photo by: Carter Gaskins/Special to the Journal-World

Kansas tight end DeShawn Hanika during practice on Saturday, March 30, 2024, in Lawrence.

Kansas tight end DeShawn Hanika’s teammates have given him plenty of grief about his status as the oldest one on the team.

Hanika, 25, has been on the receiving end of nicknames like “grandpa,” “old-timer” and his personal favorite, “The Godfather.” He gets it from his fellow tight ends, from quarterbacks, from wide receivers, and even from the KU defense: “When we’re going 11-on-11, they love to chirp from the sideline, but I love it.”

That Hanika would still be in school this year — for what will be his seventh season of college football, given that he started playing at Butler Community College in 2019 — was far from assured. He had to apply for a medical waiver after he missed the entirety of 2024, his first year with the Jayhawks, due to a leg injury suffered in spring practice, which Andscape later reported was a torn Achilles tendon.

“Compliance here, they were adamant that it was probably 95% going to get approved,” Hanika recalled. “They thought it was pretty cut and dry, but just didn’t want to get overexcited. Kind of (took) it day by day and whatever happened, happened, it was going to be up to the man upstairs.”

And he had to first decide that he even wanted to come back, after being unable to take the field for two whole seasons. (Hanika, once a regular contributor at tight end for Iowa State, did not play in a game his last year there after he was one of a slew of players charged as part of a state investigation into illegal sports betting; his misdemeanor charge for tampering with records was ultimately dismissed.) But it’s always been his dream to play in the NFL.

“And my big thing was in 10, 15 years, what am I going to say when I look in that mirror and it’s that ‘What if I would have (gone) back for one more year? What if I would have (done) this?'” he said. “I don’t want to live with any what-ifs. … Looking back on my career, I don’t want to leave anything up to chance, and just want to try to still reach my dream, because I’m still that kid chasing a dream.”

He’s impressed coaches with his leadership. As head coach Lance Leipold said, “Look for him to make an impact at the tight end position.”

“He’s such a mature young man,” Leipold said. “He’s been through a lot, and he’s become a leader of this team. He’s well respected in the locker room, he works extremely hard. It’s been a frustrating road for him, I just know he’s thankful to be back out there.”

Co-offensive coordinator and tight ends coach Matt Lubick said Hanika’s competitive nature has rubbed off not just on the tight end position but the team as a whole.

“He lives in this building,” Lubick said. “Everything he does, he does it with a strain and a purpose to get better.”

photo by: AP Photo/Justin Hayworth

Iowa State’s DeShawn Hanika during an NCAA football game on Saturday, Sept. 11, 2021, in Ames, Iowa.

Growing up in Topeka, where he attended Hayden Catholic High School, Hanika could scarcely have imagined his college career taking him to KU.

“Even growing up 30 minutes down the street,” he added. “But as I got older and when coach Leipold and his staff came in, watching them have that turnaround from when I was at Iowa State, it wasn’t the same Kansas team that I had played every year.”

That informed his decision to join the Jayhawks as part of the 2024 transfer cycle, as did the businesslike approach of Leipold and general manager Rob Ianello, as did conversations with his wife Kate, a former ISU volleyball player, and his family.

“The big thing was, how cool would it be to bring a Big 12 championship back to the home school,” Hanika said, “and also break that streak that that school out west (Kansas State) thinks that they hold so dear to their heart?”

The 6-foot-6, 245-pound tight end appeared poised to serve as a major part of the passing game last season before his injury.

Even after his doctor gave him a 12-month recovery timeline, his mindset was “All right, well, I’m going to cut it in half.”

“If it was my choice, I would have tried to go last year,” he admitted, “which probably wouldn’t have been the smart thing, but that’s just the kind of guy that I am.”

Hanika credited head athletic trainer Trent Carter and assistant trainer Madison Beene for guiding his rehab, and shouted out Kate, “an absolute rock star,” for “taking care of her 250-pound child, in her eyes, as she would say.”

Meanwhile, on the field in 2024, the Jayhawks ended up getting modest production from Jared Casey and Trevor Kardell, with supplemental contributions from Tevita Ahoafi-Noa and Cure, before all but Cure exhausted their eligibility. Offensive coordinator Jeff Grimes, who coached the tight ends, left in the offseason for Wisconsin, and back to KU came Lubick, a veteran coach but first-time tight ends coach. Also, Burnett announced his transfer to KU late in December.

That was around when Hanika found out his waiver had been approved. By the time the Jayhawks opened winter workouts, he was starting to feel like himself again. His doctor had told him it would be “more of a mental hurdle than anything” to return to action, and he cleared that quickly.

“He’s taken every single rep, going 100 miles an hour, had a great day today, he’s been making a lot of plays,” Lubick said on Tuesday, “and we’re moving him around a lot, and he’s done a great job.”

“We had a tough year and I’ve been itching, kicking at the door to try to get back out there,” Hanika added. “Sometimes they got to pull me back a little bit because if I’m in, I’m going 100%, and at this time right now, it’s like we don’t need that.”

Burnett sees a lot of potential for the Jayhawks to put both him and Hanika on the field.

“I think it’ll put a lot of pressure on the defense in terms of personnel groupings and how they want to play us,” he said.

Both tight ends trust Lubick, whom Burnett called a “guru,” and offensive coordinator Jim Zebrowski to cook up creative ways to deploy their talents.

“Just to watch them sit and scheme and talk about the offense, it kind of blows your mind, and it’s like ‘Well, I didn’t think about it that way,'” Hanika said. “I think we’re going to have some very interesting things coming up this season that the Jayhawk fans are going to love.”

The long-awaited debut of Hanika in the first place may be one of those intriguing developments.

“I wake up with a smile on my face, one of the first guys here, last to leave, just not taking any of this for granted,” Hanika said. “Just grateful to be out there with them.”