WR Niles Paul

[BIGREDIOWAN]

I don't think this kid is going anywhere else, but Nebraska

[Eric the Red]

 

 

The granddaddy of them all is 'N'

[BIGREDIOWAN]

[Blackshirtsguru]

THANK GOD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[BIGREDFAN_in_OMAHA]

Welcome Mr Nebraska Football! The future is bright!!!!

 

[Eric the Red]

Niles Paul

WR 6-1 210 Omaha, Neb. - Omaha North HS

“The best thing is, you can have goals as an individual, but when a player hits that field, it’s all about the team. That’s how Nebraska plays; as a team and they never give up.”

[DJR313]

Can't wait to see this kid in action. Welcome aboard Niles!

[Eric the Red]

NU Football: Paul is a man on the move

 

BY DIRK CHATELAIN

WORLD-HERALD STAFF WRITER

 

 

Niles Paul said his father finally allowed him to get a tattoo of his mother on his arm. His brother has a matching one.

The Omaha North senior, the state's most ballyhooed recruit in five years, is no easy catch. He can run like his uncle, and he never stays in one place for long.

 

You want to chase Niles Paul?

 

Better rise before the sun. Many mornings at 6, he's fixing breakfast for 45 ankle-biters at his auntie's daycare. He needs to work, Auntie Kim says, and he's busy after school.

 

It's after school - 1:30 p.m. on Monday - two days before Paul commits his football future to Nebraska, the place he told his mother he wanted to play a long, long time ago. Paul has compiled a 3.8 grade point average and the necessary credits to get home in time for "Guiding Light."

 

Instead, he is still at school - somewhere. Principal Gene Haynes grabs his portable two-way radio.

 

"Has anyone seen Niles Paul?"

 

Weight room, an anonymous voice confirms.

 

Click to Enlarge

 

This cross contains his mother's ashes.

"Brother Payton," Haynes declares, will show you the way. Brother Payton is a sophomore at North and played football with Niles. Brother Payton says Niles kept everyone focused during those days when 16-year-old minds start drifting. Should've known Niles was in the weight room, Brother Payton says; Niles is always in the weight room.

 

Down steps and past lockers, past doors and down hallways. Here we are, Brother Payton says: weight room. He directs you to the boy with thick shoulders, goatee, studearrings and gray Green Bay Packers shirt, the boy you'd pick out if searching for a Division I wide receiver, the one whose face resembles another Omaha teen who signed with Nebraska 12 years ago.

 

"I'm Niles."

 

But chasing Niles Paul does not end here.

 

You'd have to go to Auntie Kim's and the house on 24th Street and the University of Nebraska Medical Center. You'd have to go east to Virginia, west to California, north to Wisconsin, south to Texas. You're going to have to move quickly, because events come unexpected and responses, as Paul has learned, determine what happens next.

 

So you want to chase Niles Paul? You may have to go back to his seventh-grade science project.

 

 

 

The competitor

 

He was the kid who took home papers or tests and double-checked the teachers' corrections, scouring the page for something to argue. He challenges friends to eating competitions. He's leading the state in rebounding with a dislocated finger.

 

In 1992, Nicki Paul bought his three sons a bike for Christmas. Niles has two older brothers, 5 and 7 years old at the time. One day Nicki looked outside and saw that one of his boys had become first to ride without training wheels: 3-year-old Niles.

 

"He doesn't like to lose at marbles," said Jimmy Smith, longtime Omaha track coach and a Paul family friend.

 

Soon after, a heralded freshman from Omaha named Ahman Green, Nicki Paul's brother and Niles' uncle, burst onto the scene at Nebraska. Niles was just 6, but he visited Memorial Stadium. He watched Green closely.

 

"One play he carried like eight dudes on his back to get a first down," Paul says. "He wouldn't be stopped."

 

 

A promise

 

One day Paul told his mom, he'd wear red, too. And then he'd make the NFL. And then he'd buy her a big house. He promised her. He owed her that for buying him toys all the times Dad said no.

 

Niles didn't know she was sick with Hepatitis B, a disease that ravages the liver. During the next seven years, Marjorie Paul would sink into hepatic comas during which she blanked out and didn't recognize her family. Who are you? she asked Niles. Do I know you?

 

She would endure two liver transplants. Both failed.

 

The Monday morning before the 2002 Super Bowl, doctors called again. They had another liver. One more try.

 

She asked Niles, a seventh-grader, if he wanted to skip school and go to the hospital with her. He chose classes, then basketball practice. He returned to his Auntie Kim's house that night. His uncle was crying.

 

What is it? Niles asked.

 

Is it Mom? No answer.

 

"It's so clear in my head," Niles says.

 

They drove to UNMC. Niles walked down a long hallway to her room. His oldest brother was crying - Nicki Jr. had never cried. Family surrounded the bed.

 

She was never conscious to say goodbye. In a matter of minutes she was gone.

 

Without her, things snapped. The oldest brother, Nicki Jr., rebelled against Dad. Some nights he came home and Niles barely recognized his personality.

 

"(Nicki Jr.) just gave up," Niles says. "I didn't want to go down that path."

 

"Niles knew his mother was gone," Dad says. "And he was hurting, but he just never quit. It was almost like it didn't even happen."

 

The previous summer, at the 2001 Junior Olympics in Sacramento, Calif., Niles had finished second in the 80-meter high hurdles. The medal - and losing Mom - motivated him to push harder. Each day, he executed pushups and sit-ups. He jumped onto and over boxes. He sprinted. Nicki pushed his kids to get stronger and faster.

 

His oldest son resisted, sensing the pressure and turning away. Niles listened.

