Heffernan Overcomes Obstacles to Rise Into the Starting Ranks

Here's the thing about joining a powerhouse football program. Opportunities to get on the field early can be hard to come by because there are always going to be good players — very good players — at your position when you show up as an unproven freshman.

With an all-time great like Jack Traynor and All-Ivy League players like Nigel Alexander, Ky McKinney-Crudden and even classmates like Jalen Mackie around, playing time was hard to come by early for linebacker Joe Heffernan. And it's not like he was just some Joe off the street. The guy had offers from Air Force, North Dakota, Northern Illinois, Yale and several other Ivies, among others.

Given few opportunities to play in games that matter and then getting stuck back home in Brookfield, Wisconsin, for the better part of two years taking online classes because of the COVID mess, it would have been easy for the 6-foot-2, 230-pound Heffernan to lose the fire, mail it in last fall as a true senior, then ride off into the sunset.

It would have been easy, but it wouldn't have been Joe Heffernan.

"I came in with the mindset, I'm always going to prepare like I am the starter and if something ever does happen, I'll be ready to fill in," the quiet Midwesterner said one afternoon late in the preseason while sitting in the Memorial Field stands. "I was never, ever, going let the team down. That was the biggest thing in my mind.

"I was never going be the weak link on the team. No one was ever going to have to worry about me. I was going to do my job and be there if the family needed me."

And when they needed him, Heffernan was there.

With Dartmouth in danger of losing serve early in the Ivy League race last fall he rose up and made tackles on three consecutive plays in overtime to help the Big Green hold off Yale on Homecoming.

In the showdown at No. 21 Harvard later that month he contributed three tackles off the bench.

And when an injury to Tanner Cross thrust him into a starting role one week later he delivered in a big way, recording a career-high eight tackles and breaking up a pass as Dartmouth posted a critical 31-7 win over previously unbeaten Princeton on national TV.

After coming into the season with just three career tackles, Heffernan finished his true senior campaign last fall with 31, starting three games down the stretch when first Cross and then Jalen Mackie were unavailable. Having had that opportunity and coveting the chance to finish his college career the way he always dreamed of finishing it — on the field and in Hanover — played into his decision to return this year as a fifth-year senior.

"I have loved my time at Dartmouth and always thought I was going to utilize this fifth year, given how little I've been up here," he said. "Being back on campus and getting another chance to suit up was important to me. And definitely, having some success last year was influential in my decision to come back."

Influential in his decision to come to Dartmouth in the first place were phone calls the graduate of Marquette University High School made to former Ivy League players before he winnowed his list to two schools.

"I made it a point of emphasis to talk to football alumni from all the Ivies that were recruiting me," he said. "It came down to Dartmouth and Yale. I spoke with Steve Dazzo '15 and Mitch Aprahamian '13, who is from my area. They just spoke so highly about Dartmouth and the coaching staff. They talked about the coaches caring for you not just as a player on the field, but really caring about the whole person."

The call with Dazzo was particularly insightful for another reason.

"He's a fellow diabetic," said Heffernan, who was diagnosed with the disease at age 11. "He told me it wouldn't be an issue here, that the coaches were very considerate and accepting of it."

Still, after some previously interested schools backed off recruiting him upon learning of his type 1 diabetes, Heffernan made a decision to be, in his words, "less forthcoming" about his health issue during the recruiting process.

"I didn't tell coaches I had diabetes because I didn't want that to be a limiting factor," he said. "I had put so much time and effort into this that I didn't want that to hold me back. I didn't even tell the coaches here at Dartmouth."

That includes Don Dobes, his position coach.

"I had no idea," the Big Green defensive coordinator said after a recent practice. "I just remember his first year looking over at him on the sideline and asking, 'What the heck is he doing?' Someone told me it was low blood sugar.

"It was a surprise, but it was a big comfort knowing that Steve Dazzo had performed so well for us with it and was such a great player and great asset."

It was Dobes who had made the initial contact with Heffernan in the recruiting process, noticing him at a Northwestern camp. That interaction offered the first clue that the coach was interested in more than just the player.

"He slapped sunscreen on the back of my neck and said Irishmen have got to stick together," Heffernan said with a laugh. "It was pretty funny."

When Heffernan arrived on campus, he wasn't much more than 200 pounds. After spending time at safety and nickel he finally settled in at linebacker, tacking on almost 30 pounds along the way.

Spencer Brown, the Dartmouth strength and conditioning coach, studied up on diabetes with Heffernan's arrival and has been impressed by how smartly he added the weight.

"Like most of the guys we have coming in Joe needed to get bigger," he said. "It's harder for someone who has to worry about different dietary restrictions. For him to get up to 230 pounds obviously took a lot of work and attention to detail, but he always does a great job taking care of himself."

Robert L. Blackman Head Football Coach Buddy Teevens has had standout players with diabetes like Dazzo in the past. Heffernan, who relies on a continuous glucose monitor and insulin pump to regulate his glucose levels while also keeping a bottle of Bodyarmor as well as fruit snacks at hand, is another reason why Teevens wouldn't hesitate to recruit more.

"We have not had one issue with it and that's a credit to Joe and our medical staff," he said. "Joe is very meticulous and diligent. He'll come over to the sideline, takes care of himself and he's right back out there. We don't blink an eye. If a guy is disciplined in that regard and can play, it doesn't faze me. It's worked out for Joe, and it's worked out for us."

Defensive lineman Alex Schmidt, another fifth-year senior who has returned this fall to an expanded role, has seen first-hand, along with roommate Griff Lehman, the dedication for which their third roommate has become known.

"He doesn't let the diabetes stop him from anything," Schmidt said. "He does whatever Coach Dobes needs him to do. When we're at the apartment, he'll be watching even more film while Griff and I are hanging out and chilling after we get done watching our share of film. He's always doing a little extra. He does whatever it takes to make sure that he's the best that he can be."

Dobes credits a football IQ that was developed playing three different positions on defense for helping Heffernan become the player he is today. But that's not all.

"You have to love his intensity and toughness," said the coach who has turned out one All-Ivy linebacker after another. "He just wants so much to be good. He's the kind of hungry, hungry player that you love.

"He has so much energy, making the toughest thing about coaching him is teaching him to play fast but not be in a hurry. I have to remind him to play within the defense. I tell him the plays will be there before he becomes the guy with his hair on fire."

Hair on fire or not, Heffernan is optimistic about Dartmouth's outlook this fall.

"We have some new faces and some old faces coming back," he said. "We'll get a better feel for what this team is about with some live snaps. But I've been happy with the progress we've made and I'm very excited to finally get going."

An economics major who did an internship and worked at BMO Harris Bank in Milwaukee, Heffernan hopes to parlay his playing experience into a chance to coach at the college level. And if some day as a coach he's working a youth football camp and hears about a player with diabetes, he'd jump at the chance to pull him aside and share his message.

It wouldn't be the first time.

"There is a mentor program back at the local hospital in my community," he said. "I would just mentor kids and show them that you can live a normal, full and fulfilling life with diabetes and compete at some of the highest levels athletically."

He would know.

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