Marshal Yanda spent his pre-teen mornings pitching out calf stalls on the family's dairy farm five miles north of tiny Anamosa, Iowa. His afternoons were devoted to riding a four-wheeler he shared with farming buddies, punishing the trampoline in the backyard or shooting baskets with his mom and sister.
Life on the farm was good for Yanda. So good that one day he will return to it. For now, though, his consuming passion is carving out a career in the NFL as a gritty and versatile offensive lineman for the Ravens.
This is the good life, too. In three years, Yanda has proven he is equally adept at playing guard or tackle. After suffering the first serious injury of his football career last October - tearing three ligaments in his right knee - he hunkered down in rehabilitation and made it back to the active roster by the season opener, significantly ahead of schedule.
A third-round draft pick in 2007, Yanda started his first game Sunday since blowing out his knee almost exactly a year ago.
Yanda's is already one of the more unlikely success stories in the NFL. By his own admission, he didn't apply himself in high school and had to attend a community college. When he first reported to North Iowa Area Community College in Mason City, he was told that less than 1 percent of its players reach Division I. Two years later, he passed up a scholarship offer from Iowa State to go to the University of Iowa, where he started all 25 games he played.
On top of that, his mother, Ruth, says he used to run like a duck and had limited athleticism as a youth.
So how did he make it all the way to the NFL and become one of the Ravens' most promising young linemen?
With a big, loving push from his devoted family and a work ethic that was steeled in the cornfields and hayfields of Iowa.
"It definitely shaped my work ethic, that's for sure," Yanda, 25, said of working on the farm. "Mom and Dad always stressed working hard toward something you want. It was always work before play. Mom and Dad worked really hard, and that was instilled in me to work hard toward something."
No small part of Yanda's transformation was a competitive fire that crackled in a number of directions.
He got into go-kart racing at 12. Early on, he told his mother that if he didn't win, he wouldn't race. When he won, his mother had to take him to Alabama to purchase a special $1,500 motor.
Then there was the farm work.
