“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

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.