By Skip Myslenski
NUsports.com Special Contributor
He transcended a fractured childhood, which was mottled by an alcoholic father and a bitter divorce and his own reckless behavior as a teenager. He overcame the death of his younger brother Reed, who abused heroin and eventually died from an overdose. He conquered the two years of rigorous testing that culls out the weak and leaves only the strongest as Navy SEALS, and he survived missions in Iraq and Afghanistan as the Lead Breacher (explosive expert) on initial-entry teams. Now Tom Hruby, back in the States as an instructor at Great Lakes Naval Station, decides to pursue a long-held dream.
He is 31-years old. He is a husband whose wife Jen is pursuing a degree in psychology. He is a father of three young boys who lives 47 miles away from Evanston in Crown Point, IN. But still. But still. But still he applies to Northwestern and is accepted by Northwestern and, in the summer of 2013, he walks onto its football team. "It was something I always wanted to do," he recalls. "I always wanted to come to Northwestern and I always wanted to play college ball. I always thought I could, but it just wasn't in the cards until then.
"I had an opportunity, coming to Great Lakes, to start thinking about it, and to start putting things in motion, and it all just worked out. That's part of the reason I just think this is meant to be."
He lived in Oak Lawn until he was 14 and then, with his parents' marriage unraveling, he moved with his mom, brother and sister to Crown Point. Kathy Hruby, the mother, sometimes worked three jobs to support her brood (she later started her own business and still runs a company), but when the divorce inevitably came, her children were not unscathed.
This is when Tom Hruby started acting out, yet he did graduate from Andrean High School in Merrillville (where he played football) and enroll at North Central College. He lasted there less than two years, and then opened a landscaping service with some friends. "I was just trying to figure out what to do," he recalls, and here he began looking into the Navy SEALS and learned just went into the making of one.
"There's everything you can think of. It's meant to find the weaknesses in somebody and challenge them," he remembers. "With my research, when I was looking into it, seeing what I wanted to do, I just could not get that idea out of my mind that there existed a challenge of that nature that I could do. I mean, for me to do these things as a civilian, in the private sector, it would cost you millions of dollars and an endless amount of time. There's no other way you could qualify in all these different skills. Diving. Shooting. Sky diving. And the list goes on. Driving cars. Explosives. And be proficient in all that. To me, I couldn't think of anything that was more exciting than that.
"I love challenges. . . (and) I'm glad I did it. It was an important chapter, an important part of shaping who I am."
He was challenged for two years in myriad ways before becoming a SEAL in 2006. One of them was his BUD/S (Basic Underwater Demolition/Seal) class, which includes a five-day stretch when candidates run close to 200 miles. "It's just the biggest kick in the (groin) you'll ever experience. It's hard to recreate it," he remembers. "We try to out here with tough practices and two-a-days and things of that nature. But it is really hard. The closest I can come is guys who are long-distance runners. It's the same motion over and over again. There's nothing new. There's no lateral movements. There's no pass to catch.
"It's the same footstep over and over and over again forever, and you know you've got forever to go, and you've got to keep a certain speed, and your body, all it wants to do is not do it anymore. But your mind somehow has to keep moving those muscles, has to keep putting your feet on the ground maintaining that pace. That goes on for six, seven months."
And what of the whole weeding out process?
"You are," he says simply, "looking at two years of just an endless struggle."
He demurs when asked about the dangers he faced in Iraq and Afghanistan, which he most certainly did. ("I don't think they're pertinent," he says politely.) But then he is reminded of a comment made by his former SEAL team chief David Goggins, who once said of him, "Without a challenge in front of guys like Tom, what's the point of living?"
"He's the same way. He run's ultra-marathons now," Hruby now says with a smile. "He's 43, 44-years old, he runs 100-miles races a few times a year, if not more. He just retired. And the first job he goes and takes is a job as a smoke jumper. The guys who parachute into forest fires with a chain saw. That's what he's doing now. He's 44-years old. Right now he's probably in a fire somewhere in Seattle while I'm playing football. He's an amazing guy.
"But that's how we feel about it. And that's how I feel about this. It's a challenge for me."
