AIR FORCE ACADEMY, Colo. — Like many fathers and sons, the Birdows tossed the football around the yard.
They imagined the setting being the backyard on freshly cut grass not the cracked asphalt inside a prison yard where they were. They tuned out the barbed-wire fences and the watchful eyes of the guards.
It was on these days that young Taven Birdow might daydream of playing in college just like his father, who, in those precious moments, was reliving his time as a linebacker for Oklahoma State in the 1990s.
Jermaine Birdow was no longer No.