Forty-one years after leaving Purdue, 49ers’ Keena Turner graduates along with his daughter – San Francisco 49ers Weblog

SANTA CLARA, Calif .– Four-time Super Bowl champion Keena Turner and daughter Ella sat staring at the first slide of a project and tweaking it. Minutes became an hour and an hour became two.

That night in 2019 quickly disappeared and there was more to be done. However, this was not a common case of a parent helping a child with a job. On the contrary.

“He would be on the same slide for hours,” said Ella Turner. “I have to say, ‘Dad, we’ve got about 10 to go, we can’t be on that one slide for two hours. We have to keep going, and if you want to come back when we’re through,’ When we’re done with everything, we can come back ‘There were a couple of times when I said, “This is great, you can go ahead now.” He just had really high standards. “

That Keena Turner took his return to college extremely seriously – more than four decades after leaving Purdue for the NFL – should come as no surprise. As a linebacker for the San Francisco 49ers from 1980 to 1990, Turner was an integral part of the dynastic Niners. All he has ever known is the highest level of proficiency, and he was determined to apply it to his return to college at the age of 60.

Much like in his football life, the 62-year-old gymnast wanted a suitably poetic closing chapter for all of his hard work: the opportunity to share a closing day with Ella at his alma mater.

A plan that had many stops and starts over the past 40 years finally came to fruition on May 15th in West Lafayette, Indiana. That day, Keena and Ella Turner walked side by side into the Ross Ade Stadium, where Turner had received consecutive All Big Ten honors as a junior and senior, settled for a ceremony that felt like it would never take place.

“This is the stadium I played in and it had all these kinds of emotions and memories,” said Keena Turner. “This last year we weren’t sure if there was going to be a physical degree so there was all this uncertainty about how it was going to happen and so Purdue had to have a physical degree and have all of the graduates in the stadium and it was great to have the opportunity to be recognized by family and friends in this way.

“I actually sat in the stands with Ella. I went in with Ella and when my school got a call I got up and got my school recognized, but I was there with her the whole time. That was really cool.”

Keena Turner received her diploma in organizational leadership from the Purdue Polytechnic Institute. Ella Turner graduated from the College of Health and Human Sciences with a degree in Sales and Sales Management. But the Turner family gained a lot more along the way.

The spark you need

Keena Turner was named an All-Big Ten junior and senior at Purdue. San Francisco 49ers

By the time Keena Turner left the NFL in 1990, he already knew he wanted to graduate and keep a promise to his mother. By that time, Harry Edwards, the noted civil rights activist who had worked as an advisor to the 49ers, had begun a graduation program for gamers at the University of San Francisco.

While that allowed Turner to keep his promise, the fact that he hadn’t finished what he had started at Purdue gnawed at him. Turner’s wife, Linda, soon reminded him of how much history he had with the boilermakers and what it would mean to him to have a diploma from the place where his name still rings.

For the past decade, Linda Turner had contacted Purdue to find out what her husband would need to graduate. It didn’t happen immediately, however, as Turner’s return to science was slowed down by a series of false starts.

“This thing had life and died multiple times,” said Keena.

It wasn’t until Ella decided to follow in her father’s footsteps that everything came together. Encouraged by her parents to explore schools outside of California the way they used to – Linda Turner is a graduate of Notre Dame – Ella evaluated all options.

Purdue was high on the list, but when her father offered to make calls on her behalf, she declined, preferring to be admitted on her own while keeping her options open. When it was adopted, she said it “definitely felt right”.

It turned out that it only took Keena two classes, one in science and one in senior management, to graduate from Purdue. Both could be completed virtually. When he learned he was able to close with Ella, who signed up in 2017, the opportunity was too good to miss.

“When I heard that possibility, I said, ‘I’m all in,'” said Keena.

Ella was quick to help her father choose the two classes he needed: physical geography and supply chain management.

“When I left it kind of got everything back on track,” said Ella Turner. “He immediately asked me if it was okay with me if he did it and he went with me and everything. I thought it would be the coolest thing ever.”

Family matters

As if going back to school after 40 years wasn’t difficult enough, Keena still had to worry about his day job. As Vice President and Senior Adviser to the General Manager of the 49ers, Turner has plenty of day-to-day responsibilities.

Because of this, Ella suggested that her father would be best able to track his final credits outside of the football season. Always a creature of habit, Turner felt he could handle the workload and have his summer free like any student (or soccer player) would.

“I don’t know what I was thinking,” said Turner with a laugh.

Turner re-enrolled in 2019, which was also the year the 49ers returned to the Super Bowl. Reconciling work and school turned out to be no easy task, especially since the physical geography lessons summarized the work of a semester in just eight weeks.

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On a scouting tour of Notre Dame, LSU, Auburn, and Alabama with current Deputy General Manager Adam Peters, Turner stayed up late, turned in daily chapter assignments, and took three quizzes that week.

In early December, the Niners traveled east to play the Baltimore Ravens with a week-long stint in Bradenton, Florida before heading to New Orleans. One night while Trainer Kyle Shanahan & Co. was studying Drew Brees and the Saints, Turner focused on taking a quiz that had to be completed by midnight.

Turner signed up at around 11:15 p.m. and was ready for the quiz. At the worst possible time, the hotel’s wifi went down, and Turner looked for an alternative before realizing he had until midnight Pacific time to do it.

“He said he could do it and I said OK, but of course he was stressed here about completing his quizzes by the deadline and he travels and visits different schools to scout,” said Ella. “I said, ‘Look, I told you you could have just waited until summer,’ but he did it all. He was in a great mood.”

To do this, Turner relied on what he knows best: a team approach.

Linda had kept in touch with Purdue and helped her husband get the necessary credits. Keena said his wife had “breathed life” into the college idea on more than one occasion.

Ella ran point, helped her father enroll in his classes, made sure he knew how to use the technology needed to check his assignments and grades, and helped with class projects where she could.

Sheena Turner-August, the oldest of the Turner siblings and a psychology professor at Las Positas College in Livermore, Calif., Served her father as a sounding board when he had questions about interacting with professors, and she offered a perspective on how to be a student again gone after so many years. Turner’s son Miles, who plays basketball at the University of Portland, was there when needed.

“There were times when my wife did something to help, Ella did something to help, my son Miles did something to help, and my oldest daughter on the phone was just trying to help me keep going”, said Keena.

While Turner struggled a little with physical geography, he landed a B and finished his Supply Chain Management class with little problem, getting an A for his work.

A special day

“He always stressed and wanted to make sure I was comfortable with everything,” Ella Turner said of her father. “That meant a lot to me.” San Francisco 49ers

During the long journey to their graduation day together, the Turners were never entirely sure that they would actually attend a physical ceremony. The pandemic had put most of these celebrations on hold, but the country had reopened just in time for Keena and Ella to enjoy the day they had long talked about.

Even as the big day drew near, Keena remained careful to divert attention from his daughter’s performance.

“I didn’t even see it that way,” said Ella. “He’s my father; I would never think he was trying to take my shine off. But he always stressed and wanted to make sure I was comfortable with everything. That meant a lot to me.”

Now that graduation day has come and gone, Keena Turner is back to the 49ers. Ella is planning to move to Phoenix and is looking for a job in marketing or sales.

No matter where their next steps lead, they will always have the day that they will not soon forget. They sit together in a football stadium and celebrate each other’s achievement together, surrounded by the family who helped make everything possible.

“The feeling of being proud of her and seeing her accomplish this feat in my school and Purdue would have been more than enough,” said Keena. “But then the icing on the cake, that I’m there and that I’m part of it in this way and in this performance, won’t be much better.”