Keith Loneker was riding high.

The former Kansas offensive tackle was having the best training camp of his three-year NFL career. He was outplaying veterans and looked set to win a starting spot on the offensive line with the Atlanta Falcons.

“I felt like it was the best football I had played,” Loneker said. “The other linemen thought I was going to get the starting spot. They felt like I was going to be the guy.”

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But as final cuts approached in August, Loneker was stopped during a workout and told that assistant coach Rich Brooks needed to see him.

Brooks, the team’s defensive coordinator, called Loneker into his office on that day in 1997 to inform the former All-Big Eight tackle that it was over. He had been cut.

The 6-foot-3, 330-pound Loneker saw Brooks’ lips moving, but he didn’t hear a word he said.

“I wasn’t trying to hear any of it,” Loneker said.

Loneker, the guy with the outgoing personality that everyone loved, had been released for the second time in as many training camps. He was without a job and a way to support his wife, Kelly, and their two young children.

He headed back to his hotel and packed his bags to return home to Lawrence. His NFL career appeared over, and he hadn’t graduated from Kansas and didn’t have a second job to fall back on. Loneker was in trouble.

A ringing telephone interrupted his worried thoughts.

* * * * *

Loneker crouched down into his right tackle position, threw a solid block on a Missouri defensive end, and watched as Tony Sands ran by for a 15-yard gain.

The next play was called — another run. Loneker and right guard John Jones approached the line.

“Lonny, where do you think the ball is coming this time?” Jones said.

“I think it’s coming here,” Loneker answered, an air of cockiness in his voice.

Sands rushed for a then-NCAA record 396 yards on 58 carries against the Tigers that day in 1991. The record remains a KU mark that probably won’t be touched for some time. As Loneker reflects on his four years at Kansas, nothing stands out more than the dominating performance by both Sands and the offensive line.

“It was Tony’s senior year, it was Mizzou, it was his last game — he was real emotional,” Loneker said. “He was just ready to play that day. He turned a lot of two-yard runs into 10- and 15-yard runs.”

By his senior year in 1992, Loneker was named first team All-Big Eight and was ranked in Mel Kiper Jr.’s top 100 players entering the 1993 NFL Draft. It looked as though Loneker was a can’t-miss prospect with a big and lucrative future ahead of him in the game he loved.

But then things changed. At the scouting combine, teams found out about a hip surgery Loneker had when he was in eighth grade. They graded him a five arthritically on a scale of zero to five, which meant scouts were afraid he would sign and say he was too injured to play and just collect the signing bonus.

He had shown no signs of lingering problems and was one of the top linemen in the country, but that didn’t matter. He went undrafted.

“We kept telling them and telling them that I was fine,” Loneker said. “But it is what it is.”

Loneker, who had the same agent as running back Jerome Bettis, signed with the Los Angeles Rams as an undrafted free agent when the team also came to terms with Bettis. By the end of the 1993 season, Loneker was the only undrafted rookie to earn a starting spot and again looked primed to make it big.

He came into the 1994 season as the Rams’ starting left guard but the bad luck returned — he suffered a season-ending foot injury in the second game of the year. He was expected to battle for the starting job the next season but reported late because of a contract dispute and didn’t play much until the end of the year.

When the Rams moved from Los Angeles to St. Louis, Loneker had a tattoo of the city’s famous Gateway Arch inked on his leg as a sign of loyalty to the city and the team. He didn’t get any in return — he was released by the Rams during training camp in 1996.

He finally latched on with the Falcons for the last three games of the season, but the next training camp in 1997 was his last as an NFL player.

* * * * *

Loneker answered the phone.

On the other end was Jim Price, an old buddy of Loneker’s from his days in Los Angeles.

“He asked me if I made the team and I said no,” Loneker said. “He said, ‘Awesome, because I got a friend out here that has a girlfriend who is producing a movie, and they can’t find the right guy for this part. I told him about you and they want to see you on tape.’”

