The splash of orange in a patch of cultivated lupine caught John Huard's eye as he drove to his summer camp in Gray. He slowed and pulled into a stranger's driveway.

Huard is working to establish his own lupine patch with its familiar purples, pinks, blues and whites. But orange? That's a color seldom seen.

"Lupine are difficult," said Huard, talking Tuesday about his discovery. "You really have to work with them."

They're beautiful, said Huard to the homeowner that day. Would she mind he came back when they were ready to seed? Of course, he was told. Anytime.

Tonight, the man who played the toughest and meanest position in football, will receive the Distinguished American Award, presented by the Maine Chapter of the National Football Foundation. Huard, 65, was an All-American linebacker at the University of Maine, played for the Denver Broncos and then coached college and pro teams.

He will stand before his football and blood families and in the few minutes he has to speak, will quote Winston Churchill: "We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give."

"I was a history major, too," said Huard who, if he fit the stereotype might have quoted Dick Butkus and Bill Parcells with a little Vince Lombardi thrown in. In a way, that's the point of Wednesday night's dinner on the Bowdoin College campus. It will be a celebration of football players as multi-dimensional people. Eighteen high school and two college scholar athletes will be among others recognized.

Take Joe Gallant for example. A lineman for Bonny Eagle, he writes his own music for his acoustic band. Ranks 26th out of 304 in his senior class. Camden Fernald of Mt. Desert Island and a linebacker won an award for best set design at a One-Act Festival. Ryan Canary started his last 35 games at the University of Maine, playing center. He's an Eagle Scout and still an active member of the Boy Scouts.

We're told we live in a world of awareness but the work of busting stereotypes is ongoing. John Ringer of Waterville was a member of the Class of 2007 sitting and eating with his fellow scholar athletes. The forearms he used to block linebackers and defensive linemen were also used to play the violin. He particularly liked to play Bach. Ringer also played a bass guitar in his band.

His football career ended at Waterville. He attends the University of Vermont, which dropped the sport years ago.

"When people talk about what they did in high school I'll say I was a football player and it's like, 'really, you did that?' They must think I should be oafish, or a brute if I played football."

All sports can act as a springboard to a lifetime of goal-setting and achievement and learning to handle disappointments. Football players believe their sport prepares them even more. When political pundits assess a possible move by Steve Abbott to run for Maine governor after serving 12 years as Sen. Susan Collins' chief of staff, most overlook his past as a football player at Orono High and at Harvard, where he was captain of the team. To underestimate the impact of football on Abbott's career would be a mistake.

"Football is such a brutal, brutal game," said Huard, now the CEO of Northeast Turf in South Portland, better known by its product Field Turf. "One day you're up, the next day you're down. One day you're playing and the next day you're injured and you'll never play again."

When Huard coached at Acadia University of Nova Scotia and later at Maine Maritime Academy, he gave plaques to each of his graduating players. The inscription was a poem "The Guy in the Glass," written in 1934 by Dale Wimbrow, a songwriter and artist. It's first verse reads:

"When you get what you want in your struggle for pelf (money),

"And the world makes you King for a day,

"Then go to the mirror and look at yourself,

"And see what that guy has to say."

"It took me until I was 35 before I could look in the mirror. I was really tough on myself. I gave the poem to my (graduates). Read it and try to understand. It will make your journey in life more simple."

Celebrate the football player.