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AUSTIN, Texas – She never told him how much it had torn his heart when he collapsed to the ground after hearing the news.
He never told him how distressed he was, hiding in his room at night and burying tears in a pillow.
When you live in hell, it sometimes seems that the only way to stay together is to protect those you love from your dark and desperate feelings.
"The pain was devouring me," said Sam Ehlinger, the Texas quarterback.
The same goes for the sweetness of bringing together a broken life and rebuilding it.
"We will never be the same again," said Jena Ehlinger, Sam's mother. "But we will have a good life."
It is a story of love. From a family that has been drawn into the sudden and overwhelming death of a husband and a father.
It's also a story about how we handle grief. From a family who has never really talked about the honor and respect that are born from their unique and undeclared bond of perseverance. Until now.
Sam Ehlinger's wallet for the lips as he ponders about, considers that his mother opens about it. He looks away as he contemplates the overall emotional journey that began on March 3, 2013, when he was only 14 years old and his father, Ross, died as a result of 39, heart attack.
Words do not come easily.
"She is … it's hard to explain … my inspiration," Ehlinger said softly. "She lost the love of her life-and she was the only one to raise three young children. You just think of yourself, How do we do it?"
It's so easy to come back to that moment, the day that forever changed what he knew about life, love and sorrow.
Ross had been found floating in San Francisco Bay during an Ironman triathlete in which he was participating. Jena had suffered a long flight back and, a few hours after her return, explained the terrible reality to her children.
Sam collapsed on the kitchen floor and Jena felt torn.
Then Ross's hand – Sam swears that there is no other explanation – reached out his hand once again.
He kept saying to his sons, Sam and his younger brother, Jake, "Is there any blood, is there a broken bone, are you okay?"
"I know what my father wanted, I know he's been guiding me," says Sam, "take care of his wife, take care of my brother and sister, my mother, said: "Do not feel under the pressure of being the man of the house." It was a challenge for me, it's like telling me, "Do not play football". Basically, she said: do not run naturally. But of course, I had to do it. "
In the perfectly landscaped home of the Austin suburbs, Jena points to the immaculate kitchen, where Sam hit his phone against the wall that day in 2013, knelt and fell to the ground in a quick and scary move.
"May God help me if I see him again," she said.
This is the house she built with Ross, the one Sam dreamed of playing at the Texas quarterback and who was cultivated by a father whose love for all things Burnt Orange was an obsession.
Jena is told that Sam said that he never wanted that she hear about the innumerable nights when he was upstairs in his room, devastated by sorrow. He must have been the strongest, he said. If it meant hiding his pain to carry his, well, there is no fracture or blood. You're okay.
Jena runs her hand over her mouth and turns her head. It is said that it was not easy for Sam to find a way to explain what his mother – and in the past six years, his best friend – represented for him.
He called you his inspiration, they tell him.
"He said that?" she said, wiping her tears. And the dam of emotion is breaking.
"I'd like to think that I could have done it myself, but I've probably gained more strength from her in the very dark days. You have to find the benefits of a Tragedy Everything became so real, so hard, but it also put everything in perspective: we became very grateful for the little things in life.
"You envision things differently when you live in such a difficult, dark situation, not that we're still not angry about stupid things, like losing football games, but it helps you sort of look at things little other point of view. "
Tom Herman is in his office in the bowels of the huge Darrell K. Royal Memorial Stadium, and the subject of Sam Ehlinger finally brings us to the very moment that Herman hates and adores him.
Texas physically dominated Georgia's SEC heavyweight in the Sugar Bowl on Jan. 1, winning the 28-21 to finish the second year under Herman, a game-play of a program found in the elite of the college football after a lost decade.
A few minutes after the match, while she was standing on a stage in the middle of the New Orleans Superdome, Ehlinger screamed in a television camera: "Longhorn Nation, we're back!"
Chris Graythen / Getty Images
"Yes, we're not back yet," Herman says now, because every coach at any level allows this conversation only when everything is won.
But as quickly as Herman described his boredom with these brief seconds, he made his way to the back of his upscale desk and began fiddling with a state-of-the-art 70-inch touch-screen TV that might as well be a screen TV. 70-inch touch. thumb computer. (This is Texas, everyone, ride with.)
"I have to show you something," he says, and he finds a picture of American Austin this shows that Sam and Jena kiss in the bleachers of the Superdome while Sam holds his most outstanding player trophy. "I'm choked every time I see him, and I've seen him a hundred times."
Sam and Jena cry. They are happy. They are full and complete, finally, again.
"I know it sounds crazy, but my father was there," said Sam. "As sure as he was there for me when he died, he was there that night at the match in the stands with us We could feel him celebrating with us. "
Ross was a respected trial attorney in Austin and a very good football coach, Pop Warner. He would have liked the Sugar Bowl not only because his beloved Longhorns had won and his son – who had run three touchdowns – was a big part of the reason, but also because of the way it all came together. was unrolled.
Sam spent two long years through the critical lenses of a Texas quarterback. The fumble at USC. Late and decisive interceptions against Oklahoma State and Texas Tech. The loss of Maryland. Cat calls from the crowd at home and shots on the radio talk.
Years before, while Charlie Strong had the unenviable task of resuming after the Mack Brown Hall of Fame race in Austin, Strong knew he needed a player and a unique personality to change the way Texas envisioned football.