So Loneker, who had never acted before, returned to Lawrence thinking about how he was going to put together an audition tape that would be convincing enough to earn him the role of White Boy Bob in the movie “Out of Sight.”

Another friend, Chris Lazzerino, was interested in screenplay writing and wanted to help his friend make the tape. Lazzerino knew Loneker’s imposing frame needed to be seen on film.

“His enormity wouldn’t come through on just a regular video,” said Lazzerino, now the editor of the Kansas Alumni magazine. “Even if he’s walking around the room, his physical presence doesn’t come through. I told him that he needed to do something that showed his physicality.”

The 6-foot-2, 250-pound Lazzerino suggested that Loneker pick him up and carry him around the room during his reading of a scene from the movie. Loneker’s eyes brightened.

“His incredible personality came out,” Lazzerino said. “He’s just one of those guys that lights up in front of the camera. We were just basically doing horse play and he just picked me up in a fireman’s carry and walked around the room with me.”

Loneker sent the tape to the movie’s producers but was so unconvinced he would receive the job that he continued talking to NFL teams about getting another shot to play football.

Loneker’s college roommates, Charley Bowen and Chris Maumalanga, stayed close with him after their time at Kansas. They knew he wasn’t ready to give up the game he loved so easily.

“It was tough for him,” Bowen said. “He may not come right out and say it but you knew that it bothered him.”

Said Maumalanga: “It wasn’t just football. It was his job. When he lost that ability to earn a living doing something that he loved, it was tough.”

But a few days later the phone rang again. The movie role — and a new career — was Loneker’s if he wanted it.

* * * * *

After years of two-a-day practices in the summer heat and grueling offseason weight-training sessions preparing for the NFL, Loneker was receiving the first class treatment he had always dreamed of. After never taking an acting class, Loneker was doing what seemed unthinkable — standing on the set of a movie with one of the biggest stars in Hollywood, George Clooney.

“I spent my whole life giving everything to football and the way I was treated in return loyalty-wise wasn’t right,” Loneker said. “Here I was, never done any acting, and I show up and they are picking me up in limos and making sure I had everything I needed. It was humbling. The non-loyalty of NFL football was smacking me in the face.”

Growing up in New Jersey, Loneker never envisioned that type of life, not even in the NFL. His goal was to win a Super Bowl.

Even his friends didn’t see it coming.

“I thought he was unbelievably good in ‘Out of Sight,’” Lazzerino said. “And maybe it was because it was his first time and he had no idea just how improbable it was that he was doing this.”

Loneker starred in the 2002 FX made-for-TV movie, “Big Shots: Confessions of a Campus Bookie,” but didn’t appear in another movie until he landed a small part in the 2007 flick “Superbad” as Wild Bill Cherry.

He used the time off between movies to coach his son, Keith Jr., and his youth football team and stay close to his family. He worked as a security guard at Lawrence High School and became a substitute teacher in the district.

While in Los Angeles to film “SuperBad,” he was called to meet with Clooney about a role in his film “Leatherheads.”

“It was fun for me because I’m such a fan of football,” Loneker said of his role as a high school lineman in the movie. “Even though it wasn’t exactly like they did it, but to be in the old leather pants and the leather helmet and learning a little bit about how they played back then and their strategies and stuff, it was pretty cool.”

The crew spent two weeks filming the final game in the mud and rain.

“We were just covered head to toe in mud,” Loneker said. “It was miserable.”

Even though the scene appeared finished, Clooney made the cast and crew stay one more day.

“He kept us there all day and then got us all muddy and lined up and everything that night,” Loneker said. “He got ready to say action and said, ‘You know what? I don’t think I need this shot.’ I was thinking, it must be pretty cool to have enough money to pay everybody for six extra days when you didn’t need them.”

Loneker’s most recent movie, “Lakeview Terrace,” teamed him with the movie’s director, Neil LaBute, who also attended the University. His smaller sport also allowed him to act alongside the movie’s star, Samuel L. Jackson.

