By GLENN NELSON 

December 21, 1989 

Publication: THE SEATTLE TIMES 

Word Count: 5209

NOTE: This story was included in “Best Sports Stories” (of 1989), published by The Sporting News, 1990.

Throw him a football. Watch his eyes widen as they fix on the point.

He sees the ball floating like a balloon, as if suspended in time. This is an exercise he has repeated over and over again.

Focus and dedication.

Throw him a football. Allow him to observe the velocity and arc of the pass. With the ball in midflight, ask him to close his eyes.

Watch him blindly extend his hands, where the ball eventually will find its haven.

Calculation and faith.

Such is the measure of an athlete who will end his career Saturday as the most prolific, most consistent and highest scoring receiver in the history of the NFL. They also are the measure of a man, for a man and his game cannot easily be divorced. More often than not, as he plays, he also lives.

And this is true of Steve Largent, Seattle Seahawk.

The words used to describe him have spewed forth like credits after an epic film. Elegant, precise, honest. Sensitive, hard working, dedicated. Christian, husband, father. Football player.

Usually missing from the list are two words – tough and resilient. And their absence may be completely missing the point.

Two plays, two shattering moments of violence say more about Largent, his life and career, than perhaps any other.

The first occurred in Denver, Sept. 4, the opening day of the 1988 season. In the third quarter of a game between the Seahawks and the Broncos, Largent runs a crossing pattern near the Denver 40. As he reaches for a pass thrown high by quarterback Dave Krieg, Bronco safety Mike Harden comes thundering from the middle of the field.

Harden throws a right forearm to the left side of Largent’s face. The impact shatters Largent’s facemask and a couple of teeth, jars him from consciousness and leaves him with a sprained left knee.

“When I saw that play on film, I wondered how Largent survived it,” says Raymond Clayborn, a cornerback for New England the past 13 years. “Then, to see him come back the next week . . . well, that says a lot about the man.”

The reprise came 14 weeks later during a rematch in the Kingdome. The Seahawks, leading 14-7 in the second quarter, have a third-and-one as Krieg launches a pass for Brian Blades. Harden intercepts the ball and runs up the sideline. Out of the end zone, Largent roars up the sideline and hits Harden so hard the ball pops loose. Largent recovers the fumble.

“That looked just like Steve,” says Jerry Potter, Largent’s Putnam City High School coach. “He was just a real aggressive high-school player.”

Potter’s favorite recollection of Largent’s high-school exploits isn’t a hit, however, or even a reception. It’s a defensive play. Arch rival Ada High has driven deep into Putnam City territory.

It attempts a pass. Largent picks it off at the 5-yard line and returns the ball 95 yards for a score.

“Except there was a penalty and they called back the touchdown,” Potter recalls. “Well, the next play, they do the same thing. And Steve does it again. He intercepted the pass and ran it back 95 yards for a touchdown. Out of everything he did, that’s my favorite Steve Largent story.”

Largent takes a lick, returns to deliver one. Balance, through adversity. It is the storyline of his life.

To say Largent’s toughness is strictly physical also would miss the point. More than anything, his is an inner strength, forged and fortified through personal turmoil. The abandonment by his natural father and a tumultuous home life with an alcoholic stepfather pushed him to three things in high school that would become the foundation for his life.

Football provided a focus. Terry Bullock, an A-student and cheerleader, gave him stability. Christianity became, as friend and former mentor Scott Manley puts it, “his personal gyroscope” and his essence.

So many turning points would follow, testing his faith, galvanizing his resolve: His release by the Houston Oilers, an acrimonious NFL players strike in 1982, the sudden death of a younger brother shortly afterward and the death of his grandfather.

Then came the watershed event of his life in 1985 – an unplanned pregnancy, which produced his youngest child, Kramer, a victim of spina bifida, a birth defect.

The point is, Largent was not born to the Hall of Fame or the Man of the Year. He grew into the role, and the process was fraught with growing pains. For Largent, little came easy.

