Wearing No. 6 on his red practice jersey, Jake Christensen was making his first public appearance as Iowa’s No. 1 quarterback during the Hawkeyes’ spring scrimmage that April afternoon.
He looked as good as any of the signal callers did that day, but you’d expected more from the guy coaches, players and the media had painted as the undisputed starter for the next three seasons — the heir to the throne vacated by graduated senior Drew Tate.
Christensen made his share of throws that day, finding the tight ends and running backs with regularity. But you found yourself questioning whether this 6-foot-1 southpaw from suburban Chicago was capable of leading these Hawkeyes through the Big Ten.
So, you moved in and took a closer look.
You stood not far from the action on the field as Iowa running back Albert Young took a carry off the right side of the line and was stopped for a short gain. You watched as two Hawkeyes — offensive tackle Dace Richardson and defensive end Adrian Clayborn — exchanged shoves after whistles had blown to signal the end of the play. And that’s when you began to see the essence of Christensen’s emerging status as the leader of this football team.
Amid the scuffle, the 215-pound sophomore stepped between Richardson and Clayborn, grabbed each by the jersey and quickly restored order. It was a subtle gesture, one Christensen probably replicated a dozen or so times during the three weeks of spring practice. But this was on the Kinnick Stadium stage with thousands of people in the stands, where that gesture echoed a much louder statement: This is Jake Christensen’s team.
How does that happen, though — a seemingly overnight transition from one team identity to another? How does a group of players come to respect, trust, admire and believe in a guy whose complete collegiate body of work was constructed in a 24-14 win over Northern Illinois last season?
Curious now, you moved a little bit closer.
You watched as Christensen fielded questions from a slew of reporters after the scrimmage, looking each in the face as he gave his answers.
“If you’re competitive, guys will follow you,” he said, shrugging off the difficulty of gaining that respect, that trust, that admiration from teammates.
“You just have to let them know you want to win, and they’ll follow that type of leadership.”
While he spoke, Christensen signed dozens of autographs for fans — some young, some old, some in between. He signed programs, T-shirts, hats, a piggy bank and even a cell phone, stopping before putting the Sharpie to the phone to make sure the teenage fan was willing.
This drill — this juggling of fans, media and responsibilities to teammates — is a new one for Christensen. But it’s one he seems comfortable carrying out. This is, after all, what he has been waiting for since the day he committed to Iowa the summer before his senior year at Lockport (Ill.) Township High School.
He’s been waiting much longer than that, though.
To map the course of Christensen’s journey, you had to go closer still.
Close enough to see the spark that ignited the competitive fire within him.
Close enough to identify the failures that led to his successes.
Close enough to appreciate the family that is the foundation on which he stands.
‘A hyper kid’
Christensen, it seems, has been ahead of the curve since the day he was born three weeks early to his mother, Linda, and father, Jeff, in August 1986.
Jeff, a former NFL quarterback, was suited up for a preseason game with the Cleveland Browns when he got the call letting him know his son had arrived. The next day, Jeff was cut by the Browns, and his football career fizzled over the next few seasons.
In Jake, though, he had a pupil — someone to right his wrongs and live by the lessons he’d learned on and off the field.
The ability to throw the football — the arm motion, wrist action and follow through — came somewhat naturally to Jake. As Jeff tells it, Christensen was zinging a clean spiral across the back yard as a 2-year-old. But that was only the beginning. He had a natural competitiveness, too, that caught his parents’ attention.
“We always heard from people, ‘Well, he’s awful hyper. He’s a hyper kid,’ ” Jeff Christensen said. “He wasn’t hyper. He was aggressive. He wanted to be in the fray. He wanted to be involved. He just wanted to play.”
Christensen’s parents divorced when he was 4, and he and his brother, Jordan, spent school years with Linda in Lemont, Ill., and summers with Jeff in Naperville. It wasn’t an ideal situation — two young boys living apart from their father — but Jeff and Linda made it work, always giving the kids a sense that they were most important.
During many of those summers with dad, Christensen visited relatives in tiny Arrowsmith, Ill. And that’s where he cut his teeth as an athlete, tagging along with his older cousin, Wade Kennedy, to the ball field, sandlot or wherever games were played.
Kennedy and his friends tormented Jake, telling him he was too small to play because he was eight years younger. They’d hit ground balls at him as hard as they could trying to drive home their point. But, more often than not, Jake would knock down the balls and make the play, and sooner or later, he proved he belonged.
“He just seemed to have that drive and determination at a young age. We couldn’t keep him off the field,” Kennedy said. “He has that tenacity that you just don’t see.”