He doesn’t currently have any spots lined up for future movies, but he has almost finished writing a screenplay with his lifelong friend Jimmy Geoghegan, which the two hope to sell.

Loneker, who has been in six movies, isn’t and won’t be a movie’s main star — he’s not George Clooney. But he has a defined role, one that movies often need — the bad boy enforcer.

“Those big-time actors have a small shelf life,” Loneker said. “If you can be a good character actor, then you can work consistently for a long time. I’m a character. Sometimes I’ll be there for two minutes, sometimes I’ll be lucky enough to be there for 20 minutes. I’m realistic.”

* * * * *

Loneker sips on his coffee at the J&S coffee shop at Sixth and Wakarusa streets. He’s just finished his duties as a substitute teacher for a special education class at Free State High School. He’s not an actor on this day — he’s a teacher and a father.

The time in between movies allows him to spend time with his children, Keith Jr. and Kylee, a freshman at Free State.

They know about their dad’s success — kind of.

“A lot of the stuff that I do, I can’t let them see the whole movie,” Loneker said. “But they dig it. It’s fun for them.”

Loneker spends a lot of time with his family when he is home because he knows he could be called to leave for another movie at anytime. He spent four months away from Kelly and the kids during the filming of “Leatherheads.”

“That one was hard to do but it was cool to do because now my family knows that we can do it again if we have to,” Loneker said. “My kids are old enough that we talk on the phone and stuff so it’s not that bad. They get to see me a lot when I’m home, but there has to be a sacrifice for that.”

Though Loneker doesn’t have the multimillion dollar NFL contract that he once dreamed about, he’s making enough money to get by. He gets most of his money from movies in residuals, sent out months after the movie has gone to DVD.

“Contrary to what everybody believes, outside of guys like George Clooney, the set fee and daily rates for guys like me is not big,” Loneker said. “With kids and all of that, you need to do other things. It always needs to be a little better. But I’m doing OK.”

* * * * *

It’s hard to find a person who doesn’t like Keith Loneker. When asked to describe the man behind the large frame, every answer is the same.

“He would do anything for you,” Bowen said. “If you are loyal to him, he’s loyal to you. He shoots you straight. If you ask him a question or something, you might not like the answer that you get, but it’s going to be honest. You’re going to know what he stands up for. You may not like it, but you know it’s coming from the heart.”

Loneker likes being the center of attention, whether it’s on the big screen or while hanging out with his friends.

“I’ve always had an entertaining itch,” Loneker said. “I’m the guy that when we’re sitting around drinking some beer, I’m the one telling the jokes. That’s my gig.”

A quality most noticed by his former teammates is his dedication to everything he does, whether it be football, acting or anything else.

“If he loves something, he becomes a student of it,” Maumalanga said. “He was a student of football but unfortunately it didn’t work out ideally and now he’s become a student of the entertainment business. He’s just one of those guys where if he loves something, everything else falls into place.”

Despite his hard work, the success Loneker has enjoyed after football still remains hard for some of his friends to believe.

“Movies are for movie stars,” Bowen said. “You never thought you would know somebody who would get to have that opportunity.”

Even though Loneker had no prior film experience, a film enthusiast such as Lazzerino can see how his pal found success.

“If you’re going to create a recipe for an amateur to break into Hollywood, Keith would be one of those guys,” Lazzerino said. “He’s intelligent, he’s eager, he’s dedicated, he’s willing to try new things and he enjoys having a good time. All of that adds up to someone who can overcome the odds.”

Overcoming the odds is something that Loneker has done his entire life. After being told he would never play football again following his eighth-grade surgery, he earned all-conference honors in college and then became an NFL starter. When that career abruptly came to a halt, Loneker lucked into a new way of life.

“More than anything, he’s one of those guys that you’re really glad to see catch a break,” Lazzerino said. “He’s one of those really good guys that deserves everything he’s getting. He’s working hard for it.”

— — Edited by Brenna Hawley