University of Notre Dame

Eric Nelson’s chances of playing football at Notre Dame almost ended before they started.

Two weeks before he started his sophomore year, Nelson asked some men at a party not to smoke in his friend’s house. Rather than extinguishing their cigarettes, they attacked Nelson with a baseball bat.

“The next thing I knew I was on the ground trying to get back up,” Nelson said.

The now-senior suffered a concussion, a cut above his eye and a bruised brain. Two weeks before school started --- and hopefully his first season as a Notre Dame walk-on football player --- Nelson’s chances of playing football seemed slim.

“I wasn’t sure I was going to be able to play that year,” he said. “It was going to be questionable if I was going to be able to play.”

But he wasn’t about to let a little bruising on his brain stop him. Even though his words were slurred from the brain damage, he was back in the gym working out and getting ready for a fall tryout. Quitting football “never crossed [my] mind.”

Nelson first started trying to make the team in the spring of his freshman year. He was given a work out by then-coordinator of football operations Bob Chmiel and told that when returned in the fall, he would be on the team.

But things didn’t quite work out when he returned.

Rather than getting a spot on the team when he returned to campus, he was told he had to try-out again. But the try-out never was scheduled. It was canceled and pushed back repeatedly until finally Chmiel told Nelson to just come back in the spring and try out again.

Even though his dreams of playing for the Irish were put on hold, Nelson didn’t stop playing football. He continued playing for the Keenan Hall intramural team. But even though the Knights were very successful --- they won the championship when Nelson was a freshman and lost in the first round of the playoffs as a sophomore --- interhall football wasn’t satisfying enough for Nelson.

“I felt like if I am at Notre Dame, I might as well try to walk-on and play football,” he said. “Intramurals is football but I love football so much and with intramurals you only practice so many times. It’s just not the same.”

Nelson’s walk-on attempt in February 2000 was much more successful. He made the team and took part in spring drills.

“It was exciting. I couldn’t believe it,” Nelson said. “The first time I walked into the locker room, it was like ‘Wow, this is the Notre Dame locker room. I can’t believe I am in here.’ I’d seen it on TV but you don’t think you are going to have anything to do with that.”

For two years, Nelson has gone to practice every day and worked out with the scout team. Day after day he plays fullback and runs that week’s opponent’s offense. There is little glory and almost no chance that he will ever see the field in a real game. But Nelson doesn’t mind, he just wants to play football.

“I just like to play,” he said. “Everyday I go to practice, I am playing football. None of my other friends are playing football but here I am, a senior in college and I am playing Division 1 football.”

Nelson doesn’t just play football, he plays hard. Both his coaches and teammates describe him as a “hard nosed player.”

“Eric has done a great job,” said graduate assistant Dennis Moynihan, who works with the scout offense. “He’s been working at fullback and he’s really done a nice job for us.”

Injuries have never stopped Nelson from keeping up his hard-hitting play. Despite breaking his arm his junior year, he was back on the field in a cast after missing just one practice.

“That wasn’t so bad,” he said.

During practice, Nelson said he can’t even feel pain. Only after practice in the shower and on the walk home do the bumps and bruises catch up with you. And while he can tolerate the pain, he definitely won’t miss it.

“I guess the only thing I will miss about football is the headaches,” Nelson joked.

What he will miss, however, is his teammates and the friends he has made through football.

“You go to practice and you are with the guys who are going through the exact same stuff you are going through every day,” he said. “It’s like a companionship … They know what I have to go through every day.”

Nelson’s dedication to the team without any chance of getting into a game is inspiring according to fellow walk-on Chad DeBolt. DeBolt plays on the scout defense but also gets into the games on Saturday as a special teams player.

“It’s a hard thing to sacrifice and not be selfish,” DeBolt said. “Those guys exemplify college sports.”

Nelson would probably just shrug off that praise. After all, he just wanted to play football and not a bruised brain, a broken arm or a glory-less role on the scout team was going to stop him.