If Darnell Arceneaux, the charismatic and inspirational junior quarterback who is the key to the season for Utah's football team, seems more motivated than ever but just a little more judicious about how he throws his body around, there's good reason.
And it's not the surgically repaired throwing finger, the old metal plate holding his shin together, the head that remembers last season's concussions or the surgically repaired throwing shoulder that give him pause.It's life.
A new life, to be exact: Cole Kekoa Arceneaux, 7 weeks old today, son of Darnell and girlfriend Nicole Walker, who also has a daughter, Chloe, who lives with them.
"It's good to come home to a family," said the young Hawaiian, who worked two jobs all summer to try to provide from them and who now appreciates even more his football scholarship and other things the university does for him and all those normal people of the workaday world who aren't blessed with athletic talent that can help pay their way.
"He changed my life dramatically," said Arceneaux, who was present during the birth. "That process will humble any man. It touched me. I never thought I'd see the day I'd change diapers. I want to spend all my time with him. I'd walk through fire for him."
Arceneaux said he will not force his son into athletics, but he is already daydreaming about his son watching him play football a year from now, convinced the boy will know that's his father on the field. He talks of having videotapes of himself for Cole to watch when he's older.
To do those things, Arceneaux realizes his reckless abandon on the field must be harnessed a bit so that he doesn't have to sit out half of the rest of his career with injuries. Utah coaches will breathe easier, and so will Ute fans, because the team is 6-0 with Arceneaux as a starter. The fewer injuries he has, the more games he can start.
"It's not just for myself now," Arceneaux said. "I'm looking out for two other people. I take everything serious.
"It's helped my football," he said, explaining he's more conscious of picking his spots, of maybe even running out of bounds once in awhile when victory isn't on the line.
Don't worry.
He's still obsessed with winning.
That comes from his stepfather, James Arceneaux, who married his mother, Maria, when Darnell was about 5 and who is the father of Ute freshman wide receiver Anthony Arceneaux. "He motivated me and made me realize my potential," Darnell said of his stepdad, whose name he took.
His real father is Rick Lee, who lives near Oakland. Darnell has talked to him a few times but considers Arceneaux and an uncle, Dave O'Connor, as the men in his formative years and beyond. It's why he took James' name. "We have a good family. It's real tight," Arceneaux said.
"Now I've got a son. That's one thing I never want to do. I always want to be in contact with him." He said he and Nicole have thought about marriage, but they've decided to wait until football is done. "I've seen my parents rush into things," he explained. Like every couple, "We have problems, but we work them out. Both families make an effort to help us," Arceneaux said.
James and Maria divorced some 10 years ago, though they're still good friends and can go to lunch together and laugh. James married Anita Pointer of the recording Pointer Sisters about five years ago. They live in Beverly Hills, where the elder Arceneaux is also in the music business. Darnell recently took a week out of his hectic summer to visit them, talk golf with James and get more philosophy of sport from James and his next-door neighbor, former pro quarterback Rodney Peete.
Maria Arceneaux gave a young Darnell the inner confidence to think he can do anything, and James Arceneaux gave him the fire. "Now I know where I get my competitive spirit," he said. "Between him and me and my brother, I don't know which of us hates to lose worse."
The Arceneaux mottoes are, "If you don't live life to the fullest, you're just taking up space," and, "Fear is for other people." He wears this brand on his inner left forearm: "NL." It stands for "never lose."