EVANSTON-It’s one of Pat Fitzgerald’s favorite sayings. Randy Walker’s too. Heck, every football coach who ever wore a whistle around his neck has said it one time or another: That a player’s, a team’s or a man’s character is revealed through adversity.

Through that lens, then, Northwestern star running back Jeremy Larkin has proven himself to be an All-America.

Larkin, a redshirt sophomore, took just about the worst adversity possible for a football player -- the end of his career for medical reasons – and not only turned it into a positive, he managed to inspire his teammates when telling them the devastating news in a team meeting on Monday morning.

“One of the most inspirational speeches I’ve ever heard from a young man. His attitude is absolutely inspiring and it’s not a surprise,” said Fitzgerald, who characterized the meeting as a celebration and not a funeral. “He was adamant that it wasn’t the end today, that it was just a new chapter. His attitude was awesome. The guys gave him a standing ovation. Everybody was really fired up.”

That new chapter will start right where the last one ended: on the football field. Larkin will stay with the team as a “student assistant coach,” said Fitzgerald, who even gave Larkin a coach’s whistle after his speech as the symbolic start of his new career.

Larkin is retiring from football due to cervical stenosis, a narrowing of the spinal canal in the neck area. Doctors are not sure if he was born with it, if it developed over time or whether football may have played a role in its onset.

The redshirt sophomore first started experiencing symptoms – mostly numbness and tingling in his arms – a couple weeks ago, before the Akron game. He went to team trainers first before the Northwestern medical team got involved and ran some tests.

Doctors didn’t have enough information to hold him out of the game against the Zips on Sept. 15, when Larkin ran for 82 yards and two TDs on 22 carries and added 52 yards receiving on eight catches. But they did after the game. Three doctors outside of NU were eventually consulted before giving Larkin his prognosis last week, during the bye week.

While cervical stenosis enables most people to live normal lives, a sport like football makes it dangerous. The narrowing of the canal means that any hit could impact the spine and potentially cause catastrophic injuries, including quadriplegia. Very few players take more hits than a running back, no matter how elusive Larkin was as a ballcarrier.

For that reason, Larkin considers himself lucky that doctors diagnosed this now, before anything worse happened.

“I’m extremely appreciative of the Northwestern sports medicine and athletic training staffs for uncovering this condition, and for my coaches and the medical staff for always putting my health first,” he said in a statement.

Some of the players, like middle linebacker Paddy Fisher, were aware of Larkin’s recent symptoms and knew that he was calling it a career before Monday morning’s team meeting. Others, like defensive end Joe Gaziano, was just as blindsided by the news as media and fans were a couple hours later, when the football department dropped the atomic bomb of bad news in a tweet at 11:02 a.m, just an hour before Fitzgerald’s scheduled Monday press conference.

All of the players in that press conference – quarterback Clayton Thorson, center J.B. Butler, Fisher and Gaziano – expressed admiration for the way that their teammate handled the devastating development. He didn't ask "why me?" or dwell on what could have been. He looked at his diagnosis as a blessing rather than a curse, a disaster avoided, not encountered.

“I had no idea about the struggles he was going through,” said Gaziano. “I learned about it this morning, so I was just as stunned as you guys were. But testament to his character the way he stood up in front of the team and addressed us.”

Fisher, who spent the weekend watching football with Larkin and teammates Travis Whillock and Tyler Gillikin, said, “I think the way he handled it was something that I couldn’t even do, so that inspires me. I look up to the way he handled it, that he looked upon that as a very positive thing, despite the repercussion that he’s not able to play.”

Gaziano, especially, had some poignant things to say. He not only admired the way the Larkin handled his situation, but also the way he went to the trainers with his symptoms. That may seem simple enough, but it’s a move that takes courage in and of itself, he said.

“I think it’s a very hard thing to put your hand up and say, ‘I’m not right, I’m not physically right to play football,’” said Gaziano. “This is a game that Paddy and I both have experienced the majority of our life and leaned on in hard times, and to take yourself away from that willingly, is a difficult choice to make and I applaud him for being able to do that.

“But it also, internally, makes me think, it could have been me. So why not go out on Saturday and play as hard as I can for my brothers because who knows the next day that I’m going to step out on the field?”

While Wildcat players will continue to see Larkin at the Walter Athletics Center, in the locker room and on the sidelines, they will definitely miss him between the white lines.

Larkin was the team’s leading rusher and the most dynamic weapon for a Wildcat offense that has had its share of struggles through the first three games of the season. Larkin ran for 346 yards, had 19 catches for another 127 and scored five of the teams eight total touchdowns.

Fitzgerald points out that this isn’t the first time that Northwestern has had a vital player sidelined early in the season. In the last couple seasons, cornerbacks and team leaders Matt Harris and Keith Watkins II were lost for the year and eventually retired for medical reasons.

Northwestern does have a deep stable of backs to choose from. John Moten IV is a redshirt junior who will elevate to the feature running back job. He is by far the most experienced runner, with 416 career yards, though just 21 on 12 carries so far this year. True freshman Isaiah Bowser is listed as the No. 2 runner, a bigger back who has one career carry for no gain. The all-but-forgotten Jesse Brown will also probably be pressed into duty.

When asked who he will rely on to fill the massive void left by his star, Fitzgerald was succinct. “Everybody. Guys will step up,” he said. “We’ve dealt with injury issues in the past and it’s the next guy’s opportunity. I think we’ve recruited well at the position.”

Still, those other backs were stacked behind Larkin for a reason. He was a rare playmaker on an offense that was still working to identify others.

Fisher, though, suggested that there were plenty of guys outside of the running back room prepared to help replace their fallen teammate.

“There will be certain fire that every guy has this week for Lark,” he said, “and continue moving forward.”