“She would tell me, ‘Once a Marine, always a Marine,'” Lueken, 21, told Rebecca A. Lamont for a news story posted on the U.S. Department of Defense’s website. “She taught me principles, traits and aspects of the Marine Corps like dedication, loyalty and to be good to the people around me.”

Lueken’s mother, who served in the Marines for six years and was one of the first women to graduate from boot camp after it was designed to better mimic the men’s training, lost a battle with breast cancer in 2003, and the loss set off a string of events that led Lueken to KU.

While grieving, he threw himself into sports and, after starring at Chaminade High in St. Louis, was given a scholarship by Kansas in 2008.

As a freshman, Lueken played in nine of 13 games as a backup offensive lineman. He was slated for a similar role last season, but decided to leave the program in early August.

“We haven’t decided exactly (what to do with him yet),” former KU coach Mark Mangino said during preseason camp in 2008. “If we have a need to play Ben, we’ll play him. If not, we’ll red-shirt him. But what he’s done in training camp is hard to overlook, and he may be ready to contribute now.”

In the article, Lueken referenced the similarities between life as a Marine and as a college football player.

“There were many days we got up at 4 a.m. and would physically train, have film sessions where we studied the opponent, and position meetings, which are like small-unit meetings similar to having fire teams,” Lueken said. “We would also take college classes, (and) have tutors for classes, which were required because we often wouldn’t be finished until 10 p.m.”

For all the ways the two endeavors were similar, Lueken always saw one big difference.

“The Marine Corps is not a game,” he told Lamont. “It deals with real issues,” he said. “College football is pure entertainment. It’s what people watch to get their minds off real-world issues. I was playing at the highest level and I felt like I was wasting my time. My years of youth could be spent for a better cause. I figured you only have your body and health once; I wanted to put it to good use.”

He added: “I am a big believer in the ripple effect — you do something and it carries to another person.”

Lueken’s comments in KU’s 2009 media guide were consistent with the path his life soon would take. In it, he answered the following question, “Football is…” with, “a stepping stone to the rest of my life.”

Gill addresses curfew policy

Kansas coach Turner Gill talked publicly about his team’s curfew policy Monday morning, saying he didn’t believe it was an issue on his team.

As the Journal-World reported on Sept. 24, a rule in the KU football players’ manual states that KU’s players cannot be with women past 10 on any night.

“We’re just teaching them discipline,” Gill said Monday during the Big 12 coaches’ teleconference. “I’m not going to go into all the details of what we have on our team policies and all those things, but everything that we do is all about disciplining our guys and preparing them for life with football and preparing for them for life without football. It’s just part of our makeup.”

Gill also was asked if he believed the policy could affect recruiting.

“I guess it could, but we can explain (what it is),” Gill said. “It’s not that big of a deal. It’s really just a situation of trying to teach guys how to do things in the proper way and be respectful to women and be respectful to everything that we do in our society. It’s teaching people all about things about life.”

Gill also said he didn’t think the policy — or any others — had been a distraction for any of his players.

“There hasn’t been any negative reaction to anything,” Gill said. “We’ve just been inconsistent in playing the game of football, just like any other teams.”

Effort not there vs. Baylor

Asked Monday if his team’s effort was what it needed to be Saturday against Baylor, Gill admitted that the Jayhawks slipped up in that department.

“I think at times we maybe didn’t give the effort that we had throughout the past,” he said. “But I wouldn’t say that it was bad, just at times there were maybe one or two guys that didn’t give the effort that they maybe should have on certain plays.”

Despite that fact, KU’s first-year coach remained upbeat about what he’d seen so far.

“Overall, as far as the whole season, I think our effort’s been very, very good. Unfortunately, we had one ballgame here that was not very good from the execution part and everything kind of landslided from there.”