Taylor Decker came out to the indoor practice field at the Woody Hayes Athletic Center, sat down at a roundtable and was surrounded by dozens of media members and cameras. A familiar scene for Decker and something he has done dozens of times during his three years on the Ohio State football team.
Except when Decker sat down at that table Monday, it was different.
There weren't many football-related questions asked to Ohio State's starting left tackle, a player who head coach Urban Meyer has called "a tremendous leader" in recent weeks. Because on this day, Decker addressed reporters for roughly 15 minutes and answered questions mostly pertaining to his fallen teammate, Kosta Karageorge.
“As long as we have each other, we’ll be fine with anything. Things aren’t always going to go the way you’d like them to," Decker said, visibly emotional. "We’re trained to handle adverse situations, but obviously not something of this magnitude. We’re trained to play football and this is so much more than that. Football is just a game and people blow it out of proportion and make it a lot bigger than it is. We just have to go back to each other, lean on each other for strength because obviously it’s hard for a lot of people.”
For Decker, like many of Ohio State's other players, the tragic death of Karageorge has put things in perspective. It's taught them more about themselves as people as opposed to football players.
But this loss seemed to strike a chord with Decker. You could see the emotion on his face and could feel it in every word he spoke. He handled himself in a professional manner, not like a 21-year-old junior in college.
He recalled conversations he had with Karageorge about things they had in common like their love for tattoos. He reflected on the times when Karageorge would ride his motorcycle around Ohio State's campus.
“I just remember me and him, we both liked (tattoos) so we’d always talk about them," Decker said. "He was always talking about getting sleeves and stuff like that. It was just a mutual interest we had.”
Asked to describe Karageorge, Decker's face lit up before he responded.
“He was a badass, definitely," Decker said with a smile as he thought back. "Heavyweight wrestler, came on the football team like strong as could be. I think he liked that. He knew he was a badass. I think that’s definitely the image he put off.”
The last 48 hours have been a bit of a whirlwind for the Ohio State football team. And when they take the field Saturday to play the Big Ten championship game against Wisconsin, the Buckeyes will no doubt be playing with heavy hearts.
“I don’t think he’d want for anything like this to hold us back. He was a huge team guy, a huge team guy," Decker said. "He wasn’t getting reps in the games and stuff like that but he still loved coming out every day. It wasn’t about that for him. He came out and he helped us and I don’t think he’d want anything like that to hold us back at all by any means."
"It’s definitely going to be a challenge," he continued. "I don’t think anybody’s been through anything like this and my prayers are just with his family because I know how myself and a lot of teammates feel and I can only imagine what his family and those closer with him are going through.”