Home schooled
Jeff, who now runs a quarterback school in Lockport, was shaping Jake all along to be the quarterback he never was.
At 7, Christensen played his first organized football game for the Lemont Hornets. By 11, he was breaking down game film with Jeff, learning to read defenses and make decisions in the pocket. In high school, there was a debriefing session after every game.
And the schooling, it seemed, never stopped.
When Jake would get out of line as a child, his dad would say, “Hey, Joe,” and Jake knew what he meant.
“The message was: Act like Joe Montana, look like Joe Montana,” Jeff said. “You never knew where Joe stood. He just was always even keel.”
There was always a lesson, always a right way to do things. And Jeff is the kind of guy who would coach a postman on delivering a package.
Even now, as Christensen is set to take the reins of a perennial Big Ten contender, Jeff still critiques the throwing motion he’s been molding all these years. If it bothers Jake, he doesn’t show it.
“There’s no doubt Jeff is a very knowledgeable guy with the experience that he has and the knowledge that he brings. There is no doubt he’s given that to Jake,” said Bret Kooi, Christensen’s high school football coach at Lockport. “And Jake’s aware of the things his dad has taught him, and he’s aware that he’s been so successful because of the things his dad has given him.
“Do they at times clash? Yeah. But I think that’s very typical of any father-son relationship when you’re working as a coach and a player. And that’s what it is, because he’s always coaching him.”
Two-sport star
Christensen had to wait his turn once he got to Lockport High. He made the varsity football team as a sophomore but was the backup to a senior, Steve Walker, who has gone on to a record-setting career at North Dakota State.
As Christensen watched, Walker led the Porters to a state title that season.
In the waning minutes of the championship game, Christensen turned down the opportunity to take the field, saying he didn’t want to go out there as the backup — he wanted to lead his own team to a title.
The next season, he did.
Throwing for 3,681 yards and 33 touchdowns as a junior, Christensen guided Lockport to a 12-2 record and a second consecutive Illinois Class 8A crown. It was enough to earn him all-conference and all-area recognition and to land a scholarship offer from Iowa coach Kirk Ferentz.
Christensen also was a standout on the baseball team as a three-year starter in right field. He had a career batting average of just under .500 and finished as Lockport’s all-time leader in doubles, RBIs and runs scored. And baseball proved to be a sturdy crutch for him to fall back on when his senior year of football was cut short.
With Christensen again putting up stellar numbers — 2,874 yards and 36 touchdowns — the Porters rolled to a perfect regular season and a No. 7 national ranking in 2004. But they were upset in the first round of the playoffs, ending Christensen’s high school career.
Lying on the field crying after the loss, he was consoled by defensive line coach Jim Hall, a longtime family friend who had coached him as a 7-year-old with the Lemont Hornets.
“I told him, ‘Hey, I love you. You gave your best. I’m proud of you,’ ” said Hall, who also was Christensen’s high school baseball coach. “He looked up at me and said, ‘Let’s go win the state in baseball,’ and sure enough that’s what we did.”
The accolades rolled in for Christensen after his senior season of football. He was named the Illinois state player of the year by the Champaign News-Gazette and an All-American by USA Today, SuperPrep, Rivals.com and Parade Magazine, and he was one of seven Iowa recruits to play in the 2005 U.S. Army All-American Bowl in San Antonio.
An all-state pick in baseball, he also was a 42nd-round draft choice of the Cincinnati Reds but turned down the opportunity to play professional baseball to go to college.
“I’ve always loved baseball, but there’s just something about football where I’ve always loved it a little bit more,” Christensen said. “It was a no-brainer decision. I don’t think money’s enough to throw away a chance to get a free education and play football in the Big Ten — it’s just not worth it.”
Waiting his turn
Like he did in high school, Christensen had to wait to play once he arrived at Iowa.
Tate had just led the Hawkeyes to a Big Ten title in his first year as a starter in 2004, and he wasn’t about to be unseated by a freshman.
The relationship between the two was lukewarm at best during their two seasons together on the roster, but watching the always fiery Tate was an education in how to — and sometimes how not to — play the game.
“You don’t want to say anything bad about the guy who came before you,” Christensen said. “Truth be told, I learned a lot from Drew. How bad he wanted to win and his competitiveness — some people took it as a negative thing when he was slapping guys in the huddle. That was just his way of showing he wanted to win.”
Christensen redshirted in 2005 and did what he could, earning the team leader award for the scout offense.
He went in the weight room and broke the Iowa records for bench press and squat by a quarterback, putting up 325 and 440 pounds, respectively. And he studied the playbook so he’d be ready when his opportunity arose.
