In Suh, An American Tale
- Thread starter omahapanda
- Start date
knapplc
International Man of Mystery
Ndamukong Suh walked out of a low tunnel and into the night, fat raindrops slipping through crevices in the bleachers to a ramp underneath the bowels of Faurot Field, where 30 or so reporters leaned against weather-beaten metal rails, waiting for the man who'd just firmly put his name in the Heisman Trophy race.
Nebraska had beaten Missouri 27-12, and Suh was the primary reason, having injured Mizzou quarterback Blaine Gabbert on an extraordinary sack-and-strip, and later intercepted Gabbert in the fourth quarter to set up NU's go-ahead touchdown.
It was late, almost midnight. And the air was cold - yet thick and humid from the downpour. Suh walked out, shirtless, and it is a sign of our weird, modern fear of intimacy that nobody chose to write about this striking image. Suh without pads, is enormous, his arms so dense and massive they recall elephant trunks. The rest of his torso is a barrel without three ounces of extra lard on it.
For a man with fair-to-decent technique, it's this upper body, this gladiatorial build, that is the source of his greatness on the college level. He has been taught well, it's true. He is surrounded by smart, tough teammates on the defensive line. And football, these days, is coached by film rats, coffee junkies and guys so bleary-eyed and dedicated to their craft that they can't bother to get out of their sweatshirts for gameday. The Brothers Pelini have, in their tireless effort, engineering a fast, angry-looking sportscar fit for the Autobahn, and given No. 93 first crack at the wheel.
But only God could scheme the strength of Suh. Football is still comprised of men – in college especially, where the romance of the sport hangs on despite ESPN's best efforts to kill it – who are preordained to physically dominate. On a misty night in Columbia, Suh was Leviathan, who found the conditions suitable for landfall. And he inflicted massive damage.
As it turned out, he needed a t-shirt, and had to head to the team bus to get it. Nebraska fans lined up around the perimeter fence – and on the stadium ramos above the scene – catcalled “Suuuh”, as they often do.
The best player in college football - who owns the 2009 Outland, Lombardi, Nagurski and Bednarik Trophies - didn't much notice. Like most of this season – indeed, like most of his play on the field – Suh just kept looking forward, driving ahead, kicking at the rhetorical palm branches laid in his path.
Nebraska almost rode his coattails to an improbable Big 12 Championship. With Suh as the steam engine, the Huskers fought to within one second of beating Texas. On that stage, with the nation watching, with glitzy UT fans already planning for their weeks of hook'em, hookah and stargzaing in Pasadena, Suh humbled the proceedings. To the wise fan, Suh – not the game, not Colt McCoy, not the controversial ending – will be the lasting story of this NU season, and that night. The picture of his strength, and his refusal to celebrate those individual achievements in the moment, are rare by themselves, even rarer coupled together.
Suh was a man who did his job, thanklessly, yet incredibly. We could learn something from it.
Week after week, he would serve as spokesman of Nebraska's football team at press conferences. He'd arrive early, talk on the phone for an hour to out-of-town reporters, do the 20-minute roundtable, and then conduct one-on-one interviews, too. Often the same questions.
And Suh's not a raconteur, either. He just isn't. Some would clamor for more emotion, humor, excitement. Suh, steadfastly, did not provide it. His head coach, Bo Pelini, would follow suit, underselling his best player – the best he's ever coached - at the behest, I suspect, of Suh.
Though not an immigrant himself, Suh is son of two – dad Michael, from Cameroon, and mom Bernadette, from Jamaica – and that's where the humility, the sense of purpose, of monotonous, everyday focus – comes from. They sought an education and future in America, carved it out over many decades, and simply made it work. Ndamukong carries that spirit in his play.
Every Heisman finalist has an American tale, of course, but Suh has an amazing one that will become, more and more, the success story of the 21st Century: That of the immigrant, and his/her children, forging their way in a country where too many of us have grown fat on our own culture, lazy when it comes to our own potential. We are too aware of our limitations, and equally too aware of others' successes. We define ourselves by our interior monologue – the movies we see, the mags we read, the music we like, the food we eat, the booze we drink, the stuff we consume – with Facebook lists and blog posts and Ipod chats and all the rest.