 

"I didn't even have to say anything else to him," father Nicki said. "He just did it on his own."

 

 

 

Moving away

 

As Niles blossomed in the athletic arena, things at home were spiraling downward.

 

Within a year of Marjorie's death, Nicki remarried and moved the family to be with his new wife in Newport News, Va. Niles didn't like her. He didn't even want to talk to her.

 

"I didn't recognize her as my stepmom," Niles said.

 

In Newport News, an area where the likes of Allen Iverson and Michael Vick starred in high school, Paul made the basketball varsity team as a freshman. He flourished in track. Football? He wasn't interested.

 

But less than two years after leaving Omaha, his father saw his marriage collapse. They considered staying in Virginia, but Auntie Kim got on the phone and ordered them back immediately. Families stick together.

 

Everyone close to Niles had attended Omaha Central, but he and his dad chose North because it felt more personal. There was one other factor: avoiding Ahman's shadow.

 

That's why he had switched from running back to wideout in Pop Warner. That's why he hesitated to pursue football, even as a sophomore. People called him "Little Ahman."

 

"I didn't want anything handed to me," Paul said.

 

By October of his junior year, he had earned a Nebraska scholarship offer. This time he ran toward Ahman. Last summer, Green invited Paul to work out with the Packers in Green Bay before training camp.

 

There, Paul learned tricks of the trade. He caught passes that stung his hands. He watched the way Donald Driver disguised patterns. He returned to Omaha and told his dad it felt like the game was moving in slow motion.

 

His senior season, Paul caught 46 passes for 814 yards and 13 touchdowns.

 

By the time he left for the Army All-American Bowl in San Antonio last month, he was already considered one of NU's top recruits. Paul, however, wondered how his talent matched up against the nation's best. He impressed experts with his size and route running. The 6-foot-1, 215-pounder led the victorious North squad in receptions.

 

"It really surprised me," Nicki Paul said. "It showed he could compete against anybody."

 

The brothers still talk often about Mom - grief doesn't end at five years. Dad's getting married again to a woman who lives down the street. She's got three kids at North. Niles talks to her all the time.

 

"I call her my stepmom already," Niles says.

 

Nicki Jr. and brother Neville, meanwhile, have steady jobs, but they rarely miss games or track meets. They surely won't miss Nebraska games. Paul intends to compete immediately for receptions.

 

"I don't want to sit."

 

That's essentially what he told his father five years ago last week. Niles was a sixth-grader at King Science Center when his dinosaur project won first place at the science fair. He aimed to defend his title by demonstrating Double-A battery voltage.

 

But then Mom died the week before the presentation. Family members scheduled the funeral the morning of the competition. Immediately after the service, Paul told his dad he wanted to go present his project.

 

Dad made him go home, and the project finished second.

 

Wednesday morning in the Omaha North auditorium, where moments earlier Paul has just made official his commitment to Nebraska, he reflected on that decision. He laughed. Had the judges just seen his presentation, he said, no way he finishes second.

 

He's been chasing first ever since.

[Eric the Red]

[huskerguy]

That was great I hope he gets some playing time this season, if not I see him taking over Terrence Nunn's role the next year.

[Alex 4.0]

taking Nunn's role? nah, I don't think so, that would require at least 3 dropped balls a game, I think he has better hands than that.

[Axl_sued_me]

To be honest, I watched a few Omaha North games last year and I wasn't really that impressed with his speed. From what I have seen, his game speed is not close to being what his 40 time is. I was more impressed with Phillip Bates. I'm looking forward to scouting Collins Okafor this year.

[BIGREDFAN_in_OMAHA]

To be honest, I watched a few Omaha North games last year and I wasn't really that impressed with his speed. From what I have seen, his game speed is not close to being what his 40 time is. I was more impressed with Phillip Bates. I'm looking forward to scouting Collins Okafor this year.

Yeah he only carried his FIVE MAN track team on his back last year to WIN state. He doesn't have any speed.

 

He'll do just fine at Nebraska.

 

True that Bates made some impressive runs scrambling but if he was a better passing QB he could have got the ball more to Paul when he was DOUBLE and TRIPLE covered. Or maybe hit the open guy more often.

[NU fan in Denver]

To be honest, I watched a few Omaha North games last year and I wasn't really that impressed with his speed. From what I have seen, his game speed is not close to being what his 40 time is. I was more impressed with Phillip Bates. I'm looking forward to scouting Collins Okafor this year.

Yeah he only carried his FIVE MAN track team on his back last year to WIN state. He doesn't have any speed.

 

He'll do just fine at Nebraska.

 

True that Bates made some impressive runs scrambling but if he was a better passing QB he could have got the ball more to Paul when he was DOUBLE and TRIPLE covered. Or maybe hit the open guy more often.

 

yeah, but that is track speed w/o the 20lbs of pads on. I've never seen him play, but there is a difference between track speed and football speed.

[BIGREDFAN_in_OMAHA]

To be honest, I watched a few Omaha North games last year and I wasn't really that impressed with his speed. From what I have seen, his game speed is not close to being what his 40 time is. I was more impressed with Phillip Bates. I'm looking forward to scouting Collins Okafor this year.

Yeah he only carried his FIVE MAN track team on his back last year to WIN state. He doesn't have any speed.

 

He'll do just fine at Nebraska.

 

True that Bates made some impressive runs scrambling but if he was a better passing QB he could have got the ball more to Paul when he was DOUBLE and TRIPLE covered. Or maybe hit the open guy more often.

 

yeah, but that is track speed w/o the 20lbs of pads on. I've never seen him play, but there is a difference between track speed and football speed.

He'll be able to show it in a few weeks