As his mother, Sue Stewart, says, “The one thing you can say about Steve is that he’s always been able to bounce back.”

— — —

“I’d do the same thing to get out of that situation.

“Football and baseball season were my favorite parts of the year because I could go to all the games. I also went to every practice. It was a way to be with my sons. That was the best thing about it. But it also was a way to avoid what was waiting for me at home.”

– Sue Stewart, on the childhood of her son, Steve Largent.

Every week, the nine-year marriage of Sue and Jim Largent fell into the same routine. On Monday mornings, Jim, a traveling salesman, would kiss Sue goodbye, then hit the road for a week. He’d return Friday nights, kiss her hello, go to bed, sleep in, then spend the weekend playing with his three sons – Steve, the oldest; Doug, 2 1/2 years younger, and Jeff, the baby.

One week, 30 years ago this coming May, was different.

“When Jim came back that Friday night, he seemed a little strange,” Largent’s mother recalls. “When I woke up the next morning, he had showered and was getting dressed. That was odd. I asked him what he was doing. He said he was going downtown to get a divorce. At first, I thought he was kidding, but then I saw he was serious.

“I’ll never forget that day. It was the day before Mother’s Day.”

Steve Largent was only 6 years old.

That summer, the shock had almost dissipated when Sue Stewart peered out a window. A group of boys was walking by; they were wearing Little League baseball uniforms. She decided then that Steve should join them.

“I thought it would be neat for Steve because, at that time, it was something he needed,” she says.

As therapeutic as sports became for her sons, she knew they needed more. When she met a civil servant with the U.S. Air Force, she sensed he was the missing ingredient to her family. He was, after all, steadily employed and seemed to interact well with her sons. Two years after her divorce from Jim Largent, she married John Cargill. Three years later, they had a son, Craig.

Necessity, however, masked some trouble signs. Cargill’s job required mobility. During Largent’s second year of junior high, the Cargills moved three times – to Austin, Tex., Sanford, Fla., and Albany, Ga. Largent spent his entire ninth-grade year in one place when he lived with Stewart’s parents.

The Cargills finally settled in Oklahoma City by the time Largent entered Putnam City High School. By then, the constant movement had affected Largent’s personality.

“Steve was a typical, attention-seeking high-school kid,” recalls Terry Largent, who first met her husband in a 10th-grade Latin class. “He was a smart aleck, a funny guy and not concerned at all with academics. He was a guy looking to make his way into a group of friends. Because he moved around so much, he was new to the school and not established with people.”

There also was trouble at home. Largent’s family had become dysfunctional. Cargill was able to settle in Oklahoma City because the Air Force had forced him to resign his post. John Cargill was an alcoholic.

“There wasn’t any physical abuse,” Sue Stewart says. “It was more mental and verbal. John would get drunk and throw things.

There were times when the ashtrays were flying by my face so fast . . .

and that, of course, would start arguments. And John was jealous of the boys. If they cuddled up with me, he’d call them names, call them sissies or momma’s boys.”

Stewart, who divorced Cargill and remarried, adds, “Sometimes I look back and wonder why I put up with all of that. But I had to. Steve’s dad didn’t pay much child support. I had four children to worry about. I felt I had to stay in the marriage, as bad as it was.

“Still, I regret it. I took a lot of the kids’ happy years away from them. I look at Steve and Terry, and see what they have with each other and their family, and I wish I could’ve given my kids that.”

In a way, she gave them something else almost as valuable.

In Steve Largent’s case, the personal turmoil presented an opening which, with her encouragement, he seized. Without it, his life may have turned out entirely different.

— — —

“I remember the day Steve came home and told me he wasn’t going out for the high-school football team. A lot of people told him that he was too little and too slow and that, in high school, they cut people who aren’t big enough and fast enough.”

