Program Spotlight: Kalani Heppe

By Tim Peeler

Raleigh, N.C. - Say one thing for Kalani Heppe, he knows how to make a memorable entrance, even if he is not exactly smooth about it.

The first time he ran out of the tunnel at Carter-Finley Stadium, he tripped and fell in front of 55,000 people, something he lists as the most embarrassing moment of his life.

“That is something I will never forget,” Heppe said.

Two years later, as a redshirt sophomore, he was expected to make the first start of his career, in the season-opener against Virginia Tech. And he was a tad over-excited.

“I ran out on the field and got about to the hash mark going towards our sideline and I just puked all over myself,” Heppe said. “It was pretty much all downhill from there.”

It’s the first and only time Heppe has been so nervous that he wore his emotions on his sleeve ... and his collar ... and the front of his shirt.

Most of the time, Heppe has been a hard-working contributor on an often patch-work offensive line, a steady contributor for three years. With nearly 1,300 career snaps, he is the team’s most experienced offensive lineman. The 6-foot-4, 300-pound guard immediately caught the eye of first-year head football coach Tom O’Brien .

“He’s been the leader up front all year long,” O’Brien said. “He has played in a lot of football games. He has been the glue that held those guys together up front. We are glad he is around.

“He doesn’t miss anything. He’s a throw-back type of player, which is our kind of offensive lineman.”

Heppe, a starter at right guard all season long, proved that yet again last weekend at East Carolina, when he shifted to the left tackle position for the final quarter and a half of the game, stepping in for first-time starter Jake Vermiglio, who was ejected from the game in the third quarter.

In many ways, Heppe appears to be the stereotypical tough guy, a hulking player with a shaved head, a bushy goatee and two arms full of tattoos. The scar from the four stitches he got on the bridge of his nose during the Florida State game is a nice touch as well. But those looks are deceiving for the son of a Baptist minister whose give name is Hawaiian for “Boy from Heaven.”

Heppe was born in Hilo, Hawaii, where his parents, Ed and Lynette Heppe, spent three years working at a large Christian school. His mother was the school administrator and his father was the church’s youth pastor. The family moved back to the mainland while Heppe was a toddler, settling in the northern Virginia countryside, and he’s never been back to the island where he was born.

Heppe went to school at Liberty High School in Bealeton, Va., but he claims as his home Wilderness, a small unincorporated community some 20 miles away.

“There wasn’t much to do, so everybody either had a fast car or a big truck,” Heppe said. “First I had a fast car, then I bought a big truck. We were either at the quarter-mile drag strip or in a farmer’s field somewhere. Either way, we had a good time.”

But not too good or mischievous. Heppe knows all about the stereotypes of minister’s children: They are either goody-too-shoes who tattle or rebels who like to wreak havoc. He likes to think that he was neither, even though deep down he knows he was closer to the latter.

“I had a little bit of a wild side, having fun, when I was an upperclassman in high school,” Heppe said. “I was just out to have fun.”

But he took football and school seriously, and had offers to play at numerous schools. He boiled his final choices down to NC State and Virginia, the Wolfpack’s opponent today. In the end, Heppe had a much stronger connection to the Wolfpack nation than the Cavaliers.

“Fans here would rather sit around in T-shirts or no shirts, drinking their beer,” Heppe said, with a tinge of admiration in his voice. “The fans there would rather be in their starched shirts, ties, blazers and khakis, drinking their wine and either their caviar. That’s not really me.

“Where I’m from, we have brats and beers and eat our hamburgers half-way done. Those are about the biggest compliments you can give somebody, at least where I am from.”

But Heppe also has an unexpectedly soft side: such as his hidden talent for knitting.

And those tattoos on his arms? They all have a special meaning. Two of them are verses from the Bible, Philipians 4:13 and II Timothy 1:7, the latter of which he got to honor his mother during her second bout with breast cancer. Another is his family’s monogram. His entire right shoulder is covered from collarbone to shoulder blade with a doodle he came up with one day during and three-hour psychology class the angular design includes a hidden 69, Heppe’s jersey number.

“I was bored to tears, so I was just doodling on a piece of paper,” said Heppe, who will graduate in December with a sports management degree in Parks, Recreation and Tourism. “I ended up liking it, so I took it to the tattoo place and had them put it on for me.”

Heppe would like to take a shot at playing professional football. He’s talked to some scouts about his chances. They tell him to keep playing hard and stay healthy, a big request for Wolfpack offensive linemen over the past few years.

But if that doesn’t work out, Heppe would like to return home and open up his own gym, a multi-sport complex where adults and kids can spent their time doing something a little healthier than racing cars and twirling around in the mud.

“I think there is a huge market for it back home,” Heppe said. “Just because your aren’t playing a sport doesn’t mean you have to get out of it completely. And I’d like to have a place to keep people out of trouble.”

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