MADISON, Wis. — A former fullback and fly-half, Lee Chiakas has scars to share from his time spanning the globe on the rugby paddock. There are the collarbone separation and re-separation, the ACL tear and the scoped knee, the broken nose and the concussion that eventually nudged him toward an office job. There was the doctor in college who said he would no longer fix Chiakas if he returned with another injury, and there were teammates who took cleats in uncomfortable places.
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Chiakas withstood all this across a nearly two-decade career that took him from Southern Illinois University to the Chicago Lions of USA Rugby, from overseas with Scotland’s GHA to back stateside with the Houston Athletic Rugby Club, which once gave him the opportunity to even play on TV. Now 32 and working at a software startup in San Francisco, desk-bound Chiakas taps into his lifelong passion through coaching while following the professional level worldwide. Considering the residual effects of those travails, that is just fine with him.
“It can’t lead to a lucrative career right now in the sports world,” Chiakas says of rugby.
Whether he knew it at the time or not, his brutal sport of choice showed his younger brother exactly what path not to take. To be clear, Chiakas knows that T.J. Edwards could have been a fantastic rugby player. He was a fantastic baseball and basketball player. He is a fantastic golfer. And he was a fantastic quarterback as a two-year starter at Lakes Community High School outside Chicago. But as a fifth-year Wisconsin inside linebacker coming off a first-team All-America season, with the College Football Playoff and NFL dreams in sight, Edwards has clearly chosen an appropriate trade.
“I just think he looks at rugby like it’s some sort of animalistic, barbarian sport,” Chiakas says, “which it is.”
Deadpans his younger brother: “I like my helmet and shoulder pads.”
Edwards is the closest thing to a constant on a defense that featured three coordinators over his first three years as a starter after a redshirt campaign. Edwards commands plenty of TV time himself, to say nothing of the attention of Big Ten offenses, having led Wisconsin in tackles twice and finishing second a third time, with his unit posting top-10 performances all three years, including a pair of No. 2 showings.
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His story is unique for all the reasons that it is not, starting with the fact that, unlike so many Badgers standouts of recent memory, he was a recruited scholarship player, albeit a late addition. And that prep passing transformation? It was nothing that predecessors T.J. Watt or comrade Ryan Connelly had not already undergone themselves, with the latter also having overcome the walk-on label upon his arrival.
“I think that’s the cool part about this place,” Edwards says. “I mean, every single guy here wants to play and wants to start. Just Connelly coming in, a high school quarterback who ran the ball the whole time — they didn’t throw it, not one pass. I look back on his film and give him crap. But just having guys like that who are constantly working and constantly getting better, it only forces you to get better.”
(Jeff Hanisch / USA TODAY Sports)Edwards actually threw for more than 2,500 yards as a Pistol-spread prep passer, with 1,789 of those yards coming during his junior campaign. But it was the action he sought after disposing of the ball that revved up teammates and sparked offers across a multitude of positions.
Former Lakes Community coach Luke Mertens let his star dazzle at free safety for a few plays during his senior year, and he challenges anyone to find another school that allowed its FBS-bound quarterback to sprint downfield on kickoff coverage the way his did.
“Practice was a lot easier at quarterback, I’ll tell you that,” Edwards says, reflecting on his lighter days. “You’re kind of just playing catch the whole time.”
With a perspective that could only be sharpened by having rugby-playing kin, Edwards receded toward the contact that more-regulated football offered, drawing college interest as a quarterback and receiver, tight end and linebacker, free and strong safety.
Rugby-averse, it turns out, does not necessarily mean contact-averse.
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“What I always loved about T.J. is he didn’t give speeches. He just goes and plays,” Mertens says.
“T.J. is a man of action. And honestly, one thing that was really inspiring to the kids was the fact that our starting quarterback was running down on kickoff coverage, the fact our starting quarterback was handing the ball off and running across the field 25 yards and flat-backing a cornerback and having that running back break the extra 25 yards for the touchdown. You just don’t see kids do that, so it was very clear that T.J. was about the team and not about being the quarterback, and that’s why everybody believed in him.”
There is nowhere to hide this year for mild-mannered Edwards, but the reigning Butkus Award finalist proved a quick study in finding his voice last fall after fellow inside ’backer and mile-a-minute, foul-mouthed captain Jack Cichy went down with a preseason ACL tear.
“I thought he really jumped into it,” Wisconsin coach Paul Chryst says of Edwards. “I think his sense, especially with (Cichy out), he knew there was gonna be a — I don’t wanna say void, but that’s the only word that comes to my mind. What’s neat is he’s truly stayed within himself. But guys look at him, guys listen to him, guys wanna follow him.”
