A short, but rewarding NFL career

Editor's note: This is a continuing series of Eastern Iowa sports history 'Time Machine' articles. Mark Dukes worked at The Gazette from 1973 to 1998, the last 14 years as sports editor.

By Mark Dukes, correspondent

Carey Bender was supposed to get the ball.

In Week 14 of the 1996 season, Bender became the first Coe College product to play in a National Football League game. He entered the Dec. 1 contest for the Buffalo Bills in a game at Indianapolis.

Star Thurman Thomas was sidelined due to a hamstring injury so Bender had been activated as the No. 2 running back behind Darick Holmes. On the fifth play of the second quarter, Bender was summoned.

'Thurman was always good at taking himself out from time to time, protecting his health for the long haul,' Bender said. 'Darick could've had a leg missing and he didn't want to come out. The call was a screen pass to me but it blew up from the start. (Quarterback) Todd Collins just threw the ball into the ground.'

Collins was assessed an intentional grounding penalty. He did throw a 95-yard touchdown pass to Iowa product Quinn Early, but the Colts won in overtime, 13-10.

Bender was taken out after that play and never returned to the game. Or any other regular season game.

His NFL career summary: One play.

That Bender even reached that point is remarkable enough. Despite a stellar career at Coe, the odds of making an NFL team were long. He was 5-foot-8 and 185 pounds, and the product of a Division III program.

Marv Levy, then the Bills head coach and a fellow Coe alum, invited Bender to Buffalo's camp as a free agent in 1995. Bender earned a spot on the Bills practice squad and remained there the entire season.

Buoyed by a solid preseason, during which he scored a touchdown against Carolina, Bender landed on the practice squad again in 1996. He spent the season there, save that one regular season game at Indianapolis. Bender returned to the Bills in 1997 and thought he had a legitimate shot to make the team.

'In '97 I was just getting comfortable and then got cut,' Bender said. 'I could kind of feel it. I thought I might make it on special teams, if anywhere. Marv talked to every player who got cut. He called me into his office, looked me in the eye and said it wasn't going to work out.

'It was a great organization to get an opportunity with, nothing but positive. After that, I was back in Cedar Rapids working and working out and I felt like I was still in great shape. So I called Marv and asked him how I could to get to NFL Europe.'

Levy made a call and Bender landed with the Scottish Claymores for the 1998 season. Playing for former Iowa State coach Jim Criner, Bender rushed for 441 yards and had 153 receiving yards before getting injured midway through the season. He had 114- and 108-yard rushing games before that.

After an excellent career at Marion High School (3,016 rushing yards in two seasons), Bender was recruited to Northern Iowa by head coach Terry Allen and then-assistant Mark Farley. Bender red-shirted his freshman season and then had an awakening.

'To me, I wasn't having fun,' Bender said. 'Football became a job all of the sudden and looking back, yeah, it's going to be more of a business at that level. I wanted to enjoy myself, play four years and get an education.'

The beneficiary of his transfer was Coe and head coach D.J. Leroy. In four seasons with the Kohawks, Bender set 18 NCAA Division III records and seven all-division records. He amassed 6,271 yards and 71 touchdowns rushing and 1,787 yards and 18 TDs receiving. He ran for 417 yards in a 1993 game against Grinnell, then an all-division NCAA record. He scored eight touchdowns in 1994 against Beloit.

Bender won the Gagliardi and Melberger awards, the Division III equivalents of the Heisman Trophy. He still holds four Division III records and is in the top 10 in several other categories.

'I'm not really surprised at the success,' Bender said. 'But the national success that came with it, looking back, that was a little more than I expected. Even though my dream kind of subsided at UNI, the dream still lived at Coe.'

Only two other Marion High products (Ron Geater, Allen Reisner) and one other Kohawk have reached the NFL. Coe's Fred Jackson, also a running back, is entering his ninth NFL season with Buffalo.

Bender, 43, lives in Cary, N.C., and is area sales manager for Lennar Home Builders out of its Raleigh-Durham division. He was remarried last year and has four children from his previous marriage, boys 14 and 8 and girls 12 and 10.

Bender took one of his sons to Eby Fieldhouse on a recent visit to Coe.

'My son saw the Gagliardi Trophy in the display case and the Fred Jackson display,' Bender said. 'My display's been relegated to below eye level, below Fred's. My son asked me 'Were you better than him in college?' I said, 'I suppose I was better in college, but not as a pro.''

Bender may have played in 105 fewer NFL games than Jackson. But he made the show, if only for one snap.

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