You know that one: star player, sense of entitlement, more concerned with what he can get than give back ... a guy whose transgressions have brought suspension and left him stranded on the sidelines during games.
And that is the only thing Chris Roark has in common with some of his more infamous teammates this season. He’s pretty much been stuck on the sidelines, too.
His circumstances, though, are quite different.
A football star at Alter High — team captain, All Greater Catholic League, one of the school’s most prolific running backs — his 5-foot-9 size and moderate speed dissuaded any Division I college from offering a scholarship.
But after a long, against-the-odds journey, he’s ended up a walk-on at Ohio State.
Although in this, his senior season, he is buried deep on the depth chart — as a receiver no less — he is one Buckeye who should be up on a pedestal.
More than any from the litany of better-known players who have been sidelined this season, Roark is a poster boy for OSU football.
Yet you’d really have to know where to look to catch sight of him. A good place to start would be the dean’s list. He’s been there six times.
Another — since he has to pay his own way to school — would be the work force. He’s held summer and winter jobs since he’s come to OSU in 2007.
Maybe the best place to find him, though — especially during the season — is at the cancer and VA and children’s hospitals he visits on behalf of the Buckeyes. He’s also a regular at area schools.
“I’m part of a group of players who goes to read to kids or just talk to them and try to get them on the right path,” he said. “And sometimes I just tell them my own story and let them know they can do whatever they want if they just work hard enough.”
Although Roark had come out of a successful high school program — and his dad, Chris Sr., is a well-respected area prep coach — Roark’s only football offers came from Division I-AA, II and III programs.
“I never wanted to have any regrets,” he said. “I took a huge risk — especially after giving up an (academic scholarship) offer from Butler — but I wanted to set the bar as high as I could when it came to football. That’s why I decided to try to walk on at Ohio State.”
Of course, hundreds of other students have the same idea each year and only a very few make it.
To prepare for the first cattle-call audition that’s held in the winter after the Bucks season has ended, he went to work out on the Alter field one cold, snowy night when he was back home for a weekend.
“For sure there are better athletes on campus,” he said. “I’m not the strongest, the biggest or the fastest by any means, but my mind-set was that nobody wanted it more or would work any harder to get it.
“It was pitch black out, but I figured at least I could run some gassers in the snow. But my cleat got caught in the mud and when I went to pull it up, I felt my hamstring pop. It was two weeks before the tryout, and I remember texting my friends and parents: ‘Could the timing be any worse?’ ”
Thanks to sheer grit, he willed his way through the tryout and was one of just three hopefuls from a pool of more than 80 who was kept. But once he joined spring practice with the scholarship players, he reinjured his hamstring and hobbled on one leg after that.
“Coach (Darrell) Hazell was the receivers coach back then, and he brought me to his office,” Roark said. “He sat me down and said, ‘Chris, I don’t think it’s gonna work for you.’ I really didn’t know what he was saying, then it finally hit me. He was basically telling me ‘We don’t need you anymore. You’re done.’
“But I couldn’t take that. I told him, ‘Coach, I know I can do this. I’ve been injured. Please give me another shot.’
“And that’s when he cut me a deal. Maybe he saw how hard I’d worked or how badly I wanted it, so he said, ‘Go home and then come back in a year. If you can run and move, you’ll make the team.’ ”
‘An underdog’
Being a walk-on player is a lot like playing the lottery. Every once in awhile somebody may hit it big. Clay Matthews, the Green Bay Packers standout linebacker, started out as a walk-on at Southern Cal. This college season, Oklahoma tailback Dominique Whaley and Wisconsin wide receiver Jared Abbrederis are walk-ons. And Michigan starts three former walk-ons, as does Nebraska, all in its offensive line.
At Ohio State, special teams star Nate Ebner began as a walk-on.
Mostly, though, walk-on players are cannon fodder at practice. Odds are against their advancement, in part, because schools have so much time and money invested in the 85 scholarship players on their roster.
“Being a walk-on is being an underdog. It’s a fight the whole way,” said Roark. “In order to earn a spot on the field you can’t just be as good as a scholarship player, you have to be a lot better. It’s the same with off the field, in the weight room and in the classroom. You have to find a way to separate yourself and make them notice.”
After his talk with Hazell, he came back home that summer and rehabbed at Kettering Medical Center while working a maintenance job at Alter.
That fall he again sat in the Ohio Stadium stands at Buckeye games, but after the season he finally cleared the tryout hurdles and made the team.
Although he’s now in his third season as a Buckeye, he doesn’t get all the same perks as scholarship players. Walk-ons pay for their tuition, books and board. Few, if any, travel to away games. And, per NCAA rules, they aren’t allowed to eat at the training table during the season unless they pay for their meal.
To say they are a hungry lot is an understatement.
That’s why Roark did what he did in his very first spring game in 2009.
“It was the opening kickoff, and I was on the sideline and counted we just had 10 guys out there,” he said. “So I just ran onto the field and no one pulled me off.”
And so these days, you always find him on the sidelines with his helmet either on his head or in his hands.
“I never want an opportunity to suddenly be there and they turn to me, but my helmet is over on the bench so they go with someone else,” he laughed. “I’d hate myself forever.”
Playing time
After two seasons of scout team work — never once getting into a game — readiness and opportunity met in the fourth quarter of the season-opener against Akron this year, and he was sent in for a series.
“It was surreal,” he said. “My parents and both my grandmothers were there and this was for them making me believe I could do it. I wasn’t nervous. It was more of just a sigh of relief. My dream was finally here.”
After a passing play to the other side of the field and a pair of runs, he was back on the sideline — where he now remains.
And yet off the field, he is one of the most active Buckeyes.
“Every Friday during the season we do some kind of hospital visit,” he said. “We’ve also gone to the Ronald McDonald House, clothing drives, animal shelters, food banks and especially schools. Just watching us a couple of hours on Saturdays, that’s stuff most people don’t see.”
Told that people needed to see that, especially since the off-season troubles have stained the picture of OSU football, he thought about it a few seconds, then nodded: “You know, I’ve often wondered what my role is as a walk-on. I mean, I know I’m not going to be a star here. I’m probably never going to score a touchdown.
“But maybe the best thing I can do for Ohio State football is help change an image. Maybe I can help show people that things aren’t as bad as they are made out to be — that the majority of the players here want to do well and want to be good citizens and great people. You just can’t stereotype a whole team.”
As for Roark, he has no tattoos, but certainly holds tight to the Rose Bowl and Sugar Bowl rings he’s gotten the past two years.
“There’s no price you could offer me for those rings,” he said. “You could set me up for the rest of my life and I wouldn’t sell them. They represent everything I’ve worked for since I put on my first helmet in the third grade. Some things just don’t have a price tag.”
It’s things like that he tells the school kids, and he said they listen:
“The young kids don’t know the difference if you’re a star or a scout team guy. In their eyes, ‘You’re a Buckeye.’
“And that’s something I’m proud of. For the rest of my life nobody can take that away from me. I set a goal, worked for it, and accomplished it. I am a Buckeye. I don’t just have the rings to prove it, I have the lessons and values I learned the past few years to go with them.”
The thought brought a broad smile.
It made for a pretty good face of Buckeye football.
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