.png)
Oct 5, 2021 Updated 8
hrs ago
Former Iowa offensive lineman Marshal Yanda
discusses his selection to the America Needs Farmers Wall of Honor at Kinnick
Stadium during a Tuesday news conference in Iowa City.
IOWA
CITY — Lessons learned growing up on a farm served Marshal Yanda well
throughout a football career that included stops at North Iowa Area Community
College and Iowa before he played 13 seasons in the NFL.
Yanda, who on Saturday will become the ninth
former Hawkeye to earn a spot on the America Needs Farmers Wall of Honor at
Kinnick Stadium, is the part of the fifth generation to grow up on his family’s
dairy farm five miles north of Anamosa, Iowa.
"To be
a part of this group and be a part of this week is special," Yanda said
Tuesday. "Growing up on a farm you learn things by hard work and
discipline and sacrifice, things that really transitioned to football for me
for sure."
Yanda said
his parents taught him the value of hard work as he and his sister worked hours
daily assisting in the family business.
"As a
football player, I was pretty strong in the weight room, but people always
talked about how I had that farm strength, that natural strength, that core
strength," Yanda said.
That strength allowed Yanda to grow as a player,
competing at Iowa in the 2005 and 2006 seasons when he learned value of
preparation and focus that served him well as he developed into one of the top
guards in the NFL.
He earned all-pro recognition seven times and
spent his entire 13-year career with the Baltimore Ravens.
Throughout
his career until his retirement from the game in 2019, Yanda would return to
Iowa to train during the offseason, something he saw as an advantage.
Saturday, he
will join former Hawkeyes Casey Wiegmann, Jared DeVries, Bruce Nelson, Robert
Gallery, Dallas Clark, Chad Greenway, Aaron Kampman and Matt Kroul in having a
spot on ANF Wall of Honor.