He and his family moved in with his mom when he took on his current challenge, and now his days stretched on as long as those runs he once endured in his BUD/S class. He would arise at four and drive in from Crown Point and start football at six. Then it was up to Great Lakes to fulfill his military duties, then it was back to school for classes that might not end until 8:30. Now he sometimes drove back to Indiana.
The Navy, in turn, did not clear him to play in 2013, would not clear him to play until the 'Cats meeting with Michigan last November. That afternoon he led them onto Ryan Field with the U.S. flag held aloft and played on special teams, and the next week at Purdue he got a carry and picked up one yard. He more recently switched to linebacker; was elected to the team's Leadership Council; got a dorm room of his own; moved into a rented home with his family, which will soon grow by one more boy; and was honorably discharged from the Navy after nine years and at the age of 33. "He's an American hero," Pat Fitzgerald will say of him.
"He's an inspiration to all of us, the sacrifices he made to put himself in the position to earn being a SEAL.There are few people in this world who can do that. What an amazing inspiration. His humility. He's not a pound-his-chest guy. He doesn't talk a lot about what he did and what he had to go through. But from a standpoint of respect, when guys ask him, he shares really good nuggets. Then from a teammate standpoint, we've asked him to do I don't know how many roles. Linebacker. D line. Fullback. Tight end. He's just, 'Whatever I can do.' To know that he's willing to do that, to be a father, to be a husband, to be a student, and to be doing it as a SEAL, there are very few people who could do what he does. Anytime you feel you're having a hard day, you just look at Tom and go, 'I've got it pretty good.'"
"But I feel it's a lot bigger than just about me," Hruby himself soon says, testifying to the accuracy of his coach's observation. "I enjoy the challenge of helping these guys and teaching them everything I know. I enjoy just watching them get better at their sport, at their craft. I like to help, even in the smallest ways. If I can just remind them on the sideline when they're tired, when they're exhausted, 'Hey, what are you supposed to be focused on? What're your keys? What mistake did you make? What did we talk about yesterday?' Reminding them to, 'Just breathe, breathe. Breathe through the nose. Take a breath. Hold that thing. Exhale. OK. Catch your breath, then let's get back focused.'
"And then I just try to live a good life too. I'm not a saint by any means. I know life's hard, especially for young, football-playing studs. They've got a lot of hard choices they're going to have to make and some guys don't ever have an example. I know I never had an example. I never even had an example-- I know my beard looks real good right now. But no one ever taught me how to shave. I never had an example of anything in life except (what I saw) with my own eyes. I had to figure it all out with my own eyes."
When you're talking with them on the sideline, do you ever think that their situation is nothing compared to what you've gone through?
"It's not. It's not. But I think everything is relative. These guys are 20-years old. They're doing what they're trained to do. This is their battle, really. It's not much different from me being trained to go to war. That's our battle. And you're tired. And you're scared. And you're body hurts. And other people might have gone down around you. It's not any different on a football field. Of course, it doesn't involve death and it doesn't have some global impact. But there is a correlation to it and it's a way for me to motivate, to push guys beyond what they're capable of, and I do that when it seems reasonable."
Is this a way for you to give back, to be that example you never had?
"I don't know. But I do feel this is what I was called to do. I feel things were put in my path, or I was placed in the path of these things, for a reason. I can't explain it any other way. There's a lot of times I wish I could say, '(Forget) this. I'm not getting the playing time I want. My body hurts. I'm traveling to Indiana and back four days a week.' And the list goes on. . . A lot of times I think I'm crazy for doing this. I'm like, 'What the hell am I doing?'
"Then I see guys get better. I see the team improve. I see young men learning things. And part of it is I want to do right by my kids too. They need an example to live up to. The way I look at it now is as long as my body holds up, and as long as there's not some catastrophic family thing, then I owe it. I owe it. It puts me at a point where I have only these choices when my kids ask me about this portion of my life. I either have to honestly say, 'I gave it all that I have.' Or I'm going to have to lie to them and say, 'Well, my body gave out.' Or, 'Things were too hard.' Or I'm going to have to tell them, 'I'm a quitter. I just quit. It got too hard. I didn't like doing it anymore, so I quit.'
"Well, which one do I pick?"
Do you still enjoy it then?
"Absolutely. Without a doubt. But there's a lot of times when it is overwhelming. It's a lot of work."
