University of North Carolina Athletics
Lucas: Turner's Story More Than Football
October 29, 2015 | Football, Featured Writers, Adam Lucas
By Adam Lucas
Take a look at Landon Turner's Instagram account.
Twenty-two of the last 29 photos have something to do with football. There is Turner playing football. Turner running out of the Kenan Stadium tunnel. Turner tossing Ryan Switzer in the air like a favorite nephew.
There are occasional pictures of Turner's girlfriend, but mostly, there is football and more football.
Now, listen to how Turner himself describes what would be included in the quintessential story about his life:
“The first thing that comes to mind is family,” he says. “I've got a lot of different family stories. And then there would be video games and hanging out with my friends. I know for sure that I wouldn't be here without a lot of people, especially my mom. I've learned a lot from her…”
He continues about his mother, Dawn Womack, but we'll get to that. Did you notice what wasn't in Turner's description of himself? Football.
It's not that he doesn't like football. He loves it, has loved it ever since he was seven years old and went to one of his first practices. He was playing against older kids—curse of the big kid, you know—and during a tackling drill he was, as Turner describes it with a grin, “absolutely laid out.”
His stepfather, who was watching the carnage, thought it might be little Landon's last football practice. When it was over, Landon walked over to his step-father, wide-eyed. This is what he said:
Seven-year-old Landon: “Did you see that hit?”
Yes, it was hard to miss. Here it comes. The kid doesn't want to get hit like that anymore.
Seven-year-old Landon: “That was awesome!”
He couldn't help it. It was in his blood. Turner's father was a football player and his uncle was a football player and multiple cousins are football players and, for sure, Landon Turner is A Football Player.
At least, that's what he is on Saturdays (soon to be Sundays) and certain very special Thursdays. The rest of the time, well, he's that guy with whom you might be playing Destiny online, desperately trying to shoot him before he shoots you.
As a young Tar Heel, Turner lived with future NFL starter James Hurst. As you would expect from a pair of future professional athletes, they had some very raucous Saturday nights. For example, sometimes they played two board games instead of one.
Risk was a favorite. Axis and Allies was a consistent choice (the instruction booklet suggests A&A games can take at least two hours, but Turner says they regularly took much longer than that). Settlers of Catan sometimes provided some variety.
“A lot of people,” Turner says with a grin, “might look at our Saturday nights and say we're lame.”
They probably wouldn't say that to a 6-foot-4, 325-pound man who will be getting paid to maul people at this time next year. Perhaps “unusual” would be a better word?
But that's always been Landon Turner. Dawn's mother gave her some advice before he was born: if you want him to be a reader, read to him in the womb. And that's what she did. She read to him in the womb and as an infant. She read to him as a toddler, and soon he was picking up books on his own. Sure, sometimes he'd hold them upside down while he flipped the pages and pretended to read, but he just liked the feel of a book in his hand. Dinosaur books were favorites.
He eventually graduated to the Chronicles of Narnia. Since arriving at Carolina as a 17-year-old early enrollee in the summer of 2011, he's enjoyed reading The Hobbit and Frankenstein, and this past summer the English major took an American literature class that focused on Herman Melville and Nathaniel Hawthorne.
He's also expanded into doing some of his own writing. He loves writing fiction and says he wants to write a fiction book one day. Those who have read his work say his characters are complex individuals with deep development, the type who might populate one of the worlds in his video games.
“Landon was never one of those students who went to the back row,” says Carolina professor Deborah Southall, who had Turner in two classes. “I'm always looking for students who gravitate to the front row. That was always Landon. He made a point to introduce himself to me, he contributed in class, and he would stop by my office to ask a question or have a conversation. He made it clear from the very beginning how valuable his education was to him.”
That doesn't surprise his mother, who has always emphasized education and accountability. As a youngster, Turner had trouble getting up in time to catch the bus. Womack explained it to him very simply: if he missed the bus again, he would have to walk to school.
The next morning, Turner missed the bus. He came upstairs and found Womack getting ready for work.
“He just looked at me,” Womack remembers. “I didn't say a word. So he said, 'OK, see you after school,' and started walking.”
It seems relevant at this point to ask Womack exactly how far the school was from her home.
“Oh, about two miles,” she says with a giggle.
So Landon Turner's mother is proud that he's a contender for the Outland Trophy and a three-time ACC Offensive Lineman of the Week pick already this season. But she's more proud that he'll soon graduate with a double major and is working on a behind-the-scenes documentary designed to humanize his Tar Heel teammates.
“I love the academic experience Landon has had at UNC,” Womack says. “He has the ability to do critical thinking on a higher level than he's ever done before. Carolina took the potential of this smart young man and raised it a thousand times. Because of his experience at UNC, he's well equipped to do whatever he wants in his career after football.”
It's not time for that post-football career just yet, however. Turner's Tar Heels are 6-1 going into Thursday night's ACC Coastal showdown at Pitt. He's one of the emotional heartbeats of the team, a group that had the fortitude to overcome the largest deficit in program history at Georgia Tech, and the player at the center of those, “You got my back?” videos that are on their way to becoming a team catchphrase.
“Landon is a true leader in every sense of the word,” says Larry Fedora. “He does everything the coaches ask of him on and off the field. The other players on the team respect him and listen to him, which is very important.”
That's the football player aspect of Turner, the part you get to see on his Instagram feed.
But he is also more than that. He's the leader who tries to make it a habit to be part of the team's Friday afternoon visits to the North Carolina Children's Hospital on the days before home games. He's the son who teases his mother when they're watching television together because he knows emotional commercials—yes, commercials—will bring her to tears. And he's the boyfriend who believes a couple hours in a coffeehouse with his girlfriend sipping coffee and working on his writing is, in his words, “a pretty solid date.”
He's also someone who makes college professors a little giddy. After spending part of an afternoon discussing Turner, Southall isn't ready to stop just yet.
“Do you have time for one more story about Landon?” she asks.
You do, of course.
“Two years ago I was diagnosed with uterine cancer,” she says. “Landon wasn't even in my class at the time. After my hysterectomy, Landon got his teammates to sign a football and drove it all the way out to my house south of Chapel Hill. I don't know many young kids who would take the time and care enough about somebody to do that. I bought a glass box for the football and it sits on my desk, and it will always sit there, because that's Landon Turner.”
