A Beautiful Process

By: D. Scott Fritchen

Asa Newsom treaded water, then yelled commands while drinking water, throwing a hooded sweatshirt over a teammate underwater while the teammate freaked out. This was the final exercise in The Program — a leadership platoon of former military operations specialists, who entrenched the Kansas State football team in a myriad of activities bent upon growing as teammates and leaders. The mission of this exercise: Trust your teammate. Newsom was elected a leader by virtue of the passion and drive that the sophomore linebacker demonstrated over the course of the three-day mission capped by a 5:25 a.m. bus ride to Fort Riley — and eventually to the deep end of the pool.

The task? Remove your own hoodie underwater, then wave the hoodie in the air, and then pull the hoodie over a teammate underwater amid dim lighting. It was an awesome team-building exercise with lifeguards on hand. It's something that Newsom looks back fondly on days later as the 6-foot-3, 228-pound native of Waverly, Iowa, squints against sunlight pouring into the press box on the sixth floor of the West Stadium Center at Bill Snyder Family Stadium.

"We all did it, and that was impressive," he says. "As a leader, if I'm calm, everyone else in my squad is going to feel calm. Being in the pool, trying to tread water – I can't swim well – I have a wet hoodie over my face, and I can't breathe, but I had to get up and make sure everyone else was OK.

"That was a really cool experience because that translates to the football field."

Today, soft-spoken Newsom details another recent off-field leadership initiative. Recently he was selected to attend the Big 12 Conference annual spring meetings at the Waldorf Astoria in Orlando, Florida. The three-day affair included participation from football and men's basketball head coaches. The annual spring business meetings included Commissioner Brett Yormark, presidents and chancellors from the 16 Big 12 institutions, athletic directors, and women's basketball coaches.

The meetings for the first time also featured a pair of student-athletes from each school.

After two days meeting with fellow student-athletes, including one seven-hour session, Newsom was voted co-chair of the student-athlete group. Instead of flying back to his college home like his peers, Newsom was asked to remain in Orlando and address Yormark and the Big 12 Board of Directors.

"I was scrambling and had to buy a suit," Newsom says. "It was humbling to know what people thought of me for them to ask me to stay and present in an important meeting. For the Big 12 to hear about our student-athlete experience is important, and to speak on behalf of all the Big 12 student-athletes was really special."

The basis of Newsom's address? Some might argue it's critical in this everchanging era of collegiate athletics. It's simply the necessity to get back to being student-athletes.

"The biggest thing was how can we go back from athlete-student to student-athlete," Newsom says. "Especially for revenue athletes. I was sitting there after the last night before that presentation. I just sat and talked with some gymnasts and some swimmers from Big 12 schools and told them, 'I really envy you guys.' They walk around and Olympic athletes have more of this school spirit and school pride with the community and school, just more so than the revenue athletes. I envy them because I wouldn't blame them if they were jealous of football players because they get paid. I told them I envied them because being a student-athlete is what it's all about.

"We talked about maybe something where in order to get this revenue-share contract you must meet academic expectations. Nowadays kids are like, 'I'm going to go it, get my bag, get paid, get mine, get out, and try to get into the league.' That's not what college athletics is about. It's about being where your feet are, digging in where you're at, and touching the people of the community who support you. As revenue student-athletes we have a platform and right now we're seeing some revenue athletes not use that platform. That doesn't take away from getting to the league at all and it doesn't take away from athletics at all. If anything, it helps you. I truly believe that as student-athletes, our job is to serve where we're at. That is getting lost. I believe it is important for them to hear from a revenue athlete."

A 2024 Academic All-Big 12 selection in psychology, Newsom is infatuated with the scientific study of the mind and behavior — an interest bore from his mother, Stephanie, who has served as director of counseling services at Wartburg College since 1999. Reared in athletics under the guidance of his father, Marcus, the director of cross country and track and field at Wartburg College, Asa witnessed excellence. Marcus is a six-time United States Track Coaches Association Division III indoor women's Coach of the Year. Older brother, Mosai, was a defensive lineman and a member of the first recruiting class under Scott Frost at Nebraska. Younger brother, Che', is a junior linebacker and wide receiver at Waverly-Shell Rock High School.

"We grew up in a house where my mom emphasized us being in touch with our mind and being sound with our mind and our feelings," Newsom said. "That was really important to our household. It plays into leadership and into football. Psychology plays into anything that you do."

That includes the realm of recovery from sports injuries.

Newsom bounced back from a torn right anterior-cruciate ligament his freshman season at Waverly-Shell Rock to earn all-district honors as a sophomore, junior and senior. His efforts culminated being ranked No. 131 overall in the Class of 2023 by On3, which viewed him as the 10^th best linebacker in the country. Versatile Newsom had a team-high 66 tackles as a senior to go along with six tackles for loss, while he amassed more than 1,000 scrimmage yards and 11 touchdowns on offense. He was an all-state performer, and he was named Class 4A-District 2 Defensive MVP as a senior.