– Sue Stewart, on her son’s start in football

Too small, too slow. The words have echoed throughout Steve Largent’s football career. If he had listened to anyone but his mother, he may only have had to endure that criticism once.

“Steve had this friend with a motorcycle and wanted to hang around with him for a year and maybe try football the next season,” Sue Stewart recalls. “I told him it would really break my heart if he quit. Well, he changed his mind and every day he would come home and tell me, `Well, I didn’t get cut.’ ”

As Little League had before it, high-school athletics presented a solution to Largent’s personal problems. For one thing, they kept him away from a deteriorating home life. For another, they became a source of self-esteem.

“Football was a real focus for me,” Largent says. “My self-worth was established on the athletic field. It was the one thing I felt I could do really well. So I spent a lot of time trying to hone the skills that I had. In large part, my life revolved around that.”

Largent threw himself into sports. He turned the belief that he was too small and too slow into an edge. His coaches found he was willing to do anything they asked – often more. Early on, Largent was switched from running back and thrown in with a bulging group of receivers. Jerry Potter figures that Largent and quarterback Tony Brantley worked on 200 to 300 pass plays a day during the offseason.

“He’s the most determined guy I’ve ever known,” says Neil Dubberstein, one of Largent’s first high-school friends. “All you’d have to do is tell him what he couldn’t do, and that’s why he’d do it.”

Largent’s determination didn’t just help him overcome his perceived physical limitations, it helped him leap other, more prohibitive hurdles. It was rare for a sophomore to start for the largest high school in Oklahoma, but Largent did. The talent pool was so large at Putnam City High that it maintained two junior-varsity teams, but Largent started at receiver and cornerback.

Sometimes, Largent’s drive bordered on the maniacal.

“One game, he got kicked above the elbow and the next day his arm had swollen up like a balloon,” Dubberstein says. “He looked like Arnold Schwarzenegger on one side and me on the other. His family doctor told him his arm was broken. He went to the team doctor and was told it was just a bruise.

“Steve, of course, listened to the team doctor. They just taped that bad arm to his side and he played two games with one arm without missing a beat.”

Competition was fierce enough, but Putnam City High School also was blessed with an abundance of great athletes while Largent was there. Pat Ryan, a quarterback for the New York Jets, was just a backup to Brantley, who went on to play for Notre Dame. Alvan Adams, who had a long NBA career with the Phoenix Suns, led the Putnam City basketball team. The high-school baseball team was led by Ryan, a shortstop, and Bob Shirley, who went on to pitch in the major leagues.

And Steve Largent, who was both an all-state receiver and catcher during his senior year. He was good enoughto attract a rare offer of a full-ride baseball scholarship from Oklahoma. Largent opted instead to catch passes in the wide-open offense at Tulsa.

“I told him he was making a mistake,” Dubberstein says.

“To be honest, Steve wasn’t that dominant a high-school player and I thought his size would limit him in football. I told him that, if he wanted to make something of his life, he should play baseball at Oklahoma.”

To the chagrin of NFL defensive backs, Dubberstein was wrong.

— — —

“I call him the Albert Einstein of pass receivers because he’s always coming up with some kind of new space-age route I’ve never seen before.”

– Lester Hayes, former Raider cornerback, on Steve Largent.

The year was 1979. Largent was only three seasons removed from being cut by the Houston Oilers for being too small and too slow.

The Raiders’ Lester Hayes was emerging as one of the most feared defensive backs in the NFL. This was to be the start of one of the game’s greatest on-going personal duels.

As Largent burst up the sideline on a go-route, Hayes worked him out of bounds with a shoulder. Quarterback Jim Zorn’s pass was high and inside. As the ball reached the end of its flight, Largent leapt over Hayes, nearly riding the Raiders’ helmet.

Somehow, his arms intertwined with Hayes’, Largent caught the ball, the momentum carrying him out of bounds. In mid-air, Largent managed to adjust his body so he crashed shoulder-first into the end zone to claim the touchdown before the rest of him landed out of bounds.

