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When Football is Job Two

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Look up there—way up there—at Darren Bennett. This Australian import is 6-foot-5 at mountain’s peak. Even after 38 birthdays, the San Diego Chargers’ punter still toils among behemoths hell-bent on causing him bodily harm. His 245-pound body is nearing its professional twilight—but still going strong—after a 20-year football career.

But this isn’t a story about punts, passes or kicks. This is a glimpse inside a family forged with an uncommon inner strength.

Meet young Will Bennett. With genes seemingly programmed for bulk, a 3-year-old, wetsuit-clad Will looks like a miniature strongman running on the beach near his Del Mar house. His calves are supple. His legs seem sculpted, as if he’s enrolled at Frogs Club One before graduating from Huggies. He’ll be a Hulk, like his old man, people assume. Sure, he walks and runs on the balls of his feet—but that’s because he’s tall for his age. The walk is something he’ll outgrow, everyone figures.

Today, Will is 7. Younger brother Tom is 5. Both are quick to smile—especially at Dad’s running supply of jokes. The boys look like miniature San Diego surfers-in-waiting. Like their mother, Rosemary, each is a good-looking, blue-eyed blond. Though Mom and Dad’s Down Under accent is skipping their generation, almost every day seems a g’day. No worries, mate.

But beneath the guise of idyll, and as the gloom from one of San Diego’s most marine-layered Junes gives way to late-afternoon sunshine, Rosemary and Darren sit in a tidy living room that offers a grand view of the blue-gray Pacific. They are about to recall the agonizing day last year when Will was diagnosed with muscular dystrophy.

And how their lives were forever changed.

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