Former PSU Viking Carvalho returns as Rattler
TWO-TIME ALL-ARENA FOOTBALL LEAGUE CENTER'S ARIZONA TEAM TAKES ON PORTLAND THUNDER
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Brennen Carvalho, twice voted the best center in the Arena Football League, is about to play in the Rose City for the first time since his all-Big Sky days at Portland State ended in 2007.
At times last year, he wondered if this day would ever come.
The 6-1, 310-pounder from Kapa'a, Hawaii, was so banged up last season, he managed to play in only four games for the AFL Philadelphia Soul.
"Tore something in my foot. Had two surgeries and a plate in there for four months. It was a long process to come back. There were times I felt like hanging it up," he says.CARVALHO
CARVALHO
But now he's back, snapping the ball for the Arizona Rattlers, the defending AFL champs who will take on the second-year Portland Thunder at 7 p.m. Friday at Moda Center.
The Rattlers are 8-2 and have won four games in a row.
"I'm feeling good, and we're coming off a good win (69-46 versus the Tampa Bay Storm). We feel good about our unit. We've got our quarterback (Nick Davila) back (from injury). When he's healthy, it's a boost to the whole team," Carvalho says.
Carvalho has done a lot in the AFL. A championship ring has escaped him, however. In 2011, he played for the Arizona team that lost 73-70 at the very end of the league final against the Jacksonville Sharks. Then he went to the Philadelphia Soul, which lost to Arizona in the title game in 2012 and 2013.
He was named all-league in 2011 and 2013, but deflects the honors.
"If I get any kind of recognition, it's more for my family at home," he says. "Something so they can say, 'Hey, at least he's doing good.'"
That's the attitude he likes about another football player from Hawaii, Heisman Trophy winner Marcus Mariota.
"I love the humble way he does things. I appreciate a guy who is that high profile from Hawaii doing it like that," Carvalho says.
Carvalho had a taste of the NFL. He was on the practice squad of the Green Bay Packers for one year out of Portland State and got to absorb a lot from QB Aaron Rodgers.
"The NFL experience was great," he says. "Rodgers showed me a lot of things you've got to know in this game."
Carvalho's chances of sticking with Green Bay took a huge hit in that offseason, though, when he tore an ACL playing an impromptu game of pick-up basketball in Hawaii one week before what would have been his second NFL season.
"I walked over to this basketball court to do some cardio and hurt my knee and was out the whole year. It was a real fluke," he says.
Arena football was his parachute, and he quickly flourished at the indoor game.
"The biggest difference from outdoor football for a center is that it's not who you're going to block or which protection you're in, but here it's how you're going to block your man. It's all one-on-one," he says. "I always feel like we're playing defense, because the (D-line) is doing moves to us, and I've got to stop them.
"I know what it takes to play center in arena football. It's tough on your body, and with a bad wheel it was really tough. But the more you do it, the better you get."
Carvalho is excited to be back in Portland. He'll get to see his brother, Bronson, a former lineman at Alcorn State who lives in the Beaverton area, as well as various friends from college or from Hawaii who are still here.
"I had a good time at Portland State," he says. "The Polynesians on the team took me in. People up there were nice to us."
He might come back here for a longer stay.
"I have some schooling to finish up at PSU, in sociology. I should finish what I started," he says. "I want to come back. I'm like 85 percent sure I'll come back. I want to get into coaching, too."