Ask anybody about Largent’s best catch, and this is the one they are most likely to mention.

“It was an amazing catch,” says New England veteran Raymond Clayborn, who’s seen it on film. “Lester was considered the greatest cornerback in the game. And no one was doing Lester like that at the time.”

Hayes, who retired in 1986, doesn’t remember the catch. But he remembers clearly the first time he laid eyes on Largent in 1977.

“I laughed at him,” Hayes recalls. “He didn’t look like a receiver, he looked like an insurance salesman. I thought, `I should be able to dominate this guy.’ But, I’ll tell you what, he is God’s gift.

“I’ve covered everybody in the NFL. All those high-tech speed guys. But I never covered anybody who gave me as many problems as Steve Largent did.”

Perhaps the most amazing thing about that 1979 reception is that Largent can recall little more than getting up afterward, laughing. Maybe also that Hayes joined in the chuckling. But how he did it, Largent can’t remember.

Apparently, Largent already had reached some kind of pass-receiving nirvana, lending credence to Zorn’s assertion that his friend developed all his skills and moves within the first four years of his career.

They were four years of improvisational theater, with Largent and Zorn in leading roles for an expansion Seahawk team. The Seattle offense revolved around a sprint-out and a scramble series, catering to Zorn’s preference for being on the move and allowing Largent to carve intricate routes. Zorn-to-Largent, the most prolific battery in the team’s history with 455 connections and 49 touchdowns, was a perfect match.

Not an entirely natural one, mind you. Zorn figures the two worked 20 to 30 extra minutes after practice at least twice a week.

They also practiced an hour or two daily during the offseason. As impressive as his physical regimen may be, the crux of Largent’s well-known work ethic may be mental.

“Steve is the most well-prepared football player I’ve ever been around,” says John Becker, Seahawk offensive coordinator and receivers coach. “He studies more film than most quarterbacks at a lot of other places.”

“That’s obvious,” San Diego cornerback Gill Byrd says.“Sometimes it seems like he knows what you’re running almost before you do.”

Over the years, Largent has trained himself to focus on the point of an approaching football, a drill suggested to him by a skeet and trap shooter. He’s also practiced catching the ball with his eyes closed. While that sounds like a circus trick, the skill comes in handy when sight lines are blocked by the kind of traffic Largent has attracted.

Largent’s legendary diligence has created an almost stereotypical myth that he simply outworks everyone else. Which isn’t true. Central to the myth is the matter of Largent’s speed – or lack thereof.

The first game plan Clayborn ever saw on the Seahawks described Largent this way: No speed, but has all the moves. Able to catch the ball in a crowd. One of the true great receivers.

“People always said he was a slow white boy with a lot of moves,” Clayborn says. “I found that to be totally untrue.”

Albert Lewis, a seventh-year Pro Bowl cornerback for the Kansas City Chiefs, came to an even stronger conclusion:

“Steve Largent was equal in value to his team as an O.J. Simpson or a Jim Brown was. Without the ability to complete passes to Largent, people could shut down Curt Warner. When you drew up a game plan against the Seattle Seahawks, Steve Largent was the one guy you had to have accounted for.”

In reality, the myth is a half-truth, one that Largent has helped perpetuate by steadfastly guarding his 40-yard times. According to Potter, his high-school coach, Largent possessed “under 4.9” speed at Putnam City High. By the time he led the nation in touchdown receptions two years running, and even at the Houston Oiler training camp, Largent’s time had improved to about 4.6, according to Jerry Rhome, who coached him at Tulsa and during his early years with the Seahawks.

“That’s not blazing speed,” Rhome adds, “but he had good speed and great quickness to make up for it.”

Hayes says, “Steve was the Caucasian Clydesdale. When I faced him in Oakland or L.A., I was OK. But on AstroTurf, he would just abuse me. When he made his breaks on AstroTurf, he was a 4.4 guy, not a 4.6 guy. I would just watch him burst. I could feel the speed coming out of him. I could feel the explosion. And I would think, `Maybe the NFL should check his urine. He’s an android. I don’t think he’s human.’ ”

After 14 seasons, Largent will have caught more passes, caught more touchdown passes, caught passes in more consecutive games and accumulated more 50-reception and 1,000-yard seasons than anyone in NFL history. Certainly, if all it took was good-enough speed and outstanding quickness, moves and body control, hours on practice fields and in film rooms, there would have been scores of Steve Largents. At least, more than one.

What separates the truly outstanding athletes from the rest is an almost inexplicable special quality. For Largent, it’s inner strength.

“Steve has for football the same kind of feeling Donald Trump has for the business world,” Becker says. “He’s so intuitive.”

Largent’s inner strength does not defy explanation. It can be argued, and has been argued, that he had it all along. That adversity led him to discover, then acknowledge it. And that further turmoil helped him nurture it.

It is clear to those who know him best. As Zorn puts it, “Steve’s spiritual walk has deepened.”

— — —

“He was this little funny guy, who giggled and tee-heed and cut up with the rest of them in the back row. I never knew if anything stuck or took.”

– Scott Manley, on Largent’s days with Young Life, a nondenominational Christian organization for high-school teenagers.

It still surprises a lot of people, his mother among them, when Steve Largent speaks of himself as “flighty, surfacy and goofy” during his formative years. But Neil Dubberstein can vouch for him.

“He was a wild man,” he says. “He could cut up with the best of them. He was the kind of guy who, if you said, `Largent, I’ll give you a quarter if you throw a rock through that window,’ you’d be paying out that quarter so fast. He’d try anything once – within reason.

“A couple guys Steve hung out with in the ninth grade might have spent some time in prison later on. The kind of things they did back then was a lot of what Steve was leaning toward when he met Terry.”

Ah, Terry. Everyone agrees that nobody has had a more profound effect on Steve Largent’s life than Terry Bullock, an A student and cheerleader at Putnam City High. She was yin to Largent’s yang. Stable family, disciplined, self-assured – Terry seemed to have almost everything Steve didn’t.

When Largent began spending his time off the athletic field with Terry and the Bullock family, things changed. His grades. His outlook. Even, his personality.

“Terry is real consistent in her character,” Largent says of his wife. “She’s a real honest person. Back then, I was a people pleaser. I wanted to be accepted. But she just had this real security about who she was. From the beginning, we just molded together so well.”

Terry’s influence allowed Largent to accept what he considers his greatest gift – a Christian way of life. Scott Manley, then the director of Young Life’s Putnam City High branch, was uncertain of Largent’s acceptance back then. It became apparent years later.

“The difference between Steve Largent and you and me,” Manley says, “is if somebody he respects told him that if he did something, something positive would come out of it, he’d concentrate and do it. Whether it’s finances or family or football, he tries to figure out where the truth is, and what principles are involved, and he commits to it.”

Largent says, “The thing that’s helped me more than anything is realizing that I’m a child of God. That’s where your self-worth comes in because it’s established by something somebody has declared you to be. To me, that’s truth and that’s real and that’s something to hold on to. It can’t be shaken by your performance on the field, or at home, or in the community.”

The truth didn’t always hit Largent like a bolt from the heavens. Most of the time, it was masked by some significant, often detrimental, event. The discovery process strengthened his commitment.

His release from the Oilers in 1976, for example, was a stinging rebuke that prompted much self-reexamination. Still, the blow was salved by his trade to the Seahawks. Even more so, the winter of 1982-83 was what steered Largent firmly away from the fleeting, often superficial, instant self-gratification of pro football.

Midway through that season, NFL players walked out over negotiations for a new collective-bargaining agreement. The strike polarized the Seahawks.

“That was one of the most difficult years of my life,” Largent says. “The strike caused a lot of animosity between myself and a lot of my teammates. It made me reassess my relationships. That was when we decided to start spending our offseasons in Tulsa.”

The Seahawks were Cincinnati-bound on Christmas to play a game the next day. It was then that Largent’s younger brother, Doug, fell ill with encephalitis, an inflammation of the brain commonly referred to as “sleeping sickness.” A week after Largent played a rescheduled strike game against Denver Jan. 2, Doug was dead at 27.

“It was just one time in a series of events when I believe God was pointing out to me not to take anything for granted – especially the ones you love,” Largent says. “After my brother died, the one thought I had was that I really wished I could hug him and tell him I love him. But he was gone.

“This is something I need to be reminded of every day of my life – that you just never know. There are no guarantees in life.”

The message was reinforced a year and a half later, when his grandfather died of stomach cancer. He was perhaps the closest Largent ever came to having a father figure. Still another year and a half down the road, the biggest turning point of Largent’s life waited.

— — —

“It almost was like grieving the death of a child. You always have expectations of what your child is going to be like. Then someone tells you that your child will walk with a peculiar gait for the rest of his life, that he may have problems controlling his bladder and other things. You think, `This isn’t the child of my dreams.’ It’s like all your dreams are smashed.”

– Terry Largent, on the birth of Kramer

It wasn’t supposed to happen. Steve and Terry Largent had taken measures to confine their family to two sons, Kyle and Kelly and a daughter, Casie. So they were shocked to learn Terry was pregnant with a fourth child.

Even more stunning than Terry’s pregnancy was the fact that Kramer James Largent was born Nov. 11, 1985, with his spinal cord and nerves exposed in a small sac at the base of his back. The birth defect, spina bifida, requires corrective surgery and typically results in mild or severe paralysis.

Terry was the first to come to terms with the tragedy.

Steve, on the other hand, was devastated. There was confusion and anger. And so many questions.

“I couldn’t understand why,” he explains. “Why would God do that, not to me, but to Kramer? I wrestled with that. It never caused me to question my faith – like, does God really exist? Eventually, it strengthened it.”

Finally over the shock, Steve and Terry Largent concluded that Kramer’s birth held a significance beyond their initial comprehension.

“We feel he’s a special little gift from God,” Terry says.

“He’s our only child who was not planned. He doesn’t really look like either one of us at all. And, from the beginning, he’s had a real sweet temperament.”

With Kramer came a fundamental change in his parents. His birth instilled in both a greater sense of compassion. Before, they’d empathize with the plight of others, but could dismiss minor tragedies as just that – minor. From experience, Steve and Terry Largent now understand the magnitude of such events.

Kramer’s birth prompted his father, already a willing benefactor for such charities as Children’s Hospital, March of Dimes and United Way, to step up his community work.

“Having gone through something like that has helped me understand what others are going through,” he explains. “When I call people to offer encouragement, they obviously recognize my name. More important, they know I’ve been in their shoes. My heart aches for them, and they recognize that.”

Others who have benefited from Largent’s involvement include Focus on the Family, the Spina Bifida Foundation, United Cerebral Palsy and Boys Village, a Christian-based organization that provides care for abused and neglected boys. Last year, when he was named the NFL’s Man of the Year and won the inaugural Bart Starr Award for his community work, it was estimated that Largent raised or donated between $85,000 and $100,000 for charities.

“Steve Largent is just one of those amazing people,” says Mary Ann Ranta, of Children’s Hospital. “Whenever something comes up where we’d really appreciate his involvement, he’s always been there for us. He is such a hero to so many people, one who is so genuinely the way he really is, and people sense that.”

That quality is just one, but perhaps the most important, manifestation of the Largents’ “special little gift from God.”