It did last season, when he rose from third to second on the depth chart and was forced into the starting lineup when Tate was sidelined by a thumb injury.
In that 24-14 win over Northern Illinois, Christensen completed 19 of 30 passes for 256 yards and two touchdowns.
It wasn’t the greatest game of his life, but it was enough to prove he belongs at this level and enough to cement himself as Tate’s successor in the minds of his teammates, coaches and fans.
Gaining respect
Near the end of your journey, your walk inside the life of this emerging young talent, you listened as Christensen told his father a story of a monster largemouth bass he saw while fishing near Lockport in mid-May.
“It was huge, and it was just sitting there with its mouth open,” he said. “I kept throwing my lure at it, but it wouldn’t bite. I must have thrown it in there a dozen times, and it just watched it go by.”
Later, he spoke of his admiration for Steve Young, the Hall of Fame quarterback who led the San Francisco 49ers to a Super Bowl championship in 1995.
But it’s a 1998 NFC divisional playoff win over Green Bay that Christensen points to as Young’s shining moment. In that game, Young found Terrell Owens for a game-winning touchdown with three seconds to play — the same Owens who had dropped a handful of balls earlier in the game.
“Without hesitating, he threw the ball to him when it counted,” Christensen said. “That epitomized what he stood for. You just always have to trust guys. You can’t write them off if they drop a ball or if they make a mistake, because you’ve got to know they’ll come back.”
Again, you start to see why it’s been so easy for teammates to fall in line behind him, why after he committed to Iowa a handful of other blue chip recruits followed his lead.
He has a way about him that makes others want to follow.
That was the idea all along.
All the drilling, all the schooling from his father didn’t stop at throwing the fade route and reading the safeties. It extended to what it means to be the quarterback, what it means to be the leader of a group of men.
It means never accepting the expectations of others as your limits, the way Christensen refused to when proving himself to his cousin’s friends on the sandlot years ago.
It’s having the patience and humility to stand in line and learn from those who come before you, as he did behind Walker at Lockport and then again behind Tate at Iowa.
It’s having the persistence to keep casting that lure even if the fish never bites and having enough confidence and faith in your teammates to know they have that same confidence and faith in you.
And that’s what’s most important.
“I wouldn’t say I’m scared of getting hurt, and I wouldn’t say I’m scared of losing,” Christensen said. “My biggest fear is not being respected by my teammates. Because your teammates have to trust so much in you as the quarterback. … If they don’t respect you, you’re in deep water as an offense.”
A dream taking shape
While Christensen doesn’t fear failure, he is driven by a distant memory of it.
When he was in seventh grade and playing for the River Valley Conference championship, he cost his team the game.
He was the kicker, and he pushed a potential game-tying extra point wide left with two minutes to play.
“That still sticks in my head to this day,” Christensen said. “I just felt terrible. I felt like I let everybody down. To this day, I’ve always told myself I don’t ever want to be the reason my team loses a game like that again. I just want to do everything I can to put us in a position to win.”
And he believes he can.
So much so that when a teacher back home told him she hoped to be seeing him playing for Iowa in a bowl game this December, he corrected her, saying he was planning on playing in the Rose Bowl, which, of course, is in January.
So much so that when asked why he came to Iowa, he gives the same answer every time — “to win a Big Ten championship, to win the Rose Bowl and to win a national title.”
Brash? Maybe.
Cocky? No.
It’s confidence.
He says it in a matter-of-fact way that makes you believe he just might be the guy after all.
And then he tells you about the dream, the dream he’s had multiple times that always ends at the same point.
It’s bowl week, and Iowa is preparing to play Notre Dame.
There are the days of practice, the media rush and the anticipation of a championship atmosphere. There are pregame speeches, butterflies and game planning. Then there’s the walk down the tunnel, and right before he steps on the field, he wakes up in a cold sweat.
It’s one of those dreams you try desperately to fall back to sleep in order to finish. But Christensen never can. He’s still searching for that elusive ending.
Now, he wakes each day in the middle of the dream he’s been chasing his whole life, the one where he’s the starting quarterback of a Big Ten team, the one in which he now can live out the ending.
Then again, this dream has only just begun, and nothing, it seems, can stir him from his slumber.
Eric Page can be contacted at (563) 383-2277 or epage@qctimes.com.
ONLINE EXTRAS
VIDEO: Spend the day with Jake Christensen.
TIMELINE: View the events of Jake Christensen's life and football career.
Eyehawk wrote on Jul 31, 2007 10:44 AM: