Regaining His Love of the Game
Apr 12, 2024 | Football, Sports Extra
By: D. Scott Fritchen
Most mornings, Carver Willis awakens at 4 a.m. and reads "Jesus Calling," a book written by Sarah Young in 2011. A few days ago, he began "Lead Like Jesus," a devotional that Avery T. Willis, his grandfather, helped author with world-renown author Ken Blanchard in 2008. Grandpa Willis passed away when Carver was 8. His words resonate within his grandson, the one who nearly fell out of love with the game that he loved in 2021.
Today, Willis is a hulking 6-foot-5, 285-pound senior offensive tackle on the Kansas State football team. He is also one of the most veteran players on the K-State offense. He is also a servant leader. He tries to pour into each of the other 15 offensive linemen on the roster in much the same way that Consensus All-American Cooper Beebe shared his knowledge with him over the course of many years. In turn, Willis seeks knowledge from his coaches and teammates. He soaks up their words. The offensive line position must be a tight-knit group as all five players must in sequence to move the ball down the field.
"It's incredibly hard to be selfish," he says, "at an unselfish position."
As 4 a.m. crawls toward 5:30 a.m. — "I like slow mornings," he says — Willis concludes his devotional and heads to the Vanier Family Football Complex to receive treatment for the bumps and bruises that accompany spring football. Then comes class (he majors in entrepreneurship and innovation) and position meetings. Typically, Willis eats dinner at around 7 p.m. Most nights he hits the pillow by 9 p.m.
Willis comes armed with an impressive resume from last season. He played in 13 games with seven starts at right tackle. He earned All-Big 12 Honorable Mention accolades from the league's coaches. He helped the offensive line finish as a semifinalist for the prestigious Joe Moore Award, which honors the top offensive line unit in the nation.
"Last season was: How can I be the best I can? How can I build my own confidence as well as confidence around this building?" Willis says. "Walking into this year, I have certain things where I might say, 'This might work and this might not work, but let's try and mess around with stance and technique and see what's more tailored to me.'
"That's a completely different feeling. Honestly, it's really fun. It's a massive difference from last year to this year. I'm very thankful for it."
And, in fact, he's thankful for every day that he is on the K-State football team. Wasn't always that way.
Willis never told his coaches that he believed that he had lost the love for the game his sophomore season. Truth is, Willis, who blocks for the quarterback and ball carriers, couldn't get out of his own way. He made football "harder than it needed to be." He isolated after being the only offensive lineman to play his freshman year. "I had an ego bigger than this room," he says. Then he experienced an epiphany after playing zero snaps in 2021: He had to strip himself of ego and rely upon others.
"You need people in your life," he says.
Today, Willis, wearing a purple long-sleeved t-shirt and a blonde beard, paints a portrait of his story.
"My story?" He says. "Man, I'm honestly just a reflection of everyone who's helped in my life. There's no other way to put that. I like to think I'm an incredibly independent guy, but when you look back on your life, you realize how much the things you do and how you think are a tribute to the people you have in your life.
"I'm a messed-up collage of the best people in my life, just trying to do the right thing and be the best I can be for the people I care about. That's really it."
Willis is the son of a Brett, a pastor, and Gretchen, a special education teacher. He has two older sisters, Kenna and Kayla. Willis grew up in beautiful Durango, Colorado. He was a 5-foot-10, 140-pound freshman quarterback who blew out his elbow and switched to slot receiver and defensive end. He grew to become a 6-foot-3, 200-pound left tackle and defensive end his sophomore season. Kayla, at 5-foot-4, also played on the football team before opting to become team manager — "I called her my director of football operations in high school," Willis says.
"Incredibly tight-knit family," Willis says. "I love them."
In the spring of 2018, Kayla took a college summer tour to Oklahoma State, Texas Tech, Nebraska and K-State (Kayla chose to attend Texas Tech), and Gretchen asked Carver to tag along and take an unofficial visit to each college as well. That's when he met K-State recruiting coordinator Taylor Braet and quarterbacks coach Collin Klein, a Colorado native, for the first time. Just so happened that they stumbled upon departed All-American offensive lineman Dalton Risner, also a Colorado native, inside Vanier Family Football Complex.
Willis had no intention on attending K-State — "In no world am I going to the state of Kansas," Willis recalls telling his mother — but then K-State treated the undersized offensive lineman differently than other schools.
"Man, it was great," Willis says. "They told me all about Manhattan and took me all around the facility and rolled out the red carpet in ways that nobody else had done on my other visits," he says. "Granted, I was a very undersized offensive lineman at the time, so I'm not sure a lot of colleges were looking my way, but K-State took the time.
"We drove away, and I said, 'I'm going to earn a scholarship there.'"
Willis attended a K-State summer football camp on June 15, 2019. He remembers that K-State offensive line coach Conor Riley had told him, "If you're not 265 pounds I'm not offering a scholarship." Willis increased his weight from 212 pounds to 272 during his junior season to catch Riley's eye at the camp.
"Riles said, 'OK, that's a start,'" Willis said.
Riley offered him a football scholarship.
"I was on top of the world," Willis says. "Quite honestly, it's one of the things I'm most grateful for in my life. This place is special, man, and it's really, really made a significant impact on my life."
Today, standing inside of Vanier Family Football Complex, Willis grins.
"My freshman year, I came in here hot as a pistol and you couldn't tell me a single thing when I got here at age 17," he says. "I was letting everybody know what was up. I had a conversation with one of my coaches the other day and was talked about how arrogance hinders relationships. Obviously, it was a unique situation my freshman year. I played in four games. I attribute that more to COVID than I do to my actual ability, and then, man, my sophomore year, I had an ego bigger than this room. I was starting left tackle, 270 pounds, didn't fully know the playbook, and I was a disrespectful little dude."
It was during his sophomore season that Willis flirted with the idea of giving up football.
"I was like, my first year was COVID, and COVID season was very hard, and I didn't see my family for eight months, and I turned 18 years old by myself in my apartment," he says. "It sucked. Sophomore year, I got zero snaps on the field, I was arrogant, and then I got mononucleosis. Coming back from mono, I was like, 'I'm done.' I told my parents, 'I don't have any love for football anymore.' But I did."
He pauses.
"My issue was having no relationships in the locker room, which made football become hard," he continues. "It wasn't that I didn't have love for football, it was that I put myself into a position to make football way harder than it needed to be.
"Somehow, by the grace of God, I figured that out after my sophomore season."
Last season, things gradually came more easily.
"Being incredibly hard to be selfish at an unselfish position — Riles helped me a lot with that," Willis says. "That's when things started to shift. I was like, 'OK, you have to learn to rely on others.' The old saying, 'Even a broken clock is right twice a day.' Learn something from everyone. Independence and resilience, you need it, but it's not everything. You need people in your life."
He drew from departing senior offensive linemen Christian Duffie, KT Leveston, Hayden Gillum and Beebe.
"Those guys prepared us," Willis says. "They took us aside last year and said, 'Here's what you need to do for the guys coming up. Here's how you need to help this offseason.'"
The "older guys" helped Willis along the way last season as things moved fast during his first season as a starter.
"One thing that really helped me slow down the game last year was the older guys being like, 'Here's what I look for,' and 'If this is happening, this is going to happen,' and that's what makes it slow," Willis says. "Cooper came in and talked to us at the start of spring ball and said one of the biggest things that helped him was film study and football knowledge. He said the reason he was able to play the way he did was just because of how slow he made the game.
"After the first two games last season, I was like, 'I don't know how this thing is ever going to slow down. This is the fastest I've ever played in my life.' More and more it slows down."
And now it's slow mornings and devotionals and reading the words that Grandpa Willis wrote as he helps guide his grandson each day. Carver almost grows emotional talking about his grandfather, who years after his death remains a prominent person in his grandson's life.
"Truly, beyond the grave that man has opened more doors in my life out of absolutely nowhere," Willis says. "It's incredible. It's interesting seeing bits and pieces of my grandpa through the devotional. It's really cool."
Fortunately, Willis' story isn't yet finished at K-State. There are blocks to make and many more pages to turn as one of the team's most experienced offensive linemen lives out his dream.
Grandpa would be so proud.
Most mornings, Carver Willis awakens at 4 a.m. and reads "Jesus Calling," a book written by Sarah Young in 2011. A few days ago, he began "Lead Like Jesus," a devotional that Avery T. Willis, his grandfather, helped author with world-renown author Ken Blanchard in 2008. Grandpa Willis passed away when Carver was 8. His words resonate within his grandson, the one who nearly fell out of love with the game that he loved in 2021.
Today, Willis is a hulking 6-foot-5, 285-pound senior offensive tackle on the Kansas State football team. He is also one of the most veteran players on the K-State offense. He is also a servant leader. He tries to pour into each of the other 15 offensive linemen on the roster in much the same way that Consensus All-American Cooper Beebe shared his knowledge with him over the course of many years. In turn, Willis seeks knowledge from his coaches and teammates. He soaks up their words. The offensive line position must be a tight-knit group as all five players must in sequence to move the ball down the field.
"It's incredibly hard to be selfish," he says, "at an unselfish position."
As 4 a.m. crawls toward 5:30 a.m. — "I like slow mornings," he says — Willis concludes his devotional and heads to the Vanier Family Football Complex to receive treatment for the bumps and bruises that accompany spring football. Then comes class (he majors in entrepreneurship and innovation) and position meetings. Typically, Willis eats dinner at around 7 p.m. Most nights he hits the pillow by 9 p.m.
Willis comes armed with an impressive resume from last season. He played in 13 games with seven starts at right tackle. He earned All-Big 12 Honorable Mention accolades from the league's coaches. He helped the offensive line finish as a semifinalist for the prestigious Joe Moore Award, which honors the top offensive line unit in the nation.
"Last season was: How can I be the best I can? How can I build my own confidence as well as confidence around this building?" Willis says. "Walking into this year, I have certain things where I might say, 'This might work and this might not work, but let's try and mess around with stance and technique and see what's more tailored to me.'
"That's a completely different feeling. Honestly, it's really fun. It's a massive difference from last year to this year. I'm very thankful for it."
And, in fact, he's thankful for every day that he is on the K-State football team. Wasn't always that way.
Willis never told his coaches that he believed that he had lost the love for the game his sophomore season. Truth is, Willis, who blocks for the quarterback and ball carriers, couldn't get out of his own way. He made football "harder than it needed to be." He isolated after being the only offensive lineman to play his freshman year. "I had an ego bigger than this room," he says. Then he experienced an epiphany after playing zero snaps in 2021: He had to strip himself of ego and rely upon others.
"You need people in your life," he says.
Today, Willis, wearing a purple long-sleeved t-shirt and a blonde beard, paints a portrait of his story.
"My story?" He says. "Man, I'm honestly just a reflection of everyone who's helped in my life. There's no other way to put that. I like to think I'm an incredibly independent guy, but when you look back on your life, you realize how much the things you do and how you think are a tribute to the people you have in your life.
"I'm a messed-up collage of the best people in my life, just trying to do the right thing and be the best I can be for the people I care about. That's really it."
Willis is the son of a Brett, a pastor, and Gretchen, a special education teacher. He has two older sisters, Kenna and Kayla. Willis grew up in beautiful Durango, Colorado. He was a 5-foot-10, 140-pound freshman quarterback who blew out his elbow and switched to slot receiver and defensive end. He grew to become a 6-foot-3, 200-pound left tackle and defensive end his sophomore season. Kayla, at 5-foot-4, also played on the football team before opting to become team manager — "I called her my director of football operations in high school," Willis says.
"Incredibly tight-knit family," Willis says. "I love them."
In the spring of 2018, Kayla took a college summer tour to Oklahoma State, Texas Tech, Nebraska and K-State (Kayla chose to attend Texas Tech), and Gretchen asked Carver to tag along and take an unofficial visit to each college as well. That's when he met K-State recruiting coordinator Taylor Braet and quarterbacks coach Collin Klein, a Colorado native, for the first time. Just so happened that they stumbled upon departed All-American offensive lineman Dalton Risner, also a Colorado native, inside Vanier Family Football Complex.
