College football players who have a part-time job during the season are as rare as the single-wing formation.

Moreover, college football players who have a nephew ” yes, a nephew ” on the opposing team are as uncommon as leather helmets.

And yet Jake Letourneau, a fifth-year defensive back on Kansas University’s football team, can claim both distinctions.

When he isn’t playing or practicing football, or attending class, the 6-foot-1, 200-pound Letourneau works about eight hours a week for Pohl & Dobbins, a Lawrence optometric clinic.

“He’s a smart kid, dependable and a hard worker,” optometrist Kent Dobbins said. “He’s the first KU athlete we’ve ever had work for us. The closest we’d come to having a KU athlete work for us before is Scot Pollard’s wife.”

Letourneau screens patients, helps dispense glasses, empties waste baskets and answers the phones during four-hour stints on Monday and Wednesday mornings when he doesn’t have class. Once football season ends, he’ll be working Saturday mornings, too.

A six-time Jayhawk Scholar, Letourneau has applied for admission to a handful of optometry schools around the country, hoping to begin an expensive four-year grind that will, if nothing else, keep him out of coaching.

“My dad and brother were high school coaches,” Letourneau said with a smile, “and they tried to steer me away from that.”

Kansas senior Jake Letourneau (39) makes a tackle against Tulsa. Letourneau is one of 18 KU seniors who will be playing in their final college game when the Jayhawks play host to Oklahoma State at 1 p.m. today at Memorial Stadium.

Older brother Dave, a former Kansas State football player, is the father of Josh Letourneau, a red-shirt freshman special teams player at Oklahoma State. And that means the younger Letourneau will be playing against his uncle today when the Cowboys invade Memorial Stadium.

“It might be a first-time thing : especially in the same conference,” Jake said. “We knew we’d get a chance to play against each other once.”

How is it possible for a football player to be on the same field with his nephew? In this case, it’s because Dave Letourneau is 17 years older than Jake. The two bothers have the same father, but different mothers. Dave’s mom died in an auto accident, and Jake is a product of his dad’s second marriage.

There are other offspring, too. In fact, Dave and another brother both live in Plano, Texas, and they’ll be here for the historic meeting of Letourneaus as well as a couple of sisters and, of course, mom and dad from Concordia.

“That’ll be neat,” Jake said. “I never thought I’d ever play against Josh.”

When Jake Letourneau came to Kansas University, it was as a preferred walk-on. That means he paid his own way for the first year and was placed on scholarship the next season. He was a quarterback then, but was switched to the secondary where he moved progressively up the ladder, starting all 11 games at strong safety last season.

Letourneau began the 2002 season where he left off, starting in the secondary until junior Zach Dyer was switched from quarterback to strong safety in the seventh game of the season. Since then, Letourneau has had to be content with a backup role. It’s likely he’ll play more in his final college game today because Dyer is expected to fill in for injured quarterback Bill Whittemore.

In five years with KU’s football team, Letourneau never experienced a winning season, yet he isn’t complaining. And neither are the 17 other seniors.

“We know we’re laying the foundation for the program and we have a real good attitude about it,” Letourneau said. “For us, it’s a one-game season. It’s all we have left.”