But Newsom remembers the feeling of that intense pain in right knee when he suffered the season-ending ACL tear as a high school freshman. And yes, the story had a happy ending with eventual scholarship offers from Kentucky, Iowa, Stanford and Minnesota, while K-State didn't hesitate. K-State head coach Chris Klieman grabbed Newsom during the K-State camp during the summer prior to his junior season.

"Coach Klieman offered me a scholarship 40 minutes into camp," Newsom says.

But it was on the very same field at Bill Snyder Family Stadium that Newsom, just three years after his high school injury, felt the same pain — this time in his left knee.

"It was the first day of our bye week, right after we played UCF my freshman year," he says. "We were scrimmaging. I was pass rushing. I felt my left foot get stuck on the turf and got the hot pain in my knee. I knew right away, but I said to myself, 'There's no way. I do everything right. I take care of my body every day. There's no way.' It was really hard to accept."

Oh, there's more. It's one of the more grotesque parts of athletics — an athlete doing everything right and suffering not only one setback, but two setbacks, thus really testing the mind and body in painful ways that only they fully know while lying awake with plenty of questions and treading water in a sea of darkness.

"The second injury was on the first play against KU," he says, motioning at the football field from the press box. "It was a kickoff. I was running down the field. I just went to cut and swim over a guy and when I put my foot into the ground… it kind of just went. I fell down, looked up, looked down at the field, and everything just stopped, and it was silent, and I tried to get up, but I couldn't get up because my left knee was on fire.

"I was sick. I knew what it was. It was the left knee again. But I was in denial. I went into the injury tent. I freaked out. I couldn't sit. I got to the locker room and lost it. I was in disbelief, saying, 'God, why? Why?' Heartbreak. Seeing my mom in the training room, it killed me because I knew she would give me her knee any day. It was really hard."

The rehabilitation process is about 10% physical and 90% mental, in the eyes of Newsom. His goal this fall? To play football again for the Wildcats, who open their season against Iowa State in Dublin, Ireland, on August 23.

"You are on a path that only you can go on," he says. "Nobody can really help you. You have to be OK with the circumstances and find a way to claw back. There were countless sleepless nights of frustration, heartache and pain. There were times I was awake not because my knee hurt, but because my mind was scrambling. People don't understand it's a process you have to go through. You go through that dark alley all by yourself. I look at rehab as an opportunity to reinvent myself — physically, mentally and spiritually. It's a blessing in disguise from the Lord that I get to reinvent myself in a way that I understand my body and mind more. It's a beautiful process if you do it the right way.

"Once you accept that it's OK to not be OK, you can start the process of reinventing yourself. That falls back on my faith. These rehab processes have been blessings in disguise. Whatever the Lord is working through me, He needs me to gain something through this. These opportunities may be hard, but they are opportunities to grow and flourish. That's how I've looked at these past two years."

This morning, Newsom participated in the team run at 6:00 a.m. Then he went into the Vanier Family Football Complex training room for treatment. Then he participated in the team workout. Then he remained behind and performed extra work. Then the defensive players had a walkthrough inside the indoor practice facility. In July, while his teammates rest, visit family or take a vacation, Newsom will remain behind in Manhattan and train with the weight staff. Then he will attend the Big 12 Beyond Borders program in Mexico. Initiated in 2024, Big 12 Beyond Borders focuses on developing student-athletes into global leaders. It's another opportunity for Newsom to use his platform again.

Every day is one step at a time.

"My biggest goal is chasing what I love to do, which is playing football," he says. "When I got hurt the second time, people asked me, 'Are you done?' I kind of took that really personal. The mission never changed for me. If the good Lord tells me that the way I need to serve Him is to be done with football, then I'll look for another thing, but I don't feel like the good Lord has told me that. I'm serving as a servant of God through the platform of football. I want to go out – which I haven't been able to do for two years – and prove to a lot of people that the good Lord has been doing some really cool things through these rehab processes."

Newsom says that he can run straight ahead and change direction. Indications suggest that he could be full go in six weeks.

"I can't wait to show the world," he says. "I'm just trusting the process, staying the course, and ready to get out there on the field and do what I love to do."

Then the 20-year-old Iowa native, who bought a suit in Orlando to sit next to Commissioner Brett Yormark and present a wise-beyond-his-years testimony one week, and then who wrestled a hoodie in the deep end of the pool in Fort Riley the next week, stands up inside the press box at Bill Snyder Family Stadium and peers at the football field, which glows against the sunlight.

It feels like home.

"Everyone is destined for something that's beautiful, but you have to be in tune with your faith," he said. "Because of my hardship these past two years, that's been rattled, that belief, that faith. My goal is still to play college football at a really high level at Kansas State and get to the next level, and that's been rattled because of what I've gone through. But that's the beauty of it, is that it's hard, and if you stay the course, you can achieve whatever you're destined to achieve.

"Being here at Kansas State and having to go through the rehabs and find myself in the dark, in the shadows — I think everyone has a beautiful process, and everyone has meaning, something they're destined for."

He pauses.

"You just have to find it."

He looks at the field below.

A leader.

A player.

A believer.

Kansas State University Athletics

Players Mentioned

Asa Newsom

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