Colorado University Athletics
Buffs Update: Ben Kelly Hoping To Cook Up Something Special
March 31, 2016 | Football, B.G. Brooks
BOULDER – As a kid in Cleveland and for a couple of decades thereafter, Ben Kelly's headgear of choice was a helmet. Which comes as no surprise to any University of Colorado football devotee who watched him return kickoffs, punts, and pick off passes in the late '90s.
But here's what you didn't know about Kelly: With a nudge or two (and if he hadn't been so athletically gifted) persuading him to swap his helmet for a chef's hat might have been as easy as buttering a bagel. His passion for the kitchen and cooking matched his electrifying 100-yard kick returns almost stride for stride.
The nudge that never fully materialized in Kelly's youth has finally arrived. He's donned a chef's chapeau and is enrolled at Le Cordon Bleu College of Culinary Arts in Los Angeles (Pasadena). It is the fulfillment of a dream that began as he tagged along in kitchens in the Cleveland area with his late father, Donald, who was a chef.
“I was either around sports or the kitchen, wherever he was doing his thing,” Kelly recalled. “That was like something I had a background in, always had an interest in. It just didn't come to fruition because I was doing other things. But once I was done playing I had the thought of going to culinary school, get educated and get a foundation.”
Kelly, 37, is about two semesters into the two-year program. His graduating class will be unique. It will be Le Cordon Bleu's last; the legendary school, which opened in Paris in 1895 and still might best be known as the alma mater of Julia Child, announced last December that it was closing its 16 U.S. campuses.
For Kelly, the road back to the kitchen has been arduous. After a three-year CU career that began with him becoming the Big 12's Freshman of The Year, then saw him earn first-team All-Big 12 honors each season (1997-99) and All-America honors (Football News) in 1999, Kelly declared his eligibility for the NFL Draft after his junior year.
He left CU as the school's all-time leader in kickoff return yardage (1,798), with scoring returns of 100, 99 and 98 yards. He also had a non-TD return of 93 yards. Kelly also remains the Buffaloes' career leader in non-offensive TDs (nine returns – four kickoff, three punt, two fumble), and he made 11 interceptions as a cornerback.
In the third round of the 2000 NFL Draft, the Miami Dolphins made him the 84th overall selection. He successfully rehabilitated a knee injury that cut short his rookie season, but that injury proved to be a red flag for less severe – but equally damaging – ailments that followed.
“Every year after that I had an ankle injury of some sort,” said Kelly, who eventually wound up needing a ligament transplant to repair his ankle. “And that's what did me in.”
IN TWO SEASONS IN MIAMI and another two in New England, he nearly became an IR (injured reserve) fixture. Although he did earn a Super Bowl ring (XXXVI) with the Patriots, players on the active rosters were nearly strangers.
“My best friends were the interns that worked in the training room, the team doctors . . . those were the people I dealt with most of the time,” he said. “I wouldn't say I didn't like the game anymore, but I wasn't playing the game. I was mostly doing physical therapy, rehab, recovery type stuff more than I was actually on the field.”
After his four years in the NFL (or mostly in NFL training rooms), he spent a season in the Arena League (Los Angeles) and tried one more time in the CFL (Calgary). He was on off-season rosters twice (Broncos, 2003; Grand Rapids, 2006) before officially retiring in 2007.
“I tried to come back (but) wound up not passing physicals,” he said. “It was all good experience, but at that point football wasn't fun anymore . . . I was spending most of time trying to get healthy enough to make the 53 (man roster). I had a small margin for error. I'm not one of these big 6-5 guys, I was a little guy (5-10, 190 at CU).
“I needed speed and quickness; that was my calling card. You lose just a little bit of that and it becomes a different ball game. You're not equipped to deal with the punishment that comes from not being able to get caught. With my ankle, it just never felt right. I was able to do certain things, but it was never the same.
“I couldn't make the little movements I needed to make. When I tried I'd have the little pinches, pain in the foot and ankle. At that point I think I realized that I needed to make the most of whatever I had left. I spent a few years after that trying to get it back but I never got back the flexibility and range of motion.”
While Kelly didn't walk away from football unscathed, he at least walked away under his own power. He feels fortunate that his injuries were limited to his extremities.
“I didn't have the big things that you're hearing a lot about now – the concussions, the head injuries,” he said. “I'm not suffering these days; I just can't do my spin moves anymore. I'm glad my head is sharp and I'm not having any of those issues.”
KELLY HAS FOLLOWED CU FOOTBALL – “Unfortunately,” he noted with a laugh – and said the Buffs remind “me a lot of my hometown team – the Cleveland Browns, which is not good.”
He was in Boulder a couple of summers ago when construction was beginning on CU's athletic facilities improvement project. He's hoping to see the finished $166 million project soon, possibly in a return for homecoming this season with former teammates Adam Bledsoe and Sean Jarne.
New CU co-offensive coordinator/receivers coach Darrin Chiaverini “is like a brother to me” (they were teammates in 1997-98) and has been pushing Kelly to return to Boulder for a guided look-see at the Champions Center and the IPF (indoor practice facility).
Kelly's solution to the Buffs' decade of football woes isn't complex: Better players tend to produce better records and bowl appearances.
“I've seen X's and O's from a lot of coaches,” Kelly said. “I haven't run across one coach who isn't excellent at drawing things up on a board. That's what they do all day. They can X and O you to death . . . but it's a matter of who you have as your X's and O's out there.
“You need to recruit in college football, go into their homes and sell them on the dream. The good facility is only going to help you if you get the good player on campus to see it.”
When Kelly finally felt done with football, he bounced around in a number of jobs in a number of places – health and fitness, hospitality roles in clubs and gyms, insurance, coaching.
“I didn't like to stay in one place too long,” he said.
But the kitchen was always in the back of his mind. He contemplated enrolling in culinary school in Scottsdale, Ariz., before deciding he simply wasn't ready for a commitment to the classroom. That changed when he returned to LA and enrolled at Le Cordon Bleu.
“The culinary world for me had always been like a hobby,” Kelly said. “A buddy of mine from college – Rashidi Barnes (former Buffs safety) – and I were at a function in LA a couple of weeks ago. I told him I was in culinary school and all he wanted to do was bring it back to my freshman year when I was creating these Spam sandwiches and all this weird stuff for the fellas.”
But Kelly is now focused on taking it beyond Spam and weirdness – and he's in an environment that lends itself to fine dining.
“I'm a foodie,” he said, “and I'm very fortunate. I've got a lot of friends in the industry who have restaurants, are executive chefs – it's kind of the equivalent of being All-Pro in football. I'm very fortunate now with my lack of experience and education in the field that I'm able to call on them and get in their kitchens and learn different techniques from some of the best guys out there doing it.
“I try to do everything. I get with these guys in the kitchen and they'll throw something out there – different techniques that I've never seen before. I pick it up and try to implement it. I'm at the point now where I'm wide open to learning . . . and with going to school too, I feel like I'm getting everything I'm looking for.”
KELLY ISN'T INTERESTED SO MUCH in becoming a restaurant owner as he is an executive chef or manager.
“The big-time owner/operator chefs love it even more than I do,” he said. “You don't really understand until you shadow them for a day or two. They're doing it 19 or 20 hours. They're in a hot kitchen 90 percent of the time . . . they'll make an 18-course meal for a family or couple and might not know who it's going to.
“No interaction with the guests; they're just straight cooking. That's just not me; I'm more of a people person. I can't be in the back somewhere all day every day and not get the satisfaction of going by and saying hello and asking if they liked that.”
But don't ever doubt that he's deeply into it. The Food Network now tugs at him more than ESPN, and he's awed by Chopped.
“Awesome show,” he said. “Those guys are so good. I'm not saying I couldn't compete, but that's just kind of not me. Their creativity in the kitchen is mind-boggling – coming up with something to make with these random items. 'I can make this into this.'
“Those guys are special. It's like a great athlete – you can't teach certain things, they either have it or they don't. These guys are similarly talented in their area of expertise.”
Kelly, now divorced but the father of a 12-year-old son, hopes to be able to pitch an idea that TV – say, The Food Network – might be interested in. He and several friends have been toying with the creation of a cooking show that would focus on pro athletes and their second careers.
“We'd like to shine a light on guys who played pro sports and transitioned into whatever,” Kelly said. “We'd interview them at their homes, talk about their past, what led them to their second careers, their lives now.”
With the kitchen, of course, as a focal point.
“Food brings people together,” he said. “When families get together food is usually involved. It's like why are we really getting together? There's nothing to talk about if there's not food involved. I'm big on that. I've always been the preparer; I like the reaction you get when you make something and say, 'Hey, check this out.' I've always been real big on that.”
Contact: BG.Brooks@Colorado.EDU