Many immigrants define themselves by the fruits of their labor. By what they've done. And what they've produced. And how their children turn out.
Football – hell, sports in general – still adheres to that mindset. Winning and losing is still about performance. Sports hold too great of a sway in our nation, but they do so almost unwittingly – it's not the fault of coaches and players that we're desperately caught in stasis, and seek to live vicariously through those who trudge out on a frigid afternoon, on frozen grass, to carry and throw and kick around a football and keep score as to who does it best.
But even football has succumbed to the disease, as “specialists” are the order of the day in the pro game. You don't have one tight end who blocks and catches. You have three who do one thing well. You have third-down blitz specialists, third-down pass-catching specialists, dime corners, slot guys, bunch sets, guys to run inside and guys to run outside. You don't have “defensive tackles,” you have “techniques,” guys whose primary role is to, quite simply, to prevent a hole from forming in a line. Only brave men need apply for such jobs, of course, but still – the well-rounded player, especially in the trenches, often remains elusive.
So there's a wonderful ignorance, in some sense, to that reality in Suh's playing style. He doesn't know what he can't do and hasn't been taught to keep his skills in check.
Alabama's Terrence Cody, for example, is a big, fat, strong guy who plugs up the middle and occasionally make a big tackle behind the line of scrimmage. That's what he does. That's all he does. And he'll get paid handsomely in the NFL, for many years, to do that one thing.
Suh makes plays defensive tackles aren't expected or required to make, plays Cody wouldn't dream or even think of making. The interceptions. The deft recognition of screen passes. The backside pursuit tackles downfield, which saved more than one first down this year. The chicken fights he'll occasionally engage in with quarterbacks, where he mirrors their moves and cages them in until a teammate arrives.
In the NFL, you can almost bet, some dumb coach will try to drum those instincts out of Suh. In fact, Suh, now that he's reached the mountaintop of the college game, is likely to see some backlash. Between now and April, pundits and scouts will silently, and on rare occasion publicly, pick at his skills. You'll see a painful debate over whether Suh is a prototypical defensive tackle in a 4-3 or an end in the 3-4. You'll hear “he can't make those plays in the NFL.”
And those conversations aren't useless, per se. But a wise coach will build a defense around Suh's unique talents, instead of trying to slam him into a certain mold.
Sadly, NFL coaches aren't always so smart.
Neither are Heisman voters.
Suh probably isn't going to win the trophy Saturday night, even in the face of overwhelming evidence that he should, because the award's inane tradition of honoring offensive players, meathead voters on the East Coast and the television side of ESPN going into full-blown-Mark Ingram-or-Toby Gerhart mode in the hours after the Big 12 title game.
ESPN's writers, borne of the newspaper business, didn't take the bait, but once it became clear that Colt McCoy wasn't getting the vote, Ingram, a solid-but-unspectacular sophomore from Alabama, starting getting the push. (Lou Holtz curiously went from voting for McCoy on Sunday to picking Ingram by Wednesday.) Never mind that the obvious strength of the Tide is its defense, or that quarterback Greg McElroy, not Ingram, was the primary offensive difference-maker in wins over Auburn and Florida.
That Suh reached New York is reward in itself. ESPN always produces one whale of a show, and Suh's story will get proper treatment. Recruits will watch. Husker Nation, for the first time since 2001, will be raptly attentive on a mid-December Saturday night. And head coach Bo Pelini, arguably the preeminent defensive mind in college football along with Nick Saban, will get a little face time, too.
As will Suh's parents, and good for that. They are, like all parents, a huge part of the story. If you've met No. 93, you sense a respect and reserve about him. It makes that scene in the tunnel at Missouri all the more potent. Husker fans should won't forget this serious, focus-forward man. Teams tried to stop him. They tried everything. But they couldn't. He tackled with one arm. He pursued to the sideline. When thwarted at the line of scrimmage, he threw up his hands to bat the ball down. When they ran away from him, Suh tracked down them all the same. For two years, he was an inescapable, implacable enemy to opposing offenses.
Like his parents' journey to America, Suh's rapid ascendance, and eventual domination, was, well, kind of like a miracle. Forged one incredible play at a time.
