OU’s Pendleton gives up football to raise brother

The passion is evident in Carl Pendleton’s rich, soft baritone voice when he speaks of what football has meant to him.

“Oh, man,” he said. “Football has been incredible.

“I’ve had so many experiences through football that I would have had no other way. Probably the most valuable instrument in my life, because of what it has allowed me to do.”

Oklahoma’s junior defensive tackle is, however, giving up something that special for someone – not something – more dear. With a year of eligibility remaining, Pendleton has chosen to play in his last football game with the Sooners on New Year’s Day against Boise State in the Tostitos Fiesta Bowl.

After that, with the aide of an $18,000 post-graduate scholarship from the National Football Foundation and a part-time job as youth minister of a Norman church, Pendleton will forgo his final season to devote more time to raising his adopted younger brother, Kierstan.

Kierstan, who is 11 years old, moved in with Pendleton last summer.

The brothers have gotten by with the help of friends, programs that provide Kierstan lunch and after-school care, and their devotion to each other.

“It’s been so good having Kierstan with me,” Pendleton said. “It’s taught me so much. It really has.”

Pendleton recycles that experience as he looks ahead to a master’s-degree program and consideration of seminary school.

Clark Mitchell is the founder and pastor of Journey Church, where Pendleton has been a Sunday school teacher for boys from the third through sixth grades since 2004. In January, Pendleton will become director of Journey’s fifth- and sixth-grade ministry, which, with his help, has already grown to an average weekly attendance of 150 to 175 boys, Mitchell said.

“We feel this ministry will have more opportunity under Carl than it ever has before,” Mitchell said. “He’s already had an impact on these kids’ lives.

“What Carl has done (in taking in Kierstan) is one of the most selfless acts I’ve ever seen. But it’s not just tied to this situation. That’s just who Carl is. He truly does represent the character of Christ.”

OU co-defensive coordinator Bobby Jack Wright is Pendleton’s former position coach and the coordinator for the program’s mentoring outreach program. Wright stresses that the program has had little to do with Pendleton’s many community service efforts, including hospital volunteer work, elementary school tutoring, speaking to church groups and working in the Fellowship of Christian Athletes.

In his spare time, Pendleton received a degree in sociology with a minor in religious studies on Dec. 17. He twice has earned Big 12 AcademicAll-American recognition.

“In 34 years of coaching, Carl is absolutely unique,” Wright said. “He is a wonderful young man who has a great head on his shoulders, who at a very young age is mature beyond his years from the standpoint that he understands giving back. He understands charity. He understands helping people.

“For him to do what he’s done for his younger brother? If you can imagine a college kid taking it upon himself to say the best thing for him is to be with me, to make that sacrifice on his own part. It’s just tremendous.

“It’s a great story. It almost makes you want to cry.”

Pendleton deflects such praise.

“This is about Kierstan,” he said. “Not about me.”

As the story of his assuming legal guardianship of his adopted younger brother has been told, Pendleton said a myth has grown about his parents, who have gone through a difficult divorce.

“What a lot of people don’t realize about the situation and what is automatically misunderstood is that I have great parents,” Pendleton said. “My mom should be commended for the simple fact that she’s woman enough and smart enough and cares enough about Kierstan to say, `OK, I love you, and because I love you I realize that you being with me right now is not the best decision.’ Nothing can be more unselfish than to give up a child.”

Pendleton said he believes circumstances that include his parents’ breakup are part of a grand plan that has led him down a path toward what he expects to be his life’s work.

“Having a chance to impact children has been the biggest thing in my life,” Pendleton said. “It was difficult for me growing up as a kid. I wasn’t the best-behaved. I had a really awkward outlook on life, and I didn’t treat people very good.

“I mean, my parents tried to tell me there were better ways of doing things. But you don’t always listen to your parents when you’re a kid. If someone who was an athlete or a college student would have come to me and told me those same things, I would have listened.

“And I really think it’s my responsibility to tell kids and to show them that there are other ways. That God has a better plan, if they will just follow it.”

OU linebacker Rufus Alexander doubts Pendleton will be lost without football.

“It’s very admirable what Carl has done for his little brother,” Alexander said. “But that’s just him. That’s just the type character he has.”