(Jeff Hanisch / USA TODAY Sports)This is the same kid who barely five years ago was a 210-pound two-star Mid-American Conference prospect falling asleep in Mertens’ English class, running on empty after another FIFA binge the night before. (He still brags about those video game skills.) Mertens would take mercy on his pupil, promising not to inform his strict parents as long as Edwards stood the duration of the class while reading from an open textbook in his hands.
“You had to be on the honor roll, 100 percent,” Edwards says of his parents, who met through their jobs at Discover Financial Services.
“I remember they used to tell stories of my brother failing a class or whatever, and they swore that that’s never gonna happen to one of their kids again, and they stuck to that pretty strongly. Even when we were young, they were doing flashcards with us and making sure that we have a very good background knowledge of everything before we get into it at a higher level. My sister (Mia, a junior basketball player at Lakes Community) is way smarter than me. She’s an AP student and all that, so I’ll give her the props on that. But I got her athletically.”
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This is the same kid who three years before those naps was a 5-foot-5 whippersnapper dealing with a pigskin-inflicted foot injury, swearing off the sport and opting for the life of a golfer. Or, like seemingly every Chicago-area kid, that of a hoopster.
“I remember him asking me: ‘What if I could get a Division I basketball scholarship? What if I could make the PGA Tour?’ ” Mertens says. “And I said: ‘You know what, if you’re good enough to make the tour, if you’re good enough to be a basketball player, playing football ain’t gonna have any impact on that either way. Who’s to say you’re not a football player?’
“So I guess I proved to be a prophet.”
Credit can be spread from Lake Villa, Ill., to Silicon Valley, from a father, Vince, who played linebacker in high school, to a big brother whose tackling techniques rubbed off on the now-245-pounder who has 254 college stops to his name. Such was the mentality manifested from being fed clips of Chicago Bears standouts Mike Singletary and Brian Urlacher by his old man, from having to prove himself in just about any sport while playing with Chiakas and other buddies who had a decade on him.
Badgers kicker Rafael Gaglianone once spent a weekend at the Edwards’ house, and when he saw Mia head out the door at 7:30 a.m. for a basketball workout, he wondered aloud if there were ever any competitive breaks in the family. T.J.’s blank stare across the breakfast table told the story.
“The diverse sports background growing up contributed to his ability to make that transition from quarterback to linebacker so easily,” Chiakas says of T.J. “And the second thing is his competitive nature. I see that same brotherly competitiveness when he steps on the field.”
The family’s matriarch, Cathy, would regularly scold Lee for never letting T.J. win at anything. Those days have long passed, with the driving range serving as the last bastion of competitive common ground between the brothers.
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“His whole life, we’ve liked to watch him fall down and get up,” Vince says of T.J. “We know how that looks.”
The philosophy will be in play again this fall, after an agonizing draft decision that ultimately swayed in Wisconsin’s favor. There was the “stay in school” grade from the College Advisory Committee, yes, but Watt received the same advice before becoming a 2017 first-round pick. Watt and former teammate Joe Schobert were among the sounding boards who reminded Edwards that this was his decision, but a simple question crystallized everything for him: If you left early and became a fifth-round pick, could you live with having sacrificed a year of college?
(Jeff Hanisch / USA TODAY Sports)Given that Wisconsin had lost three Big Ten championship games in Edwards’ four years here, after a three-year title run from 2010 to 2012, Edwards decidedly could not live with that thought, even if that meant possibly landing in the fifth round next year anyway.
“I think it’s just knowing that there’s always more work to do, and I felt like I couldn’t leave without knowing that I did everything I could to make myself the best football player and have the best mental IQ of the game before I get out and take my shot, so I felt like I had something to do here,” he says. “And I also felt that this team coming back is gonna be really strong. I’m sick of losing Big Ten championships, so we’ve gotta get back there and finish our goal and hopefully get to a national championship.”
The Badgers fell a touchdown short of that first goal in 2017 after an unblemished regular season. Their 13 wins might have set a program record, but their 2018 motto — Nobody cares. Work harder. — is self-explanatory for a program that returns 14 starters.
The chase has commenced, and this is nothing new for Edwards. His wounds might be mostly figurative in the comparative trenches of his family, but they are unmistakably fresh. He is, after all, a product of both nature and nurture.
(Top photo: Mark Hoffman / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel via USA TODAY Sports)
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