Nebraska had beaten Missouri 27-12, and Suh was the primary reason, having injured Mizzou quarterback Blaine Gabbert on an extraordinary sack-and-strip, and later intercepted Gabbert in the fourth quarter to set up NU's go-ahead touchdown.
It was late, almost midnight. And the air was cold - yet thick and humid from the downpour. Suh walked out, shirtless, and it is a sign of our weird, modern fear of intimacy that nobody chose to write about this striking image. Suh without pads, is enormous, his arms so dense and massive they recall elephant trunks. The rest of his torso is a barrel without three ounces of extra lard on it.
For a man with fair-to-decent technique, it's this upper body, this gladiatorial build, that is the source of his greatness on the college level. He has been taught well, it's true. He is surrounded by smart, tough teammates on the defensive line. And football, these days, is coached by film rats, coffee junkies and guys so bleary-eyed and dedicated to their craft that they can't bother to get out of their sweatshirts for gameday. The Brothers Pelini have, in their tireless effort, engineering a fast, angry-looking sportscar fit for the Autobahn, and given No. 93 first crack at the wheel.
But only God could scheme the strength of Suh. Football is still comprised of men – in college especially, where the romance of the sport hangs on despite ESPN's best efforts to kill it – who are preordained to physically dominate. On a misty night in Columbia, Suh was Leviathan, who found the conditions suitable for landfall. And he inflicted massive damage.
As it turned out, he needed a t-shirt, and had to head to the team bus to get it. Nebraska fans lined up around the perimeter fence – and on the stadium ramos above the scene – catcalled “Suuuh”, as they often do.
The best player in college football - who owns the 2009 Outland, Lombardi, Nagurski and Bednarik Trophies - didn't much notice. Like most of this season – indeed, like most of his play on the field – Suh just kept looking forward, driving ahead, kicking at the rhetorical palm branches laid in his path.
Nebraska almost rode his coattails to an improbable Big 12 Championship. With Suh as the steam engine, the Huskers fought to within one second of beating Texas. On that stage, with the nation watching, with glitzy UT fans already planning for their weeks of hook'em, hookah and stargzaing in Pasadena, Suh humbled the proceedings. To the wise fan, Suh – not the game, not Colt McCoy, not the controversial ending – will be the lasting story of this NU season, and that night. The picture of his strength, and his refusal to celebrate those individual achievements in the moment, are rare by themselves, even rarer coupled together.
Suh was a man who did his job, thanklessly, yet incredibly. We could learn something from it.
Week after week, he would serve as spokesman of Nebraska's football team at press conferences. He'd arrive early, talk on the phone for an hour to out-of-town reporters, do the 20-minute roundtable, and then conduct one-on-one interviews, too. Often the same questions.
And Suh's not a raconteur, either. He just isn't. Some would clamor for more emotion, humor, excitement. Suh, steadfastly, did not provide it. His head coach, Bo Pelini, would follow suit, underselling his best player – the best he's ever coached - at the behest, I suspect, of Suh.
Though not an immigrant himself, Suh is son of two – dad Michael, from Cameroon, and mom Bernadette, from Jamaica – and that's where the humility, the sense of purpose, of monotonous, everyday focus – comes from. They sought an education and future in America, carved it out over many decades, and simply made it work. Ndamukong carries that spirit in his play.
Every Heisman finalist has an American tale, of course, but Suh has an amazing one that will become, more and more, the success story of the 21st Century: That of the immigrant, and his/her children, forging their way in a country where too many of us have grown fat on our own culture, lazy when it comes to our own potential. We are too aware of our limitations, and equally too aware of others' successes. We define ourselves by our interior monologue – the movies we see, the mags we read, the music we like, the food we eat, the booze we drink, the stuff we consume – with Facebook lists and blog posts and Ipod chats and all the rest.
Many immigrants define themselves by the fruits of their labor. By what they've done. And what they've produced. And how their children turn out.
Football – hell, sports in general – still adheres to that mindset. Winning and losing is still about performance. Sports hold too great of a sway in our nation, but they do so almost unwittingly – it's not the fault of coaches and players that we're desperately caught in stasis, and seek to live vicariously through those who trudge out on a frigid afternoon, on frozen grass, to carry and throw and kick around a football and keep score as to who does it best.
