Keenan Howry emerges from the depths of a tunnel and catches some sunshine in an end zone at Autzen Stadium. He’s reached the end zone 12 times on Game Day in his two-year career as a wide receiver for the Ducks, but at 12:45 p.m. on Thursday, the stadium is eerily silent.
The roar of the crowd and blare of the band are memories today, and Howry is relaxing in baggy gray sweats. He’s nursing a rib injury sustained when he landed on the football after a run in Oregon’s 38-21 win at Utah State, but says he’ll play Saturday against Arizona.
He seems out of place without pads, a helmet or a quarterback, and he says when he arrived at the University in 1999, he also felt out of place.
“Being an only child, I hung out with my cousins and my family a lot,” Howry says. “They’ve always been there (for me). At first, it was hard being away because they’re all down there. But I try to call on weekends. That’s when I get free minutes on my cell.”
Those calls are usually answered in Long Beach, Calif., by Howry’s mom, Glenda, or his dad, Dan. Glenda taught Keenan “to do the best I could at everything and never give up.” Dan taught Keenan the game of football.
The youngster would watch his dad play defensive back in an adult flag football league that was “really competitive,” Howry says.
“My dad and all his friends would get pretty intense because that was the only chance they got to play,” he continues. “So they would give it their all.”
He bided his time until he could step on the field with them and says that just about every day, Tom Nordee, one of his dad’s friends and the quarterback of the flag team, would ask him if he was ready to play.
Meanwhile, Keenan was dabbling in basketball and baseball and playing flag football in a youngster’s league each week at the Jordan Downs Recreation Center in Watts, Calif., where his mom worked.
“I played everything, but a lot of my friends thought I’d do better at baseball or basketball because I was so skinny.”
But football was his first love, and he polished his skills as a defensive back and receiver with time and practice. His dad tutored his growth as a DB, and in hindsight, he says, helped make him an even more explosive receiver because he understands the objectives and tactics of the young men who try to shut him down each week.
When he trotted onto the field to play flag football with his father and his father’s friends for the first time at age 17, he was finally ready. But they weren’t ready for him.
“As I got older, so did all my dad’s friends,” Howry says, cracking a smile of round teeth. “My dad told ’em, ‘He’s 17 and he’s burnin’ all you guys!’ It was a lot of fun.”
Another of his father’s friends, Vister Hayes, set many records as a receiver at Mississippi Valley State University in the early 1980s and then watched a young Jerry Rice break virtually every one of them. Rice went on to set many National Football League records as a wide receiver for the San Francisco 49ers.
But, Howry says, it’s pretty cool to say you played ball at the same school as Rice.
Hayes was a dangerous receiver, Howry says, with many skills and a venerable knowledge of the game. He took Keenan under his wing and taught him the intricacies of footwork and route running.
“He would really help me,” Howry says.
During his sophomore year at Los Alamitos High School, Keenan decided to dedicate himself to football and shelved baseball and basketball. His senior season proved to be a break out year, as he snared 73 receptions for 1,320 yards and 17 scores, earning All-American honorable mention from USA Today.
He wasn’t heavily recruited by college programs coming out of high school, he says, because at 5 feet 9 inches and 170 pounds, he’s not a prototypical wideout. But his height fuels a competitive spirit that still burns.
“I don’t have 4.2 or 4.3 speed, so I have to use every bit of ability I have,” Howry says. “I can’t be similar (in ability) to a taller guy, I’ve got to be better. That’s always motivated me.”
That determination could help him graduate in 2002, his fourth year of college, with a bachelor’s in psychology. He’s always been fascinated by why people act the way they do, and what makes them act that way.
If professional football isn’t an option, he’ll apply his psych knowledge to teaching and coaching — professions he says are dependent on the ability to understand and connect with others.
But the junior has plenty to keep him busy until making a career decision, with seven games remaining in the Duck’s season and a rigorous Monday-through-Thursday study and practice schedule that begins at 7:30 a.m. and ends at 7 p.m.
He wouldn’t trade the long hours for anything, though, he says, because football and college are teaching him lessons he’ll need for the rest of his life.
“Everything isn’t always going to be perfect,” he says. “How well you adapt is how well you succeed. Pretty soon I’m going to find out what real life is like. Sometimes in life you have to do things you’re really not comfortable doing. Just like football, sometimes in a game the other team forces you to do things you don’t want to. You’ve got to be able to adapt.”
A skill Howry has learned well.