Air Force Academy – When Curtis Grantham explains why he chose Air Force, he’s a case in point that people can march to a different drummer.
Living in Aurora with his father, Curtis Jr., and going to Overland High School, Grantham would bounce in and out of trouble. He decided it was time to seek the very thing that turns many young people away from what the academy offers.
“My father and everybody else knew I should go some place where there was more discipline,” the fifth-year senior guard said Wednesday. “I knew it, too. I figured I should give this a shot so my life didn’t go down the wrong path.”
After a tough time in middle school in Huntsville, Ala., he moved to Colorado in the summer of 1996 to be with his father. Curtis Jr. said he kept close tabs on his son, but knew he would succeed.
“When he came up here, he came with purpose. He’s self-driven,” Curtis Jr. said. “He looked at the long term and what academy had to offer. I didn’t have to sell him on anything. He always makes the right decisions. That’s why I’m so proud of him.”
The younger Grantham found out the hard way that discipline was a matter of business in life at the academy and the sometimes rebellious trait he had wasn’t going to work.
“I was in trouble the first year-and-a-half I was here,” Grantham said. “That really smacked me in the face and calmed me down. They wouldn’t let me leave the first semester, even on weekends, and that depressed me.
“I started to think I should start living by the rules and maybe it would be a lot more enjoyable for me, and it has been.”
Now, Grantham is the elder statesman on the offensive line. He played seven games as a sophomore in 2003, and after missing nearly all of the 2004 season after breaking his leg in the season opener, he started every game last year.
When the Falcons play Saturday at Wyoming, he will be a team captain.
“He’s very popular with our players, and they respect his leadership,” coach Fisher DeBerry said. “He’s playing good, but he has a fundamental flaw when he’s not thinking very good. When he thinks, he can play.”
Despite being on a reduced class schedule for a semester after the injury, Grantham will graduate in December and early next year will be stationed in Dover, Del., as a civil engineering officer.
Not bad for a kid who was a “bit of a wildfire” and a “prankster” in high school.
“School was just a fun thing for me. I wasn’t really focused on learning,” Grantham said. “I got kicked out of pep rallies for acting wild.
“It was little stuff that really wasn’t bad bad, but I caused disruptions. I was prankster, but every now and then, my actions were a little malicious and even a bit bully-ish.”
At 6-feet-2 and 280 pounds, Grantham is imposing.
At least he got in with the right crowd when his dad brought him to Aurora before his son’s freshman year in high school.
“I grew up in bad neighborhoods,” Grantham said. “The school systems were terrible. In class you did pretty much what you wanted to do. I remember in middle school we actually played cards during classes. Some people were gambling.”
While he prefers to forget the bad times, he lists his hometown as Huntsville as a gesture to his mother, Jackie McCauley, who still lives there. She was at season opener at Tennessee.
“It makes her happy; that’s why I do it,” Grantham said of the hometown listing. He added: “She was surprised how the people in my age group acted. Where she’s from, they act way different. She was happy to see how we carry ourselves. She said I had grown a lot.”
Despite his new-found maturity, Grantham still shows his sense of humor around his fellow linemen. The source of entertainment routinely is his body shape.
“It’s like the center of attention,” Grantham said. “I describe it as a powerful body, but they describe it as weird.
“They talk about me being top-heavy because of small calves. I’m actually one of the strongest offensive linemen, if not the strongest.”
Said DeBerry: “He’s got a true offensive guard’s body. He’s not going to be chosen to be on ‘Dancing With the Stars.”‘
Grantham faces the challenges of his final season and military life with a new attitude.
“I’m a better citizen, better football player and a better person all the way around,” Grantham said.
Footnote
Starting defensive end Gilberto Perez didn’t practice Wednesday after injuring his right knee in Tuesday’s practice. An MRI is scheduled for today.
Staff writer Irv Moss can be reached at 303-954-1296 or imoss@denverpost.com.
