Mountain Men
By Jesse Newell
Originally published 03:02 p.m., October 12, 2007
Updated 03:02 p.m., October 12, 2007
Katrel Larkins stood up to leave his high school English class. So did Aaron Stubblefield.
Coach’s orders.
The two seniors walked down the hallways of Montbello High School in Denver, Colo., toward the office of football coach Oliver Lucas.
The pair wondered what they were being brought in for. They would find out soon enough.
The two, along with teammate Sean Partridge, were first greeted by a stranger — one introducing himself as Emporia State coach Dave Wiemers.
Larkins and his buddies couldn’t help but all think the same thing.
“We were like, ‘Man, what school this?’” Larkins said. “We’d never heard of Emporia State.”
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A few weeks later, Larkins and Stubblefield couldn’t help themselves after boarding the plane.
They had to give their buddy Partridge — who had never flown before — a hard time.
The two told Partridge the plane was going down, and he was frightened enough for awhile to believe them.
“When the plane first took off,” Partridge said, “I was scared, boy.”
The three — who all had never been to Kansas — were traveling together to make a recruiting trip to ESU.
Kansas, though, didn’t make a good first impression.
The wind was chilling, and the three Colorado natives had to run from the airport to their car.
“We had never,” Larkins said, “been cold like that.”
A bigger shock came once they arrived in Emporia — a city 1/20th the size of Denver.
“I had never been to a town where downtown didn’t have no buildings or nothing,” Partridge said. “That’s what I was wondering: ‘Where are all the buildings and the mall? Where’s the stores and everything?’”
The trip still just felt right. The coaching staff made them feel welcomed. All three were being offered some scholarship money.
“We kind of made a little pact that whatever school one of us would go to, we all would go to so we could stay together,” Larkins said.
Though they all had their own offers to different places across the country, they all eventually decided the same thing.
“College is pretty hard,” Larkins said, “so we all made that pact and decided that Emporia would be our new home.”
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The decision for the three to head to a Division-II school in the state of Kansas didn’t just surprise their friends — it also surprised Lucas.
“That was a little bit shocking to me that they all chose it because each one of them had their own opportunities to go where they wanted to go,” Lucas said. “It looked like definitely they were all headed in different directions.
“Then all of a sudden they made a turn, and Coach here was the last one to find out.”
Stubblefield might have had the most open doors.
A track star in high school, Stubblefield was part of State Champion relay teams in the 4x100, 4x200 and 4x400. His relay team placed at both indoor and outdoor Nationals, and he also was a high school All-American in the 4x400.
His Division-I offers for track outnumbered his offers for football. UCLA, Colorado State, Colorado, Kansas and Texas all were interested in giving him track scholarships.
There was one problem.
“I don’t really like track that much,” Stubblefield said. “I don’t like to run, to tell you the truth.”
Partridge turned down some D-I offers in football.
Though most programs wanted him to grayshirt or redshirt his first season, Partridge had Wyoming, Colorado and Colorado State looking at him.
For awhile, Partridge wanted to follow his cousin, Iowa State’s Steve Johnson, to whatever school he went to.
When that fell through, Partridge decided he wanted to get away from Colorado.
“It’s cool to get out of the norm,” Partridge said. “I’ve been at a big city for my whole life. Now I’ve come down to see kind of how the small city is.”
He also liked the attention that the ESU football program received.
Though Division-II Northern Colorado recruited him heavily, Partridge said the team there wasn’t supported as well as ESU was.
“One thing about a small community is people care about the team more,” Partridge said. “We’ve got so many sports in Colorado, high school football wasn’t that big a deal.
“Northern Colorado ... they’re on the back page of the newspaper. You come up here, we’re on the front page.”
Larkins also was highly-sought after, as he earned a two-star rating as a quarterback on Scout.com.
The three also shared more than football — they were all strong track and field athletes.
All three competed for the ESU track and field team during their freshman years.
Stubblefield ran in one meet before injuring his hamstring and giving it up, while Partridge and Larkins both competed in long jump in 2006.
Partridge finished 13th at the MIAA Outdoor Championships, while Larkins was 16th.
“I didn’t jump good at all,” Larkins said, “so I was like, ‘I’ll just stick to football.’”
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Larkins has noticed a change in himself in just the past few months.
Emporia isn’t just that place with the cold wind and no buildings.
Now, it’s home.
On vacations from school, he tells people in Emporia he’s going back to Colorado.
When the vacation ends, he tells people in Colorado he’s going back home.
“We love Kansas now,” Larkins said. “When we first came here, we never referred to it as our home.”
It’s helped to be surrounded by both Stubblefield, his roommate, and Partridge.
“They’re like my brothers,” Larkins said. “That’s like my family. I’m here for them, and they’re here for me.”
The three now prepare for the biggest game of the season, as ESU plays Washburn on Saturday.
Just a few years ago, back in their high school coaches’ office in Denver, they wouldn’t have recognized either.
“Never heard of Emporia,” Partridge said. “Never heard of Washburn, Pitt State. Never heard of any of them.”
They’re happy to be a part of Emporia State football now.
“We’re all still here, we’re all good friends,” Partridge said, “so good decision.”