He found Ehlinger in Westlake High School and saw Tim Tebow.
"Not only the same type of player, but more importantly, the same type of person," said Strong, Florida's defensive coordinator at Tebow's four-year magical race. "It was different, it was unusual, you only have these players once in a while."
Strong was fired after the 2016 season and never had the opportunity to coach Ehlinger, who was two weeks from his mid-point entry to Texas when Herman arrived.
Nine months later, Ehlinger was on the field in the second week of his first year in college, playing critical minutes. By the end of September, he had taken control of the position. But all of this was not an easy target for an audience that did not feel safe since Colt McCoy was eliminated from the BCS National Championship game in 2010 in the first series – a game that every Orangeblood on the 40-acre swear would Texas won if McCoy did not hurt his shoulder.
It was a target that Ross knew could possibly be placed on the back of his son. A target that he could not – and here is the key – should not avoid.
Ross loved Teddy Roosevelt. The tough and gruff personality – the brilliant adventurist who lived a hard and intelligent life without regrets.
Roosevelt's famous speech, The Man In The Arena, was framed in Ross's office since his law school. The day he and Jena left for San Francisco, he printed three copies to supervise for his children.
"The merit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is stained with dust, sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who is wrong, who is wrong. again and again, because there is no effort without error or defect .. that is spent for a good cause, who at last knows the triumph of the great feat, and who at the end worse fails, at least fails by daring a lot, so that his place is never with these cold and timid souls who know neither the victory nor the defeat ".
Sam chose to play for Texas because he wanted this pressure on his back. He wanted to be the one who would bring the Longhorns back to the college football elite.
If it did not work, it surely would not be because he had never tried it.
If he was not able to become the man of his family when he was 14 years old, you'd better believe that it would not be because he did not want to become his family man when he was 14 years old. did not do everything possible to make it happen.
"You relieve stress by reminding yourself that you do what you love, so you find pride and joy," Ehlinger said. "When I get up at 4:30, I like it, I like to work, run, lift, go to school, days of 15 or 16 hours." I appreciate every moment, because i know that's gonna pay and i'll see the smile on the faces of my teammates when we win.
"I find pride in the grind."
Tim Warner / Getty Images
Something strange happened when Sam left for university in the winter of 2017. This same feeling of disgusting despair returned to the Ehlinger house.
For nearly four years, Sam has been the man of the house, sharing parental responsibilities with Mom. The conduct of Jake and his sister, Morgen, in their different practices was a pride.
When a decision had to be made, it inevitably began when Jena asked her children, "Did you ask Sam?"
"At one point, Morgen sent a picture of the clothes she was wearing and asked her if it was appropriate," says Jena. "He said" No, too short. "And she changed."
So when Sam left for Texas, it's no wonder the ship feels like it's losing its rudder.
"I had the impression that everything was starting all over again, all those horrible days," says Jake Ehlinger. "At that time, we were all emotionally stable, but when he left, he looked at me and said," Okay, you're the man of the house now. Take care of our girls. "You grow up fast when you hear that."
Jake has been registered in Texas earlier this summer, choosing to play and play for the Longhorns instead of accepting an FCS Scholarship. Morgen is 16 and she also plans to go to Texas.
There are only Jena and Morgen and two rescue dogs at home now. A sign indicating "Live Like Ross" – the Jake Pop Warner team designed it for the Ehlinger – is placed prominently in the garden and visible from every room in the house. Jena also has a boyfriend now.
"It's still weird, the first relationship," Sam says while spinning a Live Like Ross bracelet around his wrist. "But he's great, he treats her well, she loves him and it makes me happy, seeing your mother in distress for such a long time is one of the worst things you can live."
"What made her happy and what made her smile, that's what I wanted to see."
No matter how Herman tries to avoid it, the idea that Texas is back among the elite of the nation is not going anywhere. That's what happens when you beat Oklahoma and Georgia and you win 10 games – and your quarterback is one of six Power Five conference players in the last 20 years, with 25 touchdowns and 15 affected during the same season.
All five before Ehlinger – Tebow, Newton Cam, Johnny Manziel, Marcus Mariota, Lamar Jackson – won the Heisman Trophy. Ehlinger is engaged in this conversation early this season and, after increasing his success percentage from 57.5 to 64.7 in 2018, he's also starting to get some rough draft in the NFL.
"Sam's story is amazing," said Collin Johnson. "He grew up dreaming of playing Texas quarterback, and now he's doing it at a high level, how many guys can say that?"
If there was any doubt about the return of Texas and Ehlinger to be the reason, look no further than the most popular player in the NFL, still focused on his academic rival. Former Oklahoma quarterback Baker Mayfield, who tipped the league with his game and dynamic personality, took the time this summer to take photos of Ehlinger and Texas while interviewed on Norman SportsTalk. 400.
Ross would have liked that. Mayfield is two years from Oklahoma and quickly becomes the new face of the NFL with the Cleveland Browns.
And Sam and Texas are still in his head.
"I like football, everything is there." Said Sam. "What does it mean, how does it help to build relationships and to teach teamwork first and foremost? This is the perfect game.
"But there is so much more in life."
And it gets more and more beautiful every day. Just as Jena promised.
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