Have you ever thought, "I'm quitting?"
"No. No. No, no, no. Not at all."
Well. Yours is a pretty amazing story.
"'I just can't think of any reason not to do this," he says, demurring one more time. "Well, I can think of reasons not to. But if I can figure out a way to make it all work, and people are happy, people are OK with it and supportive, I just can't see why I wouldn't do it. Why would I not be here playing Big Ten football, on the field with Big Ten athletes, competing with them? I mean, they're better than me. But they still put me in, they still throw me reps, and I'm challenging myself to be as good as them. And I get the best education the Midwest can give.
"It's just awesome. I'll tell you what. It's been a great experience."
Tom Hruby does not remember whether he read it or whether the thought just came to him one day. No matter. He very much believes that, "The spirit wants what the spirit wants."
"You can't deny your spirit. You can't deny that," he will say when reminded of that.
Now he talks of those times when parents have approached him and asked him to talk their sons out of joining the military, which their boys very much want to do. He understands their apprehension, understands too that school might be a viable alternative. "But," he then says, "in that situation, having the desire to join the military, it didn't just happen. It's not a fleeting thing. It's not a spur-of-the-moment thing. It's something they thought about a long time and something they feel a need to do.
"That's what I say to the parents. 'I feel for ya. I feel for ya. But I know that, if that's what their heart tells them they have to do, then that's what's going to happen or they're going to be a 30-year old man one day with regrets for not doing it.' It's the same for a lot of things."
Like you. If you hadn't tried this, maybe now you'd be---
"I'd probably have a real nice job, spending all my time with my kids--"
And thinking I should have done it.
"I'd still be thinking that," Tom Hruby finally says. "That's the way we think. There's things you've got to go for. So I could end up being a liar, telling myself, 'Look, it would have been so hard. I couldn't have done it. My kids would this. My wife would this. These people would this. I couldn't afford it.'
"Or. Or you go do it."
Be the first to know what's going on with the 'Cats -- Follow @NU_Sports on Twitter, become a fan of Northwestern Athletics on Facebook and check us out on Instagram. For more information on following specific Northwestern teams online, visit our Social Media page!
NUsports.com Special Contributor
He transcended a fractured childhood, which was mottled by an alcoholic father and a bitter divorce and his own reckless behavior as a teenager. He overcame the death of his younger brother Reed, who abused heroin and eventually died from an overdose. He conquered the two years of rigorous testing that culls out the weak and leaves only the strongest as Navy SEALS, and he survived missions in Iraq and Afghanistan as the Lead Breacher (explosive expert) on initial-entry teams. Now Tom Hruby, back in the States as an instructor at Great Lakes Naval Station, decides to pursue a long-held dream.
He is 31-years old. He is a husband whose wife Jen is pursuing a degree in psychology. He is a father of three young boys who lives 47 miles away from Evanston in Crown Point, IN. But still. But still. But still he applies to Northwestern and is accepted by Northwestern and, in the summer of 2013, he walks onto its football team. "It was something I always wanted to do," he recalls. "I always wanted to come to Northwestern and I always wanted to play college ball. I always thought I could, but it just wasn't in the cards until then.
"I had an opportunity, coming to Great Lakes, to start thinking about it, and to start putting things in motion, and it all just worked out. That's part of the reason I just think this is meant to be."
He lived in Oak Lawn until he was 14 and then, with his parents' marriage unraveling, he moved with his mom, brother and sister to Crown Point. Kathy Hruby, the mother, sometimes worked three jobs to support her brood (she later started her own business and still runs a company), but when the divorce inevitably came, her children were not unscathed.
This is when Tom Hruby started acting out, yet he did graduate from Andrean High School in Merrillville (where he played football) and enroll at North Central College. He lasted there less than two years, and then opened a landscaping service with some friends. "I was just trying to figure out what to do," he recalls, and here he began looking into the Navy SEALS and learned just went into the making of one.
"There's everything you can think of. It's meant to find the weaknesses in somebody and challenge them," he remembers. "With my research, when I was looking into it, seeing what I wanted to do, I just could not get that idea out of my mind that there existed a challenge of that nature that I could do. I mean, for me to do these things as a civilian, in the private sector, it would cost you millions of dollars and an endless amount of time. There's no other way you could qualify in all these different skills. Diving. Shooting. Sky diving. And the list goes on. Driving cars. Explosives. And be proficient in all that. To me, I couldn't think of anything that was more exciting than that.
