'WHATEVER IT TAKES'
"I got the crap beat out of me when I was little," Chris said. "My older brothers were always dragging me around and I was playing with their friends. I really didn't play with kids my age."
friends. I really didn't play with kids my age."
Here's a Borland roll call: Sarah Borland is the oldest; she's now a teacher in Austin, Texas. "My mom says she's the toughest," Chris said, "the one you'd want in a dark alley with you."
"Sarah is adventuresome,"
Jeff said. "She then and now looks out for each of them (the boys)." Joe went to law school and business school; he's working his way into the Army JAG corps.
Joe was in Iraq. So was
John, who studied mechani- cal engineering at West Point. Their tours of duty over-
lapped and they were briefly in Kuwait at the same time. "They didn't see each oth- er," Jeff said. "John went in first and he was around Mo- sul; Joe went the following year and was in the Baghdad area. Neither was with front- line fighting troops. "But John's engineering
duties and Joe's transporta- tion duties put them in dan- gerous spots. We were all able to breathe a lot easier when they came home."
Said Chris Borland, "I
haven't had any many conver- sations with them about Iraq. I don't know if they'd want to talk about that stuff. I'm just glad that they made it back safe."
Mark is the third-oldest boy and, competitively, the closest to Chris.
"He'd cheat in video games — he's so competitive," Chris claimed. Mark, who played basket-
ball at Wittenberg, is an attor- ney in Dayton.
Matt, an All-American soc- cer player at Wittenberg, is working for Kraft in Colum- bus, Ohio. That's
the Borland
» Extreme Makeover Following multiple shoulder surger- ies, Borland was "as small as I've been since my sophomore year of high school." That all changed over the summer with conditioning from UW strength coaches Ben Herbert, Brian Bott and Jamil Walker:
Before
clan:
Sarah, Joe, John, Mark, Matt, Chris and younger brother Luke.
"It's a good group," Chris said. "I'm lucky to be around such a good family. You defi- nitely learned to stand up for yourself. We literally fought for seconds at the dinner table sometimes." Said Jeff Borland, "They all deferred to Chris from a talent standpoint."
Soccer was a common
theme — and love — for most of the boys, including Chris
After