But even football has succumbed to the disease, as “specialists” are the order of the day in the pro game. You don't have one tight end who blocks and catches. You have three who do one thing well. You have third-down blitz specialists, third-down pass-catching specialists, dime corners, slot guys, bunch sets, guys to run inside and guys to run outside. You don't have “defensive tackles,” you have “techniques,” guys whose primary role is to, quite simply, to prevent a hole from forming in a line. Only brave men need apply for such jobs, of course, but still – the well-rounded player, especially in the trenches, often remains elusive.
So there's a wonderful ignorance, in some sense, to that reality in Suh's playing style. He doesn't know what he can't do and hasn't been taught to keep his skills in check.
Alabama's Terrence Cody, for example, is a big, fat, strong guy who plugs up the middle and occasionally make a big tackle behind the line of scrimmage. That's what he does. That's all he does. And he'll get paid handsomely in the NFL, for many years, to do that one thing.
Suh makes plays defensive tackles aren't expected or required to make, plays Cody wouldn't dream or even think of making. The interceptions. The deft recognition of screen passes. The backside pursuit tackles downfield, which saved more than one first down this year. The chicken fights he'll occasionally engage in with quarterbacks, where he mirrors their moves and cages them in until a teammate arrives.
In the NFL, you can almost bet, some dumb coach will try to drum those instincts out of Suh. In fact, Suh, now that he's reached the mountaintop of the college game, is likely to see some backlash. Between now and April, pundits and scouts will silently, and on rare occasion publicly, pick at his skills. You'll see a painful debate over whether Suh is a prototypical defensive tackle in a 4-3 or an end in the 3-4. You'll hear “he can't make those plays in the NFL.”
And those conversations aren't useless, per se. But a wise coach will build a defense around Suh's unique talents, instead of trying to slam him into a certain mold.
Sadly, NFL coaches aren't always so smart.
Neither are Heisman voters.
Suh probably isn't going to win the trophy Saturday night, even in the face of overwhelming evidence that he should, because the award's inane tradition of honoring offensive players, meathead voters on the East Coast and the television side of ESPN going into full-blown-Mark Ingram-or-Toby Gerhart mode in the hours after the Big 12 title game.
ESPN's writers, borne of the newspaper business, didn't take the bait, but once it became clear that Colt McCoy wasn't getting the vote, Ingram, a solid-but-unspectacular sophomore from Alabama, starting getting the push. (Lou Holtz curiously went from voting for McCoy on Sunday to picking Ingram by Wednesday.) Never mind that the obvious strength of the Tide is its defense, or that quarterback Greg McElroy, not Ingram, was the primary offensive difference-maker in wins over Auburn and Florida.
That Suh reached New York is reward in itself. ESPN always produces one whale of a show, and Suh's story will get proper treatment. Recruits will watch. Husker Nation, for the first time since 2001, will be raptly attentive on a mid-December Saturday night. And head coach Bo Pelini, arguably the preeminent defensive mind in college football along with Nick Saban, will get a little face time, too.
As will Suh's parents, and good for that. They are, like all parents, a huge part of the story. If you've met No. 93, you sense a respect and reserve about him. It makes that scene in the tunnel at Missouri all the more potent. Husker fans should won't forget this serious, focus-forward man. Teams tried to stop him. They tried everything. But they couldn't. He tackled with one arm. He pursued to the sideline. When thwarted at the line of scrimmage, he threw up his hands to bat the ball down. When they ran away from him, Suh tracked down them all the same. For two years, he was an inescapable, implacable enemy to opposing offenses.
Like his parents' journey to America, Suh's rapid ascendance, and eventual domination, was, well, kind of like a miracle. Forged one incredible play at a time.
Husker Richard
Starter
wow. excellent read.
HuskerfaninOkieland
Heisman Trophy Winner
That was an outstanding read! That has to be one of the best commentary's Sam has written.
One thing that stuck out for me...
To the wise fan, Suh – not the game, not Colt McCoy, not the controversial ending – will be the lasting story of this NU season, and that night.
One thing that stuck out for me...
To the wise fan, Suh – not the game, not Colt McCoy, not the controversial ending – will be the lasting story of this NU season, and that night.