Willis had no intention on attending K-State — "In no world am I going to the state of Kansas," Willis recalls telling his mother — but then K-State treated the undersized offensive lineman differently than other schools.
"Man, it was great," Willis says. "They told me all about Manhattan and took me all around the facility and rolled out the red carpet in ways that nobody else had done on my other visits," he says. "Granted, I was a very undersized offensive lineman at the time, so I'm not sure a lot of colleges were looking my way, but K-State took the time.
"We drove away, and I said, 'I'm going to earn a scholarship there.'"
Willis attended a K-State summer football camp on June 15, 2019. He remembers that K-State offensive line coach Conor Riley had told him, "If you're not 265 pounds I'm not offering a scholarship." Willis increased his weight from 212 pounds to 272 during his junior season to catch Riley's eye at the camp.
"Riles said, 'OK, that's a start,'" Willis said.
Riley offered him a football scholarship.
"I was on top of the world," Willis says. "Quite honestly, it's one of the things I'm most grateful for in my life. This place is special, man, and it's really, really made a significant impact on my life."
Today, standing inside of Vanier Family Football Complex, Willis grins.
"My freshman year, I came in here hot as a pistol and you couldn't tell me a single thing when I got here at age 17," he says. "I was letting everybody know what was up. I had a conversation with one of my coaches the other day and was talked about how arrogance hinders relationships. Obviously, it was a unique situation my freshman year. I played in four games. I attribute that more to COVID than I do to my actual ability, and then, man, my sophomore year, I had an ego bigger than this room. I was starting left tackle, 270 pounds, didn't fully know the playbook, and I was a disrespectful little dude."
It was during his sophomore season that Willis flirted with the idea of giving up football.
"I was like, my first year was COVID, and COVID season was very hard, and I didn't see my family for eight months, and I turned 18 years old by myself in my apartment," he says. "It sucked. Sophomore year, I got zero snaps on the field, I was arrogant, and then I got mononucleosis. Coming back from mono, I was like, 'I'm done.' I told my parents, 'I don't have any love for football anymore.' But I did."
He pauses.
"My issue was having no relationships in the locker room, which made football become hard," he continues. "It wasn't that I didn't have love for football, it was that I put myself into a position to make football way harder than it needed to be.
"Somehow, by the grace of God, I figured that out after my sophomore season."
Last season, things gradually came more easily.
"Being incredibly hard to be selfish at an unselfish position — Riles helped me a lot with that," Willis says. "That's when things started to shift. I was like, 'OK, you have to learn to rely on others.' The old saying, 'Even a broken clock is right twice a day.' Learn something from everyone. Independence and resilience, you need it, but it's not everything. You need people in your life."
He drew from departing senior offensive linemen Christian Duffie, KT Leveston, Hayden Gillum and Beebe.
"Those guys prepared us," Willis says. "They took us aside last year and said, 'Here's what you need to do for the guys coming up. Here's how you need to help this offseason.'"
The "older guys" helped Willis along the way last season as things moved fast during his first season as a starter.
"One thing that really helped me slow down the game last year was the older guys being like, 'Here's what I look for,' and 'If this is happening, this is going to happen,' and that's what makes it slow," Willis says. "Cooper came in and talked to us at the start of spring ball and said one of the biggest things that helped him was film study and football knowledge. He said the reason he was able to play the way he did was just because of how slow he made the game.
"After the first two games last season, I was like, 'I don't know how this thing is ever going to slow down. This is the fastest I've ever played in my life.' More and more it slows down."
And now it's slow mornings and devotionals and reading the words that Grandpa Willis wrote as he helps guide his grandson each day. Carver almost grows emotional talking about his grandfather, who years after his death remains a prominent person in his grandson's life.
"Truly, beyond the grave that man has opened more doors in my life out of absolutely nowhere," Willis says. "It's incredible. It's interesting seeing bits and pieces of my grandpa through the devotional. It's really cool."
Fortunately, Willis' story isn't yet finished at K-State. There are blocks to make and many more pages to turn as one of the team's most experienced offensive linemen lives out his dream.
Grandpa would be so proud.
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