— — —

“Football helped me establish a false self-esteem. Fortunately, I was able to perpetuate it. Over time, I was able to say to myself, `This stuff isn’t all real. In terms of life and society and contributions to mankind, what are you really doing that’s significant?’ You have to come to a point where you say, `I’m just a guy.’ The reality is, when I’m gone, somebody else will be in my locker and he’ll be just another guy.”

– Steve Largent, on his NFL career.

This just-another-guy syndrome has provided a mixed bag for Steve Largent, albeit one he encourages.

For one thing, it probably has prevented him from getting his just due as an athlete. That’s partly because he will end his career without having played in a Super Bowl. But mainly because he lacks the hyperbole of most marquee athletes, Largent has not been celebrated in the national media until recent years and has not become a household name.

What Largent has inspired in his colleagues and counterparts is less awe than respect. The response to Largent’s retirement by Kansas City’s Albert Lewis is fairly typical.

“I’m definitely going to miss him,” Lewis says. “When I came into this league, there were two receivers I knew I had to play well against if I was going to be one of the best – Largent and Charlie Joiner. Steve Largent has given me the greatest competition over the years, and I’m the better for it. I owe that to him.

“He’s the kind of guy you love to play against. You love to play him for the competition, not as someone to get even against. And when he’s not playing against you, you root for him. That’s the kind of guy he is.”

Lester Hayes recalls meeting Largent the first time in a non-combat arena. It was the 1981 Pro Bowl, and Hayes was touched by the way Largent interacted with his family. Immediately, Hayes says, he developed a special feeling for Largent. From then, the two fierce rivals on the football field began sharing meals and fishing trips off it. All the while, Hayes’ admiration grew.

“People talk about Steve not playing in a Super Bowl, but that wouldn’t have been his greatest accolade,” Hayes says.

“Remember, I have two Super Bowl rings, and I had to fight my way through Seattle to get them. I think that, in the Year 2040, I’ll face Steve again – in the Heaven Bowl. That’s the day Steve will receive his Super Bowl ring from the ultimate owner, and that’s God. That’s the most important and most appropriate honor he’ll receive.”

So it is his family, friends and community – those who can best appreciate what he has overcome to get this far – who prize Largent’s final days in the NFL like treasures from a lost civilization. Sue Stewart, for one, twice has taken a leave of absence from her job. She and her husband have lived in the home of former Seahawk Dave Brown during the past two Seahawk seasons to be close to her son.

“I was there when Steve ran onto the field for the first time,” she explains, “and I want to be there when he runs on for the last time.”

Scott Manley says, “When Steve retires, there will be a void. We will all be diminished a little bit.” Yet Manley and those who know Largent best say the void will be theirs and not Largent’s.

They expect Largent to continue to flourish after football because he has positioned himself to do so.

Through adversity, Largent established diversity in his life. Concluding his devotion to football was “unhealthy,” he taught himself to rely less on the sport for personal nourishment. Over the years, Largent has carved out of his athletic commitments the time for a weekly date with his wife and a weekly family night. Football, Largent found, he could live without; God and family, he could not.

If asked about the major disappointment in his life, Largent doesn’t mention the Super Bowl. Rather, it is his perceived shortcomings as a father that vexes him most.

“Someone once said you only have enough patience for one less child than you actually have,” Largent says. “I think I might have only enough patience for two less. That frustrates me. I’m not where I’m going to be as a father. I tell my kids that all the time.

When I pray with them at night, my prayer is that the Lord will make me a better dad.”

So walking off a football field for the last time Saturday night will, in a sense, be a release for Largent. An opportunity to concentrate on real priorities. And a challenge. Another challenge.

“People have been asking me how I want to be remembered and I always feel like we’re drawing up an epitaph,” Largent says. “But I’m not dying, I’m just moving on to something else.

“I’ve always been the kind of person who views things as half-full instead of half-empty. So instead of focusing on the fact that my football life is dying, I’m excited about what’s coming next. I can’t tell you what that is right now, but I can’t wait to get to the corner, look around and see what it is.”