We, the Coronado Scribes, consist of both professional and amateur writers. We have in common a desire to learn, by sharing our efforts and listening to other writers. We hold pressure-less sessions every Wednesday, at the Coronado Library conference room, starting at 1:30. Often we have guests who wish to just listen. They are welcome, and so are you. Each week on eCoronado, we feature a different piece of prose or poetry produced by one of our writers. Please feel free to comment or ask.
Suh
by Mary Beth Dodson
Ndamukong Suh! Arguably the best defensive tackle the University of Nebraska Cornhuskers ever recruited!
I was in on his first season, sitting high in the stands of the Bob Devaney Stadium; so high that the golden dome of the State Capitol building was level with my eyes.
It was the beginning of the season, probably about the second game, played with a non-conference team.
I was watching when the massive Suh intercepted a ball close to the twenty yard line and lumbered into the end zone for our first touchdown. The red balloons always released to signify our first score of the game filled the sky. I had discovered him! Before that he was an unknown, at least to me.
After that in every game he did something memorable. He sacked quarterbacks. He tackled one player, then got up and tackled another. He won Big Ten conference and National awards.
When he graduated from college four years later, he came to our town in Mid-Nebraska to speak at the annual St. Pat’s fund-raising dinner. I was there with my sister-in-law. Everyone sat with eyes riveted on the front door, awaiting his arrival. To our surprise, the back door slammed open, and a file of coaches and players, including Suh, walked down the narrow space behind our chairs. Instinctively, I reached out and touched his arm. He smiled. We had made a connection!
At the microphone, he spoke quietly and eloquently about his years playing for the University of Nebraska under Bo Pelini.
Later, on the day of the NFL Draft, he was chosen by the Detroit Lions and was eventually one of the highest paid players in the league. Now he has been recruited by the Miami Dolphins. Florida is a long way from Nebraska.
But .he was back in my hometown this week as I was. That hometown is midway between Florida, his new home, and California, my new home. Headlines in the local newspaper said, “Did You See Suh?”
There is a little known golf course in the Sandhills where big name athletes and movie stars secretively come to play. It has natural greens, similar to what is found in Scotland. Suh had flown into North Platte, my town, been chauffeured north to the course, and they were on their way back to the airport when instead of taking the main road, they took a shortcut, turning east on 12th Street.
Luckily he was looking out the car window on the south side of the street to see what he was meant to see. Hanging on the fence was a blue car hood painted with his name, the logo of the Lions, and his number while playing for Detroit: #90.
The hood had come from the North Platte Community College. Josh Schultz owns the house and now the car hood. It was painted about five years ago by former student Nathan Jones. It had hung on the wall at the college, then on the school fence.
Schultz told his old friend Don Wilson, an instructor at the college, that his son Jordan was Suh’s biggest fan and if they ever got rid of the hood, to let him know. Wilson gave it to Schultz on the spot.
What are the odds that Suh, thousands of miles from his new home in Florida, would drive down that obscure street and happen to be looking on the right side of the road to see the car hood with his name on it?
Of course, he jumped from the car and had his picture taken with it! Discovering it surely made his day! And when I learned of it, it made mine!
