Jeremy Larkin may be newly retired, but his next career has only begun.
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A star turned student coach is having more fun than ever.
Evanston, IL —There’s no consensus among Northwestern football players on what to call Jeremy Larkin.
His protegee, Isaiah Bowser calls him “J. Lark.”
Freshmen earnestly refer to him as “coach.”
His close friend, senior wide receiver Bennett Skowronek playfully refers to him as “Coach Lark.”
Learning to answer to a myriad of monikers is all part of the learning curve for Larkin as he settles into his first full season as a Northwestern student coach.
“They have a little fun with it, calling me coach. It takes time to get used to,” said Larkin. “You hear ‘Coach Larkin’ or something and I think of my dad, who coached me growing up. It’s a little bit weird for me, but I’m learning to adapt to it. I’m just rolling with it and having fun.”
It certainly wasn’t a role Larkin ever expected to take on.
After establishing himself as Northwestern’s No. 2 tailback in 2017, Larkin appeared poised to be Justin Jackson’s much-heralded successor, and more than that, the next great running back to don a purple jersey. But just three games into a promising sophomore campaign, Larkin shocked and surprised the greater college football landscape with his abrupt medical retirement.
What only added to the shock was the scary-sounding diagnosis: cervical stenosis.
Scary enough to elicit both a gasp and a quick visit to WebMD.
“Northwestern sophomore Jeremy Larkin will retire from football, effective immediately, due to a recent diagnosis of cervical stenosis,” read a statement from the University. “The condition is not life-threatening but prevents continued participation in football.”
It came as an especially unexpected revelation because Larkin was the portrait of health. He had never missed a game due to injury, and rarely if ever was sidelined from practice.
But cervical stenosis is a condition Larkin had been unknowingly playing — and living with — since birth. He first experienced it playing football in high school.
This is not a medical journal, so I will spare you the drivel; cervical stenosis is defined as the narrowing of the spinal canal in the neck.
Larkin describes how he encountered the condition and its symptoms more practically.
“It was like playing with the feeling of numbness in my spine. The feeling would come back, and it would return at random times, like between plays.”
It was only after he broached his symptoms with the Northwestern medical staff that he had a concrete culprit for the way he was feeling. When the diagnosis was returned, Larkin, a bright Northwestern student, was just as dumbfounded as the public was when news of his condition was announced.
Suffice to say, it was not how Larkin envisioned his football career ending.
“It’s tough when you hear that you can no longer play the game that you have loved since you were five years old.”
But rather than sulk over the development and retreat to his dorm room to spend the next two years as a pedestrian college student, Larkin knew what his next step was: to be a coach.
“[The transition to being a coach] happened immediately after I retired,” Larkin remembers. “Obviously, you have to go through the transition of coming out of playing the sport and dealing with trying to take care of yourself and find who you really are and understand what you want to do. I had known way back that I always loved football and wanted to have it around my life and be a coach, so I think when the opportunity presented itself to stay around and be on this staff and hang around some of the best coaches in college football, I figured why not take that opportunity right now.”
Larkin served out the remainder of the 2018 season as a student coach, overseeing the breakout debut of freshman running back Isaiah Bowser, who finished with the third-most rushing yards for a first-year tailback in Northwestern history. Bowser’s season as one of the best true-freshmen running backs in the country powered Northwestern to a Big Ten Championship appearance and a strong 8-5 season that ended with a win in the Holiday Bowl and positioned the Wildcats at No. 22 in both the AP and College Football Playoff postseason rankings.
Bowser certainly credits some of his early success to the tutelage of Larkin.
“Ever since I’ve been here, he’s helped me out a lot, and [now that he is a coach] I don’t think that aspect has changed much,” affirms Bowser. “He’s really been a very helpful person, wanting to make the whole [running backs] room better.”
Bowser is not alone in his praise of Larkin. Despite going from ball carrier to coach in the blink of an eye, Larkin is impressing players and coaches alike. Chief among his admirers is head coach Pat Fitzgerald.
