"I don't think I'm similar to anyone," Kenny Willekes said at the NFL combine last week. "I have a pretty unorthodox style of play."
An unorthodox upbringing, too. And it's this upbringing to which Willekes attributes his toughness, his flexibility and the scars all over his body. The Michigan State defensive end, a 2019 co-captain and two-time team MVP, is hoping this path leads him to the NFL through the draft next month.
"I was blessed. My father's a doctor, so I never had to go to the hospital. He just stitched me up on the couch. Stitched up the back of my head, my finger, my hand. He stitched me up a lot of times," Willekes said with a smile. "He's taken care of me."
As he pointed to his scars, Willekes had a story for each one. The one under his chin, from snowboarding. The one in the back of his head, from jumping on his bed -- and then falling off. The one on his finger, from the time it was leaking fat after a game. The one down the length of his thumb, from the time he was scrapping metal.
And best of all, the one on his forehead, from the log that came flying his way courtesy of his brother.
"We used to build a lot of forts in the woods, and it was my special log," Willekes explained. "He stole it from me, so I was trying to get it back, and he just chucked it at me."
These are the stories of a fearless kid with seven siblings. In comparison to his childhood, Willekes said football is ... less painful. Fortunately his father was always there to sew him up, free of charge and any kind of numbing agent.
"My mother told me they used to have to come out and check on me and make sure I wasn't bleeding, because I would just stay out and keep playing," Willekes said. "I have seven siblings, seven very competitve siblings. I'm very close to them. We lived on 10 acres out in west Michigan. It was kind of rowdy growing up out there."
On top of the toughness he earned through his wounds, Willekes developed serious flexibility through gymnastics. He also learned all kinds of hand-fighting moves from watching YouTube videos of the MMA fighters he once wanted to be -- moves he honed against his brothers and uses these days as a pass-rusher.
Put it all together, and the result is a defensive lineman unlike maybe any other in the draft.
"Just with my relentlessness and then my ability to bend. I did gymnastics growing up, so I can do the full splits. They called me Rubber-Band Man at Michigan State," Willekes said. "I'm as flexible as they come. I think I have a little different playing style than some other poeple. I played MIC linebacker growing up."
"I have three brothers and we used to wrestle and fight each other all the time," he added. "I feel like I carried a lot of that over to the trenches, just knowing how to use my body weight."
Willekes' unique skillset wasn't clear right away. He arrived at Michigan State as a walk-on and redshirted his first season. He played in just one game the next season. The year after that, he played in all 13 games and was named All-Big Ten. The rest is history.
Willekes finished his career as MSU's all-time leader in tackles for loss. In his final season he claimed the Burlsworth Trophy as the nation's best player who began his career as a walk-on. Now he's ready for the NFL, and he's got the scars to prove it.
