BY MIKE LUCAS
UWBadgers.com Senior Writer
MADISON, Wis. — As an undersized 227-pound starting nose guard, still making the transition from high school linebacker, Tim Krumrie had one thing in mind during his freshman season at Wisconsin.
Survival.
"A part of growing up is when you don't know you're growing up," he said. "You're probably not mature enough to say, 'I'm not quite ready for all of this yet.'
"I was a farm kid from Wisconsin (Mondovi) who had never left home before and I was playing in front of more people at Camp Randall Stadium than I had ever seen before in my life.
"And here I was lining up at a position that I had never played before and I really didn't know what the hell I was doing. It was one of those things where you were half-embarrassed."
It wasn't because he couldn't do it. He knew he could. But he just didn't know how to do it yet. Krumrie's "know how" had not caught up with his "want-to," which he had in abundance.
And his frustration mounted with some of Wisconsin's uglier losses during the 1979 season, including 59-0 to Ohio State and 54-0 to Michigan. Humbled, he sprinted off the field after both.
"You're expecting more out of yourself," he said, "and when you're sitting there afterward in the locker room, upset about not playing well, you have to think, 'The next game will be better.'
"But that first year was a bear. And, then, the following year, all of a sudden, it clicks, it just happens and you say, 'I've got it. I've got it now. I'm going to be OK. I'm going to survive.'"
Krumrie not only survived, he flourished.
A four-year fixture at nose guard, 46 consecutive starts, he redefined the position from a production standpoint with 444 career tackles, third most in school history.
A consensus All-American in 1981, and a Walter Camp All-American in 1982, he finished with a school-record 276 solo tackles; an unheard of total for a down lineman in a three- or four-point stance.
"I survived pretty good," Krumrie laughed from his home in Steamboat Springs, Colorado. "The cool thing about it — as a player looking back on it — is nobody else recognizes that stuff."
That "stuff" being what it took to survive. Instead, he suggested that outsiders may look only at his statistics and conclude, "Oh, he was a great player — he made a bunch of tackles."
But it goes so much deeper to the fabric of who he is, and how he played the game.
"That's what makes you tick every day — you willed yourself into what you were when you left (college)," he said. "It's the will power, the want to and the determination with the odds against you."
It's all of the above. And it's why 55-year-old Tim Krumrie is going into the College Football Hall of Fame as a member of the 2016 class, which was announced Friday in Scottsdale, Arizona.
Wisconsin athletic director Barry Alvarez called him with the good news.
"I thought he was calling to hire me as a coach," cracked Krumrie, who coached the defensive line for 15 seasons in the NFL with the Cincinnati Bengals, Buffalo Bills and Kansas City Chiefs.
Obviously, he was aware that the Badgers are in the market for a defensive coordinator with the departure of Dave Aranda to LSU. Levity aside, Krumrie was genuinely stunned by Alvarez's words.
"He said, 'Tim, you're in the Hall of Fame, congratulations,'" he recounted. "And I go, 'Wow.' I didn't know what to say. It was a typical Tim move — I froze. And I'd think of something later to say."
Once it sunk in, he was humbled — for much different reasons than when he was 19.
"It's a great honor and it's really neat anytime you can accomplish something like this," said Krumrie, who was inducted into the UW Athletics Hall of Fame in 1999.
"You look back at all those years you played in college and all those snaps my freshman year. You look back on switching positions from a linebacker to a nose tackle.
"And it was one of those things where you really didn't know where you were going or headed from there. Then, all of a sudden, you're making plays all over the field."
The last time that Krumrie wore a UW jersey was in the 1982 Independence Bowl in Shreveport, Louisiana. He was voted the Defensive MVP in the Badgers' first-ever bowl win, 14-3 over Kansas State.
Once a college player's career is over, there's a 10-year waiting period to be eligible for the Hall of Fame. Krumrie, thus, waited 24 years to make the cut beyond the mandatory wait.
"I wasn't disappointed," he insisted.
What's two-plus decades when you waited 10 rounds and 276 picks to get drafted in the NFL? The Green Bay Packers took an Indiana basketball player (Jim Thomas) ahead of Krumrie, who went on to play 12 seasons (161 starts) with the Cincinnati Bengals. Thomas was an epic reach and bust.
His Bengals resume was highlighted by over 1,000 career tackles — he led the team in 1992 — two Pro Bowls and one memorable Super Bowl during which he shattered two bones in his lower leg while tackling San Francisco's Roger Craig. He still sports a 15-inch steel rod in his left leg.
