COLLEGE STATION, Texas (AP) — After KC Concepcion scored two touchdowns to help No. 16 Texas A&M to a win over Utah State last weekend, he confidently strode to the podium, warmly greeted the assembled media and flashed a huge smile before answering questions for almost 10 minutes.
It’s a scene the receiver couldn’t have imagined as a kid when a severe stutter led to bullying in school.
Now 20, Concepcion still stutters and admitted that speaking publicly remains challenging for him.
“I’m really still
kind of getting comfortable with it,” he told The Associated Press after practice this week.
He recalled how some kids treated him as a child and that the classes meant to help him only made him feel more self-conscious about his stuttering. He was picked on.
“It kind of used to be really, really bad when I was a kid," he said. "But, you know, just just taking my little speech classes here and there, I really didn’t like going to them because I kind of felt like I was a little weird. ... Just being taught how to try to like speak fluently and and not stutter or anything.”
Those times were difficult, but he was helped by his father, Kevin Concepcion. Stuttering is often hereditary and that is the case with Concepcion, whose father also stutters.
“As a little kid, it’s kind of tough having, having kids pick on you for your talking,” he said. “Just just seeing him deal with it also it helped me out, you feel me. And it made me feel like I wasn’t the only one.”
Concepcion abandoned his speech classes in middle school and decided the only way to improve his speech was to practice. That meant not shying away from talking in any situation. The receiver from Chatlotte, North Carolina, likened it to getting reps on the football field.
“It’s literally just exactly like football,” he said. “Sometimes you know it it comes from the heart but sometimes I can just sit down and and go over it and just make sure that I know what I’m saying in the back of my mind sometimes and that can also help me to where I’m not trying to find the words and it’s just coming out weird.”
Concepcion is in his first season at Texas A&M after a transfer from N.C. State. Despite being one of the newer faces on the team, he’s already made his mark with the Aggies. He had a touchdown reception and returned a punt 80 yards for a score in Texas A&M’s opener before his two-TD performance last week.
He's the first Texas A&M receiver to score two or more touchdowns in consecutive games since Ainias Smith did it in 2021.
“He’s got a tremendous work ethic,” coach Mike Elko said. “I really enjoy the way he competes day in and day out, that really showed itself in the off-season as well. So, there’s a maturity about him that I really like. He wants to be great and that shows every day, which is a really cool characteristic in a kid. And I think he’s a kid that rises to moments.”
Concepcion loves games where the lights are brightest and can’t wait to be in the spotlight Saturday night when the Aggies visit No. 8 Notre Dame. He said times like this are what he’s been dreaming of since he started playing football at age 4 and he is eager to “put on a show.”
Concepcion said realizing that everyone is dealing with something made him be less hard on himself when it comes to his stutter.
“Everybody has their own flaws, and it’s just about how you embrace those flaws and that makes you you,” he said.
And he had a message for kids who are having a tough time or feeling down because they stutter.
“I’ve been stuttering since I’ve been a little kid,” he said. “It’s definitely been a long journey from growing up with the horrible stuttering problem to kind of not growing out of it but, you know, getting better at it. So I would just say: You guys aren’t alone. I stand with you.”
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