Fate has a funny way of working out sometimes. What didn’t happen for a previous generation can sometimes be experienced through the next. So here’s a question. What are the odds that a lifelong Chicago Bears fan in Cole Kmet who grew up in Arlington Heights happened to pick a position at tight end that was the exact need the team had going into the 2020 draft? Pretty long.
Yet it’s possible the football gods meant it to be this way. Larry Mayer of Chicagobears.com pointed out that he isn’t the first Kmet to play for the team. His father Frank chased that dream way back in 1993. Sadly it never reached the fairytale ending.
“Although a serious leg injury he never fully recovered from kept Frank Kmet from ever appearing in a regular-season game, Cole’s dad also fulfilled a lifelong dream when he signed with the Bears in 1993.
After playing on an Illinois state championship team at Hersey High School in Arlington Heights, Frank was a star defensive lineman at Purdue who was being projected as a first- or second-round pick in the 1992 NFL Draft.
But that was before Kmet broke his leg in a loss to Wisconsin midway through his senior season. The injury caused his draft stock to tumble. Unable to work out at the NFL Combine and not expected to be able to practice until training camp, he wasn’t selected until the fourth round by the Buffalo Bills.”
Cole Kmet has a chance to live that dream for his father
The elder Kmet laments to this day how his career might’ve been different if not for the leg injury. Sports medicine just wasn’t where it is today back then. He never got to experience that rush of running onto Soldier Field on Sundays. The good news is he’s getting the next best thing.He’ll get to watch his son do it from the stands.
Cole knows a lot of people have reservations about his future in the NFL. While they like the all-around game he has, they don’t feel he’s a good enough athlete to become truly special as a pro tight end. He doesn’t care. His plans involve letting his play do the talking. He aims to do anything and everything required to be great for the Bears and experience all the things his father wants for him.
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