So was the wait for the College Football Hall of Fame worth it?
"I was always very competitive and I still am," said Krumrie, once known to do 1,000 sit-ups each day. "So I would compare myself to other people (going into the Hall of Fame). In the back of my mind, I'd think, 'I'm just as good as or better than that person. What's going on?'"
He broke out into laughter.
"I just think it's human nature to do (compare), it's not a negative or anything like that to think that way," he continued. "If you weren't a competitor, maybe you wouldn't do that. But I am competitive, and I am proud and happy to be in the Hall of Fame. You never give up hope, either.
"It's like anything else, it's just a matter of time. Sooner or later, you'll get recognized because someone will stand up on the table, like Barry did, and say, 'He deserves to be put in.' All those years you kicked the dirt and, suddenly, you get a pat on the back."
Why was Krumrie such a dominating college nose guard?
"Energy and want-to," he said.
Anybody can play with energy.
"Not with my kind of energy," he said, laughing again. "It's a different energy, it's a different want-to. Not every play goes perfect. But do you have the energy to get up and continue to play the next play? It's not always going to go OK. You're going to fall down …"
But …
"Are you going to sit there and kick the dirt? Or, are you going to jump up and run and make the tackle on the backside. That's energy. Yes, everyone can say, 'I play with energy.' But, no, you don't unless you go hard on every play."
What was the turning point for Krumrie during his freshman season?
"As I got my butt kicked, I turned it into a wrestling match," said Krumrie, a high school state champion before the class system was introduced in Wisconsin. "I figured if I could get my hands on the guy and wrestle him into my gap, I'd be OK. I didn't know enough about defensive line play to survive otherwise.
"But I knew how to survive as a wrestler. I could do that. I then used my quickness. That was my edge. The coaches let me do some slanting. If I was going to be a nose tackle, I knew that I had to find my niche and it turned into slanting and angling and I got to be a pretty good 2-gapper."
Krumrie also wrestled for the Badgers. He loved the culture of the room and the one-on-one warfare on the mat. To this day, he will talk at length about how he utilized the pummeling technique, a wrestling skill, to gain upper body leverage on offensive linemen who were much bigger than he was.
"A lot parents have come up to me and asked, 'What sports would you recommend our child to play other than football?'" he related. "I'd always say, 'Wrestling by far.' Wrestling was fantastic for me. I started when I was in high school and continued in college. It taught me so much.
"I didn't have the football techniques when I started. As I went along, I learned techniques and I had a lot of coaches who did a good job coaching me. But I was a wrestler at heart — I was a competitor, one-on-one. And, in reality, that's what I stayed as the years went on."
As an NFL assistant, Krumrie taught those pummeling techniques, which "I doctored for my own use." He will get another teaching opportunity in late January when he coaches the D-line for the West and head coach June Jones in the East-West Shrine Game in St. Petersburg, Fla.
The Badgers will be well-represented in the game by quarterback Joel Stave, safety Michael Caputo and fullback Derek Watt. In October, Krumrie got to meet all three players when he spoke to the team before serving as UW's honorary captain for the Big Ten opener against Iowa.
"I wanted to play," Krumrie said.
Mostly, he was just grateful for the invitation to return "home."
While on campus, he made sure to take in a wrestling practice.
Now that he's going into the Hall of Fame, he wants to share the honor, too.
And it goes beyond his immediate family: wife Cheryl, daughter Kelly and son Dexter.
"It's with all the guys that were around me — all the players, all the coaches," he said. "It's with all the football people and everybody else who supported me.
"It's with the trainer, Gordie Stoddard, who taped my ankles every day. It was a superstition.
"It's with the guy who opened the gate and said, 'Hi, Tim' and patted me on the back.
"It's with those crazy Wisconsin fans who still tweet at me. Our fans are the best in the world."
As you might expect, Krumrie has become a big fan of Houston Texans defensive end J.J. Watt, another former Badgers lineman who has excelled in the trenches.
During his UW playing days, Krumrie's helmet would often slip down over his forehead upon contact — breaking open the skin on the bridge of his nose. He was frequently a bloody mess.
During a 2013 game against the Seattle Seahawks, Watt needed six stiches to close a gash on his nose. How did Krumrie react to seeing Watt's blood-splattered face?
"That was beautiful, that was beautiful, that was beautiful," he kept repeating.
What separates Watt from others — at least to his thinking?
"It's his motor and his energy," said Krumrie, who has a pretty good idea today how far those qualities can carry a player. All the way to College Football Hall of Fame.
