback for the Bobcats for two years, which meant the boys’ parents would split up on the weekends to make sure at least one parent was at each game.
Being on separate teams did not stop Ryan and A.J. from following what the other one was up doing, even on game day. Whenever the two had different game times, the other one was checking in via cell phone with whichever parent was at the game to get an update. Last fall ESPN even got into the act, showing live shots of Ryan and Ohio’s game against Kentucky while A.J. and the Buckeyes were battling at Northwestern.
The strong relationship between the two boys was strengthened during the two years they spent together on Centerville’s varsity football team. In the fall of 1998, Ryan, a junior, already was a key performer for the Elks. It also was the same season that his freshman brother, A.J., arrived.
“It might have made it a little easier on him, to have someone to draw from,” Ryan Hawk said of their first season together. “It was really cool when he came up because not only did he come in and play right away, he was dominant and helped us win a lot of games.”
The two years they shared together the Hawks helped Centerville fashion a 20-3 record and make two trips to the state playoffs. With Ryan at quarterback and A.J. at running back and linebacker, they teamed up for not only several unforgettable touchdowns, but countless personal memories.
“We had an incredibly awesome high school experience,” Ryan said. “And when we started playing together we got a lot closer. I remember all the days in practice and in games when you share that look in the eye when you know what’s going on. To be able to do that in games when competing was unbelievable. Those were two of the best years either of us will ever have. The feeling of having someone who is more than your best friend out there with you and the amount of success we had was awesome.”
Built from that experience and having overcome a knee injury during his senior season, perhaps no one was surprised A.J. would not wait to make an impact for the Buckeyes as a freshman. During Ohio State’s 2002 national championship season, several of Hawk’s 26 tackles and both of his interceptions, including the one he ran back for a touchdown against Kent State, made the postseason highlight film, but in his parents’ eyes, his first steps on the field were every bit as memorable.
“Coach Mark Dantonio had told us they probably were not going to redshirt him,” Keith Hawk said. “And it didn’t take us long to find out when the kickoff team went out for the opening kickoff against Texas Tech and there went A.J., Bobby (Carpenter) and Mike (D’Andrea). We didn’t have to wait long.”
From that point on, nearly all of Hawk’s career has been on the highlight film. Even karma appears to be on his side, as last season during the Penn State game in Ohio Stadium, Ohio State retired the No. 47 jersey of its first All-American, Chic Harley. Both No. 47s, Harley and Hawk, graced the cover of the game day program that afternoon as Buckeye fans honored Harley, the first OSU legend to wear that number, then watched as Hawk, the latest, led the Scarlet and Gray to another victory.
While contributing to an undefeated season, two wins over Michigan, 273 tackles and six interceptions, Hawk’s career has sped by. Time, like A.J., will not wait.
“It has gone too quick,” Judy Hawk said. “Everyone told us that would happen and to just enjoy each year because it does go so fast. We were so fortunate his freshman year winning a national championship. We couldn’t have had it any better.”
After the 2004 season ended, more than one analyst from the National Football League speculated about Hawk’s future career in the sport and if he might join their level early, giving up his senior season. Come to find out, nothing could have been further from Hawk’s mind.
“People asked if he was going to the NFL early,” Keith Hawk said. “But he was saying he wished he could come back to Ohio State for another year after 2005. He didn’t want to make it go faster by leaving early.”
If that was in fact the first time Hawk has ever wanted to wait, he could not have picked a better time. As he and Ohio State march toward their goal of a Big Ten championship this season and the awards continue to come his way, do not think Hawk is going to change. That comes straight from the person who probably knows him best.
“I am really proud of what he has become and how he has handled the success he has achieved,” Ryan Hawk said. “He and I are still the way we have always been and I think that’s a measure of the type of person he is. A.J. deserves all the recognition he gets and he wants to be there for Ohio State.”
As much as he has been there for Ohio State already and with a full senior season in front of him, A.J. Hawk’s time in the scarlet and gray will be one for the history books. For even though time does not wait, it does not forget, either.