“He’s been phenomenal [as a coach],” commented Fitzgerald. “He’s in early, he stays late, and he’s been a great asset to [running backs] coach [Louis] Ayeni in the running backs room. I don’t want to speak for the guys, but I think he’s been an awesome student coach for the players; a guy who’s been there and done it, and I think he really relates well. He attacks every day as a coach the same way he did as a player, so he’s got a bright, bright future there’s no question.”
But Larkin insists he’s still learning how to best do his job.
“Learning? I’m still learning,” he quipped. “I don’t really know what I’m doing out here [laughs]. I’m just following the guys who know what they’re doing and following Coach Lou. Being around him and being able to learn the game from his perspective, as he’s been able to develop running backs to get to the next level has been valuable. Being around this group of guys and learning from them has been something that is truly, truly special for me.”
Larkin definitely has a complicated relationship with the title of coach. So much so that his Twitter bio displays the word “coach” in quotes.
Larkin agrees with Fitzgerald’s assessment of his coaching philosophy, that he treats every day, every practice, every interaction with a player like he did when he himself played.
“My day-to-day responsibilities are pretty much to be around here, be around the guys, going to meetings, going over install; almost similar to what I did as a player. I think of it more as a mentor role, as well as helping a young group of guys develop as leaders by being there, and being that extra ear since I’ve been here and I’ve done that. Really, wherever you see fit, I’ll help out in that role.”
Larkin amassed 849 rushing yards on 156 attempts over the course of his abbreviated collegiate career, good enough for 40th all-time in program history. After performing at such a high level in just sixteen career games, it’s tantalizing to think about what Larkin could accomplish if his career was not cut short; how much greater his Northwestern legacy could be.
While Larkin would undoubtedly love to get back out on the field and share it with his friends, he doesn’t agonize over being confined to the sidelines.
“Oh man, you always want to play football as much as you can, but knowing the circumstances and what it costs, it’s ok. It’s not like I have any regrets about doing anything more; I had done enough, prepared enough, and will attack coaching the same way I did when I played.”
“I think we’d all like to see him toting the rock,” acknowledged Fitzgerald. “It’s heartbreaking to know that he doesn’t get a chance to play the game that he loves anymore but through every piece of adversity, every challenge that you have is an opportunity and he’s run with that opportunity.”
Larkin, who redshirted the 2016 season, is academically in his senior year and due to graduate this year. But unlike many college students, he won’t have much of an issue finding work after he graduates. Larkin is a virtual shoo-in for a graduate assistant job with Northwestern — or any other college program.
“I would love to [coach] here,” says Larkin on the prospect of beginning his professional coaching career with Northwestern. “This is one of the best staffs in the country, and being in this program and around these guys, I think it’s great for me to learn as much as I can while I’m here.”
Larkin says what he is doing now as a student is a launching pad for a career in coaching, one he hopes will lead him into his actual retirement.
“Oh yeah, that’s the plan for the next 40-60 years. I don’t see myself doing anything else for that period of time. Coaching is what I see myself doing for the next, however long, 20, 30, 40 years.”
Although he is a couple of decades from qualifying for AARP membership or claiming a pension, Larkin is loving his life as a retiree.
With more time to pursue passions outside of football, Larkin picked up a hobby not often pursued by most retirees: podcasting.
Alongside former teammates Jake Saunders and Jared Thomas, Larkin hosts Whistles, a podcast he describes as, “a sit-down discussion to talk about the normal things us student-athletes talk about.” Produced by a student-run startup media company, new episodes are released weekly.
Aside from the podcast, Larkin has also passed the time pursuing a more conventional post-retirement hobby.
“As I’ve retired, I’ve really embraced that kind of lifestyle, so I’ve picked up golf. Been playing a lot of golf this summer.”
Ever positive, Larkin takes “retirement” in stride, even as his skills and coaching abilities have set him up for a long, fruitful career in the game he loves.
“I see myself as retired. I’m able to retire at 20-years-old. Who else do you know that can retire at twenty?”
