Kalispell's LeDuc finds labor of love

On the way to pursuing his dream, Kalispell native Tye LeDuc had to make a stop at Wendy's.

Michael Irvin wanted a hamburger.

"He was always very gracious and very decent and nice," LeDuc said of the Dallas Cowboys Hall of Fame receiver. "I asked him on the drive back to the hotel, so you're doing stuff on the NFL Network right? You like what you're doing?

"Oh yeah, absolutely," Irvin replied, according to LeDuc. "I'm getting paid to talk football on Sundays. I'm getting paid to do something I would do even if I wasn't getting paid. I love football, and I'm getting to do what I love."

Then, like one buddy to the next, Irvin said, "Hey, you want a hamburger?"

About a week before today's Super Bowl outside Dallas, LeDuc sat inside his office at Stillwater Spine & Sports Center Inc. on Four Mile Drive, and he recalled last summer's surreal experience.

A 1990 graduate of Flathead High and a former all-state Brave linebacker, LeDuc is a local chiropractor certified in strength and conditioning. The 39-year-old is about to become the only physician in the state with a diplomate (similar to a master's degree) from the American Chiropractic Board of Sports Physicians.

Like Irvin, LeDuc has found something he loves to do. And like Irvin, LeDuc worked hard for it. That's how he got invited last summer to work at a training camp for current and former NFL players in Minneapolis, Minn.

Held unofficially by Arizona Cardinals All-Pro receiver and Minnesota native Larry Fitzgerald, the intense five-day camp acted as a precursor to the official NFL training camps, which begin every August. Last year's camp had roughly 40 athletes in attendance, and one former Flathead Brave.

LeDuc got the call on a Wednesday night and within days he was in Minnesota working with the likes of Kansas City receiver Dwayne Bowe and Denver Broncos receiver Eric Decker as well as Irvin and longtime Vikings star receiver Chris Carter, who are both retired but act as mentors at the camp while getting in a few workouts, too.

"I walked off the plane and started meeting legends within about an hour," LeDuc said. "Here I am a guy from small town Montana and I'm taping Chris Carter in the clinic and Michael Irvin gets done being treated and says ‘Hey you want to give me a ride back to the hotel. It was crazy."

Every morning at 8 a.m., LeDuc and a small team of trainers would tape and stretch players or attend to aches and pains before and after the grueling workouts.

LeDuc also waited and watched on the sidelines in case anything came up. The first thing he noticed? The work ethic.

"It's just amazing how hard those guys worked," LeDuc said. "I've been around high school football, college football, but I've never seen people of their own free will work out that hard."

There's a reason a player like Pittsburgh receiver Hines Ward has been able to sustain a successful career for 13 years.

Genetics has a lot to do with it, LeDuc said, but work ethic keeps those genetics intact.

"One day Dwayne Bowe was cramping and on the ground and Chris Carter was standing over him and says ‘This is what makes the difference between you and the other players out there,'" LeDuc said. "(Carter) says ‘(longtime trainer) Bill Welle was on the phone when I was playing and he was saying ‘Hey, are you working out this morning? Jerry Rice is working out.''"

Throughout the week, LeDuc spent several hours with players, namely Bowe and Decker. LeDuc said he was only star-struck for the first few minutes, then it sank in that these guys weren't all that unlike him and others. In fact, the athletes in general were more respectful and receptive than everyday patients, LeDuc said.

"They're people like you and me," LeDuc said. "You see them on Sunday and you see all the fanfare. But they don't want to talk sports all the time. They want to talk about regular stuff. I ended up talking about kids with the ones that have families."

A few days before the big finale to the NFL season, summer seems like a faraway dream. LeDuc is back doing everyday work with an assortment of patients - runners, hockey players, weekend warriors.

This all came close to never happening. After high school, LeDuc earned a business degree at the University of Montana and moved back to Kalispell for work. But he found he wasn't passionate about what he was doing. So LeDuc went back to school and pursued a new career, a new dream.

Years later, he now knows someone playing in the Super Bowl - Pittsburgh tight end Matt Spaeth - and has worked with some of the best athletes in the country, if not the world.

LeDuc, who is a 10-year board member and physician for the Flathead Valley Little Guy Football program, said he's already been invited back to next summer's camp. Beyond that his ultimate dream is to be a trainer for Team USA at the Olympics.

With the support of his wife, Jessica, who does her own heavy lifting wrangling their three kids, LeDuc believes he can do it. He's seen what hard work leads to.

"Seeing how hard those guys pushed themselves last summer, I brought some of that back with me," he said.

Reporter Dillon Tabish can be reached at 758-4463 or by e-mail at dtabish@dailyinterlake.com