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VOLUME 26, ISSUE 1 25 ball was a bit more difficult. Unlike his Purdue teammates, who largely started playing at a young age and grew to un- derstand the sport's technicalities, he was a novice. For instance, the Boilermakers like to echo calls on their line, so if the left guard sees something in the defensive front, he'll yell it out, then expect the players next to him to repeat it, verifying that everyone is on the same page. But Hedelin, despite repeated urging, wasn't doing it. "We said it for half the season, assuming that he knew what that meant," Hazell said. "'Echo the call, David.' (He'd respond) 'OK.' He had no idea what that meant." It made for a rough beginning to Hedelin's Purdue ca- reer. After sitting the first three games due to the suspen- sion, he split time with Cameron Cermin for two Saturdays before taking over as the full-time left tackle. But he was losing weight, down about a dozen pounds by the end of the season, which he attributes to not eating breakfast. And the stress didn't help. He was still a func- tioning person, he says, doing well in school and fitting in with teammates. He kept the same cool, laid-back demean- or, smiling and friendly with about everyone, aside from those across from him on game days. But at night, he was a mess. "Trying to go to sleep, I thought about football all the time," he said. "How to kick slide, how to move and all that." Offensive line coach Jim Bridge says he could sense He- delin's head swimming with information overload and the strain it was causing. "After you figure out you're teaching a guy whose sec- ond language is English, you start to ask 'David, do you un- derstand that?'" Bridge said. "The experience gained from that for me was big too, being able to say 'Are you sure you understand what we're saying?' But he's got it, we're good, and I'm expecting experience to be a positive for him." So is Hedelin. By the end of the season, he was starting to feel more comfortable, the weight loss notwithstanding, and that propelled him to a good offseason. His weight is back up to 302, as big as he's ever been, giving his team- mates reason to think he could be on the verge of a big season. "Offensive line isn't a natural position, but for him he kind of is a natural at it. He learns fast," said left guard Jason King, who lines up to Hedelin's immediate right on the line. "… He's a stud athlete, so it's not an issue for him to pick that stuff up, but now that we're putting that together with him understanding the game, he's telling me some stuff that I'm not seeing. He's telling me to watch it, look at this, and that's going to be awesome for us on the O-line." A fter watching Purdue games late on Saturday nights in Stockholm, Klein-Strandberg will sit down at his computer to email Hedelin some thoughts. They're usually "highly critical," the former coach says, but the ritual has become expectation. Klein-Strandberg considers it his fault that Hedelin's a better run blocker than pass protector, because in Sweden it's hard to find quarterbacks talented enough to consistently throw. The Killers and Saints had ground-based offenses. "When I watched him play last year, he got in a lot of bad positions and I thought 'Holy (crap), this is going to be a bust,'" Klein-Strandberg said. "But in some way or another, he used his athletic ability to throw himself back into, not a good position, but at least a good enough po- sition to sort of save the play. And if you can do that at a Division I level against the top teams, you can sort of imagine what he could do if he gets confidence in the plays and the playbook and the techniques." Hedelin, now a 24-year-old senior, gets plenty of sup- port from back home. His parents will come to a couple games this season, after making the trip to see him play Michigan State last year. And Klein-Strandberg will make a repeat transatlantic trip, as well. They'd like to see Hedelin get to the NFL — it'd take a good season to have that chance — but even if not, the pursuit of football has been a joy. "It's always inspiring when you have people around you who want to do something," Klein-Strandberg said, "and they work really hard and (then) you see them go- ing through that journey." j