"I love challenges. . . (and) I'm glad I did it. It was an important chapter, an important part of shaping who I am."
He was challenged for two years in myriad ways before becoming a SEAL in 2006. One of them was his BUD/S (Basic Underwater Demolition/Seal) class, which includes a five-day stretch when candidates run close to 200 miles. "It's just the biggest kick in the (groin) you'll ever experience. It's hard to recreate it," he remembers. "We try to out here with tough practices and two-a-days and things of that nature. But it is really hard. The closest I can come is guys who are long-distance runners. It's the same motion over and over again. There's nothing new. There's no lateral movements. There's no pass to catch.
"It's the same footstep over and over and over again forever, and you know you've got forever to go, and you've got to keep a certain speed, and your body, all it wants to do is not do it anymore. But your mind somehow has to keep moving those muscles, has to keep putting your feet on the ground maintaining that pace. That goes on for six, seven months."
And what of the whole weeding out process?
"You are," he says simply, "looking at two years of just an endless struggle."
He demurs when asked about the dangers he faced in Iraq and Afghanistan, which he most certainly did. ("I don't think they're pertinent," he says politely.) But then he is reminded of a comment made by his former SEAL team chief David Goggins, who once said of him, "Without a challenge in front of guys like Tom, what's the point of living?"
"He's the same way. He run's ultra-marathons now," Hruby now says with a smile. "He's 43, 44-years old, he runs 100-miles races a few times a year, if not more. He just retired. And the first job he goes and takes is a job as a smoke jumper. The guys who parachute into forest fires with a chain saw. That's what he's doing now. He's 44-years old. Right now he's probably in a fire somewhere in Seattle while I'm playing football. He's an amazing guy.
"But that's how we feel about it. And that's how I feel about this. It's a challenge for me."
He and his family moved in with his mom when he took on his current challenge, and now his days stretched on as long as those runs he once endured in his BUD/S class. He would arise at four and drive in from Crown Point and start football at six. Then it was up to Great Lakes to fulfill his military duties, then it was back to school for classes that might not end until 8:30. Now he sometimes drove back to Indiana.
The Navy, in turn, did not clear him to play in 2013, would not clear him to play until the 'Cats meeting with Michigan last November. That afternoon he led them onto Ryan Field with the U.S. flag held aloft and played on special teams, and the next week at Purdue he got a carry and picked up one yard. He more recently switched to linebacker; was elected to the team's Leadership Council; got a dorm room of his own; moved into a rented home with his family, which will soon grow by one more boy; and was honorably discharged from the Navy after nine years and at the age of 33. "He's an American hero," Pat Fitzgerald will say of him.
"He's an inspiration to all of us, the sacrifices he made to put himself in the position to earn being a SEAL.There are few people in this world who can do that. What an amazing inspiration. His humility. He's not a pound-his-chest guy. He doesn't talk a lot about what he did and what he had to go through. But from a standpoint of respect, when guys ask him, he shares really good nuggets. Then from a teammate standpoint, we've asked him to do I don't know how many roles. Linebacker. D line. Fullback. Tight end. He's just, 'Whatever I can do.' To know that he's willing to do that, to be a father, to be a husband, to be a student, and to be doing it as a SEAL, there are very few people who could do what he does. Anytime you feel you're having a hard day, you just look at Tom and go, 'I've got it pretty good.'"
"But I feel it's a lot bigger than just about me," Hruby himself soon says, testifying to the accuracy of his coach's observation. "I enjoy the challenge of helping these guys and teaching them everything I know. I enjoy just watching them get better at their sport, at their craft. I like to help, even in the smallest ways. If I can just remind them on the sideline when they're tired, when they're exhausted, 'Hey, what are you supposed to be focused on? What're your keys? What mistake did you make? What did we talk about yesterday?' Reminding them to, 'Just breathe, breathe. Breathe through the nose. Take a breath. Hold that thing. Exhale. OK. Catch your breath, then let's get back focused.'
