VOLUME 26, ISSUE 1 21
D
avid Hedelin admits it now.
He cried.
He cried hard.
The big man — he's Thor minus
the hammer — was awash in tears
in early 2014 after learning the NCAA
had suspended him for all of that
fall's season. A punishment rendered
because he'd played in a few club
games in Spain a couple years pre-
viously, ones that at the time didn't
seem all that relevant.
But they were. His athletic dreams
were dashed before they started:
The former Swedish fotboll player
wouldn't be able to play major Divi-
sion I college American football after
all.
"I thought it was all over," said He-
delin, a second-year left tackle who
transferred to Purdue in '14 after two
seasons at City College of San Fran-
cisco. "I talked to my junior college
coach and it was like 'This is over.'
"Two years in junior college and
all that work for nothing. I was re-
ally sad. My coach in junior college,
though, was like 'Calm down. They're
going to solve this.'"
And they did. Purdue petitioned
the NCAA, and the penalty was re-
duced to three games, which delayed
Hedelin's debut as a Boilermaker, but
at least there was going to be a debut.
After sitting, the Swede started the
final seven games last season, but it
wasn't without miscues. Communi-
cation proved a problem at times with
David Hedelin was too physical for
soccer, so he gave it up and found
football in a small gymnasium in
Sweden. Playing for Purdue in the
Big Ten now, that humble start may
seem like a lifetime ago, but it was far
more recent.
By Kyle Charters
