Inside the Chart: Huntley Thriving In All He Does
September 17, 2019 | Football
Junior Running Back And Ball State Committed to One Another Along the Way
Inside the Chart is a weekly column by "Voice of the Cardinals" Joel Godett. In it he tells stories and shares news and notes that he uses in his preparation for broadcasts, but that don't always make it on-air. Make sure you catch the Cards in action on the radio this season on the Community Hospital Anderson Cards Radio Network and WLBC 104.1.
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Everybody yearns to feel wanted. It's a basic function of the human psyche.
Now picture yourself as a 17-year-old high school running back with dreams of next-level grandeur. There's a line of college coaches recruiting you matched only in stature by the line of students hoping for a date with the prom king or queen.Â
Now imagine being told that was all going away. Imagine being told there was something about you that was no longer deemed desirable to the wooing party. Imagine being Ball State running back Caleb Huntley.
"Early on," Huntley said, "I saw schools like Clemson, Georgia Tech were up there every other week showing heavy interest but they would never pull the trigger because my grades were so low … I also had an offer from Minnesota. I had an offer from Kansas … South Carolina was looking at me."
Western Kentucky, Conference USA champions Huntley's senior season, wound up earning his commitment out of suburban Atlanta's Locust Grove High School. But the Hilltoppers, like the others, eventually cooled on Huntley as well.
"They dropped me because of grades," Huntley said. "There were nights where my mom was like 'do you think you're going to be able to do this?' and I would just break down in my room crying because this is all I wanted to do since I was a little kid … just to make things better at home and do things for my mom like she would do for me. It just pushed me to go harder."
"There was a time for him I'm sure, where he didn't know what was going to happen," said Huntley's Ball State recruiting coach, Alex Bailey.
But obstacles are nothing new to Huntley. He's seen them his whole life. In a football sense he was always placed on the offensive and defensive lines growing up (with some linebacker and safety mixed in) because he was over the maximum weight required to touch the ball. But even then he worked to find his way around it.
"Big fumbles. Big hits," Huntley said, reminiscing on how he'd jar the ball free and carry it himself. "[I'd run] kickoffs back because I was on the front line and they didn't want to kick it deep."
Quite the change for a youngster that was turned off to the game initially. When he was five years old Huntley didn't like the coaches yelling at the kids, so he decided, for whatever reason, he'd play golf. That lasted one year.
"It was just an outlet for me to unleash some of my aggression and emotion," Huntley said of football once he tried on pads.
And then it was eventually football that motivated him to get to work in the classroom. Driven by all those schools who's interest went away, Huntley nudged his grades up enough to qualify for college football and Ball State was standing there waiting.
"The biggest thing for us was we wanted to get all the details about his academics," Bailey said. "We were probably one of the few schools that really dove in to get the details and to really figure out what he needed and what he didn't have and once we found out all the information, we felt confident he was a guy that was going to make it."
"[Running backs] Coach [Kevin] Lynch stuck with me throughout, " Huntley added, "and I gave him my word that I was going to come here if I qualified."
Well, Huntley wound up coming to Muncie, but didn't know for sure that he'd "made it" until after he arrived on campus for summer session 2017. It was a leap of faith that paid off for both him and the Cardinals, and one that's now seen him thrive academically. The junior put up a better than 3.0 GPA in the spring and has taken well to classes in religion, history and communications. He's also enamored with early childhood education.
"I've learned so much about kids and health," Huntley said. "I feel like I could easily go into a profession like that after it's all said and done."
It's all a story of Huntley's overall maturation and the unmasking of an ability that always laid deep inside.
"I did think it was crazy," Huntley said of coming to college so far from home. "But I also wanted to get away from Georgia because there's a lot going on down there and I just wanted a new atmosphere and I wanted a chance for myself to become a man of my own. Everybody needs an escape from everyday life. Growing up in Georgia everything isn't easy. Everything isn't peaches and cream. But up here I can focus on what I need to. I can focus on football. I can focus on my education without being sidetracked."
But where Huntley ultimately winds up may take him back to those Georgia roots. His career goal may very well take him to the trucking industry, where his step-father and brother already work. Huntley is a sociology and business major at Ball State and, while attracted to other courses of study, he can see himself opening a family trucking business one day, capitalizing on his current inroads and eventually being the boss, not working for one.
The fact that it could be a family business is important to Huntley too. He's incredibly close to his parents and his graduation from Ball State would make him the first member of his immediate family to earn a college diploma.
"[My mom is] a hard working person," said Huntley. "My step-dad is a hard working person as well, but they didn't go to college. My brother went to college but he stopped going after two years because he injured his knee [playing football at Lane College]. So I want to be the first person to see it through."
Say what you will of Huntley's teammates in Muncie (like most student-athletes, he calls them his brothers), his best friend in the world is still by far his mother, Tammie Lamons, and he's not afraid to admit it.
"They probably talk three, four time a day," Bailey said. "He loves her to death. She's also hard on him. She doesn't let him get away with anything."
"Everything we've been through together," Huntley said of his mother, "I don't come from much, but she always made sure I had enough to go on through the day."
It was Tammie that helped put everything into perspective for Huntley before the season started this fall. His family isn't able to get to many games from Georgia, but the one at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis was a must-witness. It was the first time, of hopefully many, that Lamons would see her son walk out on the field at an NFL stadium.
"I talked to my mom before the game," Huntley said. "She said "dreams are unfolding in front of your face and you don't even know it." I just thought about that and she's actually right. This is everything I've ever dreamed of since I was a little kid."
In fact, you could argue, this is far more than he's ever dreamed of. Huntley's begun this fall one of the most often utilized backs in all of college football, ranking 31st in carries through three weeks. And when it comes to feeling wanted in the world of college football that's about as good as it gets.
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