"And then I just try to live a good life too. I'm not a saint by any means. I know life's hard, especially for young, football-playing studs. They've got a lot of hard choices they're going to have to make and some guys don't ever have an example. I know I never had an example. I never even had an example-- I know my beard looks real good right now. But no one ever taught me how to shave. I never had an example of anything in life except (what I saw) with my own eyes. I had to figure it all out with my own eyes."
When you're talking with them on the sideline, do you ever think that their situation is nothing compared to what you've gone through?
"It's not. It's not. But I think everything is relative. These guys are 20-years old. They're doing what they're trained to do. This is their battle, really. It's not much different from me being trained to go to war. That's our battle. And you're tired. And you're scared. And you're body hurts. And other people might have gone down around you. It's not any different on a football field. Of course, it doesn't involve death and it doesn't have some global impact. But there is a correlation to it and it's a way for me to motivate, to push guys beyond what they're capable of, and I do that when it seems reasonable."
Is this a way for you to give back, to be that example you never had?
"I don't know. But I do feel this is what I was called to do. I feel things were put in my path, or I was placed in the path of these things, for a reason. I can't explain it any other way. There's a lot of times I wish I could say, '(Forget) this. I'm not getting the playing time I want. My body hurts. I'm traveling to Indiana and back four days a week.' And the list goes on. . . A lot of times I think I'm crazy for doing this. I'm like, 'What the hell am I doing?'
"Then I see guys get better. I see the team improve. I see young men learning things. And part of it is I want to do right by my kids too. They need an example to live up to. The way I look at it now is as long as my body holds up, and as long as there's not some catastrophic family thing, then I owe it. I owe it. It puts me at a point where I have only these choices when my kids ask me about this portion of my life. I either have to honestly say, 'I gave it all that I have.' Or I'm going to have to lie to them and say, 'Well, my body gave out.' Or, 'Things were too hard.' Or I'm going to have to tell them, 'I'm a quitter. I just quit. It got too hard. I didn't like doing it anymore, so I quit.'
"Well, which one do I pick?"
Do you still enjoy it then?
"Absolutely. Without a doubt. But there's a lot of times when it is overwhelming. It's a lot of work."
Have you ever thought, "I'm quitting?"
"No. No. No, no, no. Not at all."
Well. Yours is a pretty amazing story.
"'I just can't think of any reason not to do this," he says, demurring one more time. "Well, I can think of reasons not to. But if I can figure out a way to make it all work, and people are happy, people are OK with it and supportive, I just can't see why I wouldn't do it. Why would I not be here playing Big Ten football, on the field with Big Ten athletes, competing with them? I mean, they're better than me. But they still put me in, they still throw me reps, and I'm challenging myself to be as good as them. And I get the best education the Midwest can give.
"It's just awesome. I'll tell you what. It's been a great experience."
Tom Hruby does not remember whether he read it or whether the thought just came to him one day. No matter. He very much believes that, "The spirit wants what the spirit wants."
"You can't deny your spirit. You can't deny that," he will say when reminded of that.
Now he talks of those times when parents have approached him and asked him to talk their sons out of joining the military, which their boys very much want to do. He understands their apprehension, understands too that school might be a viable alternative. "But," he then says, "in that situation, having the desire to join the military, it didn't just happen. It's not a fleeting thing. It's not a spur-of-the-moment thing. It's something they thought about a long time and something they feel a need to do.
"That's what I say to the parents. 'I feel for ya. I feel for ya. But I know that, if that's what their heart tells them they have to do, then that's what's going to happen or they're going to be a 30-year old man one day with regrets for not doing it.' It's the same for a lot of things."
Like you. If you hadn't tried this, maybe now you'd be---
"I'd probably have a real nice job, spending all my time with my kids--"
And thinking I should have done it.
"I'd still be thinking that," Tom Hruby finally says. "That's the way we think. There's things you've got to go for. So I could end up being a liar, telling myself, 'Look, it would have been so hard. I couldn't have done it. My kids would this. My wife would this. These people would this. I couldn't afford it.'
"Or. Or you go do it."
Be the first to know what's going on with the 'Cats -- Follow @NU_Sports on Twitter, become a fan of Northwestern Athletics on Facebook and check us out on Instagram. For more information on following specific Northwestern teams online, visit our Social Media page!