Like most of his opponents, Shane Carwin of Greeley spends hours a day training to fight some of the baddest men on the planet. They include Brock Lesnar, the current heavyweight champion of the Ultimate Fighting Championship, who is fast, mean and freakishly strong. He began working for the North Weld County Water District after he helped design a computerized hydraulic model as an intern.
His job requires a deep understanding of both hydraulics and software. He has two engineering degrees. Carwin wants that balance, and he makes huge sacrifices, which include time with friends and family, even his new baby girl and wife, to maintain it.
I go to work with everyday people. Carwin does a good job maintaining that balance, Lani said, between introverted engineer and fierce UFC fighter until a couple of weeks before a fight. Then Lani begins to see a change in her husband. Just before his first fight, in , the same year they met, he became silent.
Lani, confused, asked his coach about it. Keeping that balance is hardest before a big match, and the scales tend to tip as it approaches. What he misses is time with his family and, most of all, the down time. He not only wants that balance, he needs it. He fears he could be that silent, almost brooding man, the one who emerges a couple weeks before a fight, full-time. Bonnie Carwin raised her three boys on her own since Shane was a baby.
Shane felt so close to his mother that, with no pressure from Bonnie, he took her maiden name when he was in the third grade. They all played football and wrestled, and Carwin had a successful career at Greeley West, graduating in , before becoming a two-time All-American in football for Western State College.
