Upon Further Review

What? We’re just supposed to forget about him because his high school football career is over?

What? He’s not supposed to be easy to remember as the years pass by and our memories become clouded with age and country air?

What? Just because he never raised a ball over his helmet on the way to the end zone or bobbed his head up and down in a yeah-I’m-the-man motion, his lunch-pail-and-hard-hat style of running should just be chalked up to another kid to pass through the hallways and onto the gridiron?

Yeah. Sure. Whatever. What. Ever.

That’s just who he was on the football field. Never a talker. Just a doer.

Never one to show off. Just one to show up and do his job.

Never one to spike the ball, but one who could spear an opposing team’s hearts and dash their dreams by just carrying the ball. Being tough to tackle. Worse still, be tough not to like.

Opponents always found their way to him after a game. Helmets off, searching high and low across the football field at Buffalo Gap.

There he is.

And they’d walk over and give him a hug. Or shake his hand. Or pat his back

And he’d do the same right back.

Kids were drawn to him.

When you saw him wink and turned to see what pretty girl he was making eyes with, you noticed she was 6-years-old and he quickly would pat her head or give her a hug.

Future football players all over the county looked up to him. He had midget, junior and senior fans from Stuarts Draft to Fort Defiance for a simple reason: He was one of them and parlayed it into a spectacular high school career. When he spoke, those little tykes looked up with their mouths open in awe, eyes wide in excitement.

And you always tried to figure him out.

Why wasn’t he cocky? He’s so good, he could fire the ball into the stands after a touchdown and beat his chest. And he could get away with it.

But for some reason, he never did. In the flash-and-dash, rock-and-roll front man world of football, he preferred to be the professor – bespectacled, soft spoken, modest and smart.

He liked to thank his offensive line. He loved to thank his teammates. He always tipped his cap toward coaches and opponents.

Then you’d walk onto the field after a game, walk past his mother clutching something close to heart, watching him shake hands while she smiled the whole time.

And you’d walk past his dad, he always stayed his distance. Quiet. Smiling while looking at his son.

And now it’s done at Buffalo Gap. He moves on along with those 11 other seniors and, finally you figured it out.

He was doing what he wanted to do since he was in elementary school. He was playing football for the Bison.

He acted like he had been there before because, in his mind, there was no other place he belonged than on the football field, dressed in shoulder pads and a helmet in black, white and gold.

He was just Pickle Nuckols being, well, Pickle Nuckols.

Yeah, the season just ended Friday. But go ahead and admit it: You miss him already.

Don’t worry. You’re not the only one. We guarantee it.