PREP Q AND A: A football hero; Valley Center's Klingerman plays other sports, but gridiron is No. 1

By Scott Bair - Staff Writer | Monday, March 31, 2008 6:33 PM PDT ∞

Q: You play three different sports. Do you favor one over the others?

A: I'm definitely a football player that wrestles and competes in track.

Q: You've accepted a scholarship to Colorado State. Are you excited about playing at the next level?

A: Playing college football has always been a dream of mine. Not only will I get to play my favorite sport outside of high school, but I'll also get a free education while doing it. It's great thing being able to play football and go to a great school for free.

Q: This was your first year playing without your older brother Justin. Was that a strange experience after playing sports with him for most of your life?

A: It was different. During my sophomore year he played strong tackle and I played strong guard. We were lined up next to each other and, because we're brothers, we'd fight all the time. We'd argue after every single play. It wasn' t real serious and I think over time it brought us closer. It was a fun time, and playing without him this season was a little weird.

Q: Have you always been the biggest kid in class or did you have a huge growth spurt at some point?

A: I was 180 pounds in the fifth grade. I was 5-10 in the fifth grade. I was at 6-1 in the seventh grade, so people thought I was going to be a monster. But since my eighth-grade year I just stopped growing. I've been the same height since junior high, so I keep hoping that there's one more growth spurt ahead.

Q: Did being that big ever have its drawbacks?

A: Oh yeah. I was kind of a freak, because I was 6-foot when everybody else was pushing 5 (feet). But as the years went on, everybody else got taller and I didn't change a bit. It started to level out in high school and I didn't felt like such a giant.

Q: Being so big so early kept you out of Pop Warner, didn't it?

A: I was always over the weight limit, so I was never allowed to play football. I played a year of flag football before I got to high school and I wasn't even wearing cleats. But I did convince the coach to let me play wide receiver. My first reception was a touchdown, as was my second. Two catches, two touchdowns. You can't beat that.

Q: You've had tremendous athletic success at Valley Center. Could you have asked for anything more from your high school experience?

A: Not really. I always try to win at whatever I do, whether it's sports or poetry. When you're on such successful teams, you're around the same kind of people. You never have to worry about guys slacking off or not giving it their all, because they all want that victory just as bad as you do. That makes it a fun environment, when everybody's working toward the same goal.

Q: You defeated Ramona's Ryan Stone, who you'd lost to twice before, at the CIF Masters wrestling meet with a spot in the state meet on the line. The match went into double overtime, which must have been pretty dramatic. What was that experience like?

A: I was an animal on the second day of the Masters meet. I just kept winning match after match and I knew I had a chance to make it to state if I just kept going strong. Beating Stone was a surreal experience. I did it and afterward I thought, "Did that just happen?" It was the only match on the mat at the time, so the whole crowd was watching. To win in double overtime in front of all those people with so much at stake was something I'll never forget.

Q: Saying that you were just as competitive at sports as you are at poetry wasn' t an exaggeration, was it? You really are involved in poetry competitions, aren' t you?

A: Yes sir. It's this thing called "Poetry Out Loud," which is a national recitation contest where you perform poem in front of five judges, who rate you on how you do. If you do well at school, then you move on to a county competition, then to the state level and then to the national finals where you can win $50,000. That prize sounded pretty good to me, so I gave it a shot.

Q: It turns out that you're pretty good at that too, right?

A: I guess so. I won the county championship and went on the state finals, where the run came to an end. But I can say that I was a state qualifier in wrestling and poetry. Hopefully we can add track to that list at the end of the year.

Q: Did you get made fun of for entering poetry contests?

A: Surprisingly not. People thought it was kind of cool that a big-time sports guy would enter something like that.

Q: During the recent wildfires, you volunteered at evacuation sites running security and helping deliver food. But what's this I hear about you performing in a hula shirt for evacuees?

A: We were at the El Camino High evacuation center and there was a group of girls from that school that ran a luau at the site. I knew one of the girls who was in the hula dancing show, and when they asked for dancers from the crowd, she just volunteered me. So I throw on the straw skirt and the coconut bra and did my thing. I got a lot of laughs, that's for sure.

Q: Why was it important for you to get involved during the fires?

A: I really wanted to be a part of the solution. There were a lot of people in my own community who were in trouble and I couldn't just stand by and watch. My family got evacuated as well, and I couldn't think of a better way to spend my time than to help people in any way I could.

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