Offensive linemen aren’t born, they’re made.

Nature doesn’t make many 6-foot-4, 305-lb. men.

So men, like Tim Mayerbock, work to beat nature. They take the bodies they are given and make them into moving walls.

The transformation, however, comes with a price.

While Mayerbock shaped his body into the perfect offensive lineman, he had an Achilles’ heel. It wasn’t his ankle that was weak, but his knees.

The offensive guard’s knees couldn’t support the masterpiece he had crafted — his body.

When the Feb. 14 shootings happened, Mayerbock was recovering from his fourth knee surgery.

He was supposed to be wearing a knee brace. The brace immobilized his leg.

But for some reason that morning, the offensive lineman decided to leave the brace at his house. Call it luck, call it laziness, call it fate; Mayerbock doesn’t know why he didn’t wear it, but he didn’t.

Without the brace on, the Chicago native was able to run. Scratch that, offensive linemen are made to sprint, not to run.

Recognizing his help was needed, Mayerbock sprinted into Cole Hall, grabbed a fellow student, and took him to safety.

The offensive guard’s selfless act, however, could have been the moment that ended his football career. Mayerbock didn’t wear his brace only a couple times after his fourth knee surgery. But something happened during one of those two or three occasions.

Nature, once again, stepped in. Mayerbock needed another knee surgery, his fifth one.

This time, however, he wouldn’t come back to football. The titan wasn’t cleared to play. Suddenly, the body he built no longer had a purpose.

But that’s when Mayerbock’s life came into focus. The events of the tragedy and the after effect brought a new clarity to the Huskie.

“Once that happened, I had one focus on my mind,” Mayerbock said. “This situation opened my eyes and said, ‘listen, now’s the time to start working for it.'”

The offensive guard began the steps to achieve his dream of becoming a federal officer. But in order to reach that dream he had to get in shape.

Mayerbock’s body was in “shape.” It had been specialized to protect quarterbacks and open holes for running backs. But ask him to run a mile, and his body said no.

After his knee was healed, for a fifth time, he began working on his dream.

“At that time is when I entered a new phase in my life; I completely turned everything around,” he said. “Everything I always told myself I was going to do, but you’re never sure if you’re going to do it because you’ve never done it, I did.”

Since Feb. 14, Mayerbock’s life and body has been transformed. He’s taken apart the body he painstakingly built over his entire life. In return, he’s gone back to the body nature gave him.

“I wasn’t worried about carrying all that football weight anymore,” Mayerbock said. “One good thing went out the door, and it opened up another good thing for me.”

What’s open for this Huskie is a job as a federal law enforcement agent out in the Southwest.

It’s the dream Mayerbock has had since he was a kid. It’s a dream he’s about to live, because in the past year he’s gained a new focus on life.

Offensive linemen are made, but Mayerbock has decided to make his life into his dream.