Mother knows best: Nick Harwell fulfills mom’s KU dreams

By Matt Tait     Sep 6, 2014

Nick Krug
Kansas receiver Nick Harwell is as eager as anyone to get out onto the field for his first game as a Jayhawk. Many are hoping that the addition of Harwell can shoulder the load for the Kansas receiving corps that has underperformed by most standards in recent years.

When Carla Harwell was in her early 30s, her favorite cousins in Kansas City convinced her to jump on the Kansas University sports bandwagon under one simple premise.

“They were always Kansas fans,” Carla said. “And they were like, ‘You might as well get on board. You have six boys, and one of those boys is gonna make it to Kansas.'”

They were right.

A little less than two decades later, when Carla was sitting at home one night, she received a phone call from her son, Nick, the second youngest of her seven children, who told her some of the best news she had heard.

“When I got the phone call that he was going to be going to Kansas, I was like, ‘I can’t believe it,'” Carla said. “I was like, ‘Nick, do you know how long I’ve been loving Kansas?’ I told him, ‘You never have to worry, I’ll be at all the games.'”

Nick Krug
Kansas receiver Nick Harwell is as eager as anyone to get out onto the field for his first game as a Jayhawk. Many are hoping that the addition of Harwell can shoulder the load for the Kansas receiving corps that has underperformed by most standards in recent years.

Carla will make good on that promise at 6 tonight at Memorial Stadium, where, if all goes well during the hours leading up to kickoff, she and Nick will be sporting the same KU gear for the first time in their lives.

“I’ve got my game-day outfit all picked out. I am getting there early so I can get me that No. 8 jersey,” she said of her son’s uniform number. “But just in case, I’ve got a Kansas shirt and a Kansas hat I’m bringing.”

Nick remembers his mom’s infatuation with Kansas, even if he never really knew where it came from. His first clear memory of her Jayhawk love came in 2008. Images of her going wild during KU’s Orange Bowl victory are still fresh in his mind. A few months later, the scene was the same when KU won the men’s basketball title, though that did not mean quite as much to Carla, who, despite playing basketball at Stillman College in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, said her love of KU began as a “strictly football” relationship.

“No matter what it was, if it was KU and it was on TV, she watched it,” Nick said earlier this summer. “I feel like I ended up here for a reason.”

Part of the reason might have been for his mom to have a built-in excuse to buy more KU gear — she said she used to purchase a new KU hoodie every year — but the biggest reason was for Harwell, who came to Kansas after a wildly successful stint at Miami (Ohio) because it afforded him the opportunity to play on a bigger stage.

There were days when the move hardly seemed worth it. Both Nick and Carla shared memories of sitting out last season after transferring as being one of the hardest things he had to go through. But the time off allowed him to grow as a person and helped hammer home the one thing about himself he always knew above everything else — that he wants to play football for as long as he can.

“Last year humbled me the most,” he said. “I felt like I was on top of the world at Miami, and I went from having everything, athletically, to not really being recognized for what I do.”

Harwell said the love he felt from Jayhawk fans who are dying to see him perform helped him push through and become better.

“It actually excites me,” he said with the wide smile for which he has become known. “It feels good that I’ve been gone for a year, and I’m still able to be in the mouths and ears of football followers. I hear it a lot. I try not to read it, but it pushes me and motivates me to be better than what I was.”

So here they are, Nick, Carla and the rest of the Harwell family, all on the brink of watching one of their favorite relatives do what he loves to do. It’s been a long road to get to this point, but none of that matters now.

All that matters is that game day has finally arrived again.

“I love it,” he said. “I can’t describe how excited I am and how happy I am to be here.”

He’s not alone.

“I will be there this week. I will be back up there for Family Weekend (Sept. 20). There’s no stopping me,” Carla said.

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Written By Matt Tait

A native of Colorado, Matt moved to Lawrence in 1988 and has been in town ever since. He graduated from Lawrence High in 1996 and the University of Kansas in 2000 with a degree in Journalism. After covering KU sports for the University Daily Kansan and Rivals.com, Matt joined the World Company (and later Ogden Publications) in 2001 and has held several positions with the paper and KUsports.com in the past 20+ years. He became the Journal-World Sports Editor in 2018. Throughout his career, Matt has won several local and national awards from both the Associated Press Sports Editors and the Kansas Press Association. In 2021, he was named the Kansas Sportswriter of the Year by the National Sports Media Association. Matt lives in Lawrence with his wife, Allison, and two daughters, Kate and Molly. When he's not covering KU sports, he likes to spend his time playing basketball and golf, listening to and writing music and traveling the world with friends and family.