Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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team, and he has served as his younger brother's role model. "My brother stepped into a fatherly role, and watched over me and my mom even though he was two hours away in college," said Bivin, who always writes his father 's name on his game cleats, shoes and tape. "He would always call and check up on us. Being able to do that from so far away with so many other things he was doing … I've always looked up to him, and he's just done an awesome job." Having such people to emulate served Bivin well during rough 2-9 football seasons the past three years at Apollo, which underwent a coaching overhaul in 2012 to begin a massive rebuilding job. In Bivin's senior year alone, the Eagles suffered blowout losses by scores of 62-6, 63-15, 53-16 and 45-6, and others by several touchdowns. First-year Apollo head coach Dan Crume, formerly the defensive coordinator at Kentucky Wesleyan College, instantly noted the bigtime skills of Bivin, who also played along the defensive line and handled the snapping chores on special teams. However, the new head coach was more drawn toward Bivin's attitude and work ethic while trying to pick up teammates during the trying times. "Anytime you have change you have some growing pains and things that need to get worked out," Crume said. "We played a really tough schedule and played good competition. For him it was frustrating dealing with all the losses, and that's one of the things he talked about with the team. He came in ready to work and get better every day, and continued to encourage guys to get better every day and improve and keep driving on. "Hunter is by far an even more quality person than an athlete. Part of that is because he had to grow up and handle some adversity when he was younger in his life. That maturity helped him in the course of playing the games. When things are going well, be humble and handle it appropriately. And when things are struggling, you have to handle adversity properly." Bivin has experienced his share of victory as well. As a junior, he won the 2012 Kentucky 3-A state title in the shot put, and in the basketballmad Bluegrass state that has no class divisions on the high school hardwood, Bivin was a regular double-double man in points and rebounds while leading Apollo to a Cinderella-like advancement to the Sweet 16 of the state tournament (this year's team was 16-11 entering the weekend of Feb. 8). "I stay in shape, and it helps my footwork," Bivin said of his work in basketball and with the shot put and discus. "It definitely is important as an offensive lineman. You don't want to stop competing. A lot of people don't realize if you take nine months of the year off, you lose that competitive edge, so I'm always competing." His favorite offensive lineman growing up was current New York Giants' star David Diehl, who happened to play at the University of Illi-