Iowa Hawkeye Julian Vandervelde is blocker, singer, scholar, citizen

Even if you surrounded him with rogues, rummies and vagabonds, you'd have a football program with some redeeming value if it included Julian Vandervelde.

Vandervelde is who I want to be when I grow up. Figuratively, anyhow. I'll leave the 6-foot-3, 300-pound frame to him.

Here's a guy who can claim to be a starting offensive lineman for a Big Ten team on his resume, but it's just one more line on an eclectic and impressive list of accomplishments.

“He's just really a remarkable young man,” said Iowa offensive line coach Reese Morgan. “He's a Renaissance guy.”

This is Julian Zebedee Vandervelde:

* A player who will have started games in all four of his seasons at Iowa.

* A three-time Academic All-Big Ten honoree.

* Someone who will have majored in both English and Religious Studies, and minored in Japanese. He says he hopes to one day move to Nagasaki, Japan, and help rebuild the Christian community that was destroyed by atomic bomb in World War II, possibly teach English in a high school there.

* The person who sang the national anthem at President Obama's appearance in Iowa City last March.

* A player for his Davenport hometown's team in the 2000 Little League World Series.

* A nominee for the American Football Coaches Association's Good Works Team, by virtue of a) assisting a UNESCO City of Literature initiative by reading to classes throughout local schools and stressing the importance of reading and literacy and b) giving his time to community projects that include a Ronald McDonald Run/Walk, an Alzheimer's Association pancake breakfast, and Salvation Army work.

He's not just a bookworm/do-gooder. Vandervelde has been known to spend many a summer weekend night in Quad Cities karaoke bars. To sing.

“I go as often as possible when I'm home,” he said. “I'd go five nights a week if I could. His current favorite song to perform is Stevie Ray Vaughan's “Pride and Joy.”

“My mom pushed me to music when I was very young. If I had not gotten a scholarship to play football, I would probably have tried to get a choir scholarship somewhere.”

The legend of Vandervelde the Hawkeye song-stylist began in San Antonio when he was a redshirting freshman.

“Coach told us ‘Oh, by the way, the Alamo Bowl has a talent show tomorrow. Julian, Derrell (Johnson-Koulianos) and Andy Kuempel, you are our talent. Figure out something to do.'

“We had to scramble. Derrell and Andy did an acoustic version of ‘Hey Ya.' I sang ‘The Music of the Night' from ‘Phantom of the Opera' and just blew everybody away. That's how I kind of got the reputation for being the singing guy.”

His performance and the rave reviews it got came as no surprise back at Davenport Central High.

“You go to the school, everybody loved him,” Morgan said. “One day, I visited him when he was in orchestra. The next time he's playing the grand piano. He's singing.”

And yes, he's a football player.

“He has areas to improve on, and he'd be the first one to tell you that,” Morgan said. “But you just like his attitude, his demeanor, his personality.

“He has played, and he's played well at times. And he's played at times where you'd say ‘Julian, you can do so much better.' I think he can be an outstanding player, I really do. He's got to make that next step, and there's been a lot of evidence he can do it.”

Vandervelde doesn't shy away from questions about him vying for an NFL job next year.

“I think any player that comes to Iowa and takes their job seriously does (strive to play in the NFL),” he said. “You have to come here to try to be the best at what you do to help the team.”

Vandervelde has been a starter in both a Little League World Series and a BCS bowl.

“I was a legitimate 6-foot-2, 230 pounds as a 12-year-old,” Vandervelde said. “They checked my birth certificate everywhere. Even at restaurants we went to on the way there. It was ridiculous.”

Vandervelde was the first baseman and power guy for the Davenport East team. He went 5-for-12 and homered in the LLWS, but shrugs off his role.

“Every team needs a home run guy,” he said.

He got a call from a teammate from that squad who was trying to organize a weeklong, 10-year reunion at the tourney's site in Williamsport, Pa. This year's LLWS starts next week.

“I can't go, obviously,” Vandervelde said. “I'm a little busy right now.”

Football is now, and maybe for years to come. Then, the world.

Vandervelde singing before President Obama's speech in Iowa City: