The Brothers Nicholls — Alex and Jack: Teammates, roommates, friends ... and national champions

By JON KLEINKNECHT

Inquirer Sports Editor

sports@galioninquirer.com

Los­ing wasn’t an option for the Nicholls brothers.

Just six days ago, Alex and Jack — the sons of Mike and Melinda Nicholls of Galion — were on the field with their Mount Union foot­ball team­mates cel­e­brat­ing a 28–10 win over St. Thomas in the Stagg Bowl, the Divi­sion III national cham­pi­onship game.

For Alex — a senior defen­sive back for the Pur­ple Raiders — it was the final chance to win a national title. Each of the three pre­vi­ous sea­sons ended with dis­ap­point­ing losses at the hands of Wisconsin-Whitewater in the Stagg Bowl. Had the Pur­ple Raiders not won last week, Alex would have been part of the only senior class in 20-plus years to have not claimed a national championship.

“There was a lot of pres­sure on us, but it added a lit­tle more fuel,” said Alex, a 2009 grad­u­ate of Galion High School. “We didn’t want to be the first class to not win one. We knew how good we were, and we did every­thing we could in the weight room and the film room to get us what we wanted.”

Los­ing three national title games in a row was a hard pill to swal­low, espe­cially when those were the only three games the Pur­ple Raiders lost from 2009–2011.

The wait for the hopes of the next sea­son being “the one” seemed to get longer fol­low­ing each defeat.

“We went out with a bit­ter taste and we just wanted to get started up again,” the for­mer GHS star ath­lete said. “We stayed focused and kept putting in the time. Los­ing again wasn’t even considered.”

Mount Union is the most sto­ried NCAA Divi­sion III foot­ball pro­gram in the nation.

In 27 years with Larry Kehres as the head coach, the Pur­ple Raiders have won 11 national cham­pi­onships and played in 16 Stagg Bowls. Kehres’ record at the Alliance uni­ver­sity is eye-popping. The Pur­ple Raiders have gone 332–24-3 under his lead­er­ship, a phe­nom­e­nal win­ning per­cent­age of .929, eas­ily the best in all of col­lege foot­ball, regard­less of the divi­sion. Only 24 losses in 27 sea­sons. Think about that for a moment and try not shak­ing your head in astonishment.

Mem­bers of the 10-school Ohio Ath­letic Con­fer­ence, Mount Union has claimed 18 con­sec­u­tive OAC foot­ball cham­pi­onships. This season’s team was #1-ranked enter­ing the cam­paign. The Pur­ple Raiders crushed oppo­nent after oppo­nent, going 15–0, aver­ag­ing 52.8 points and 544 yards of total offense a game while yield­ing a norm of just 8.9 points and 182 yards.

This year’s scores read like some­thing a video games expert would rack up. The reg­u­lar sea­son was 45–7, 57–0, 52–0, 54–0, 66–0, 62–0, 51–0, 33–14, 38–7 and 59–17. Play­off games were 72–14, 55–13, 72–17, 48–35 and 28–10. In a 48–35 win over Hardin-Baylor in the semi­fi­nals, the Pur­ple Raiders trailed 28–14 going into the fourth quar­ter. They blasted their foe 34–7 in the final 15 min­utes to pull out a stun­ning victory.

“That one was great,” Alex chuck­led. “We were behind by 14 points and was on a mis­sion in the fourth quarter.”

Major­ing in exer­cise sci­ence with aspi­ra­tions of becom­ing a phys­i­cal ther­a­pist, Alex was asked why he chose to attend Mount Union.

“My cousin (Robert McDavid) played for them and grad­u­ated in ‘05,” he responded. “I had been to some of his games and wit­nessed the win­ning tra­di­tion. They were con­tact­ing me in high school. I couldn’t have made a bet­ter choice.”

In talk­ing about Larry Kehres, Alex said, “I think the world of him as a per­son and as a coach. He is a great men­tor. You can talk to him about any­thing. He’s really a hum­ble guy. He’s a wise per­son who gets play­ers who want to play.”

Some­thing else about the leg­endary coach is he does not cut play­ers from the pro­gram. Regard­less of tal­ent level, if a stu­dent wants to be on the team and is will­ing to put in the time required, he will be issued a uniform.

“His thought is every­body deserves to play foot­ball if they want to,” said Alex. “It’s not just about foot­ball with him. It’s about life lessons. I have so much respect for him.”

What was it like play­ing on the same team with his younger brother, Jack?

“We have a really good rela­tion­ship,” Alex answered. “It was such a bless­ing. We roomed together every year. He’s not just my brother, he’s my friend.”

Jack — a 2010 GHS grad­u­ate — was a junior wide receiver on this season’s squad. He caught 23 passes for 313 yards and 3 touch­downs. Like his older brother, Jack men­tioned watch­ing his cousin play at Mount Union as being a con­tribut­ing fac­tor in his deci­sion to attend school and play foot­ball there. “I went to my cousin’s games and I really liked the atmos­phere,” Jack said. “It came down to between Mount Union and Heidelberg.”

As was Alex, Jack was a quar­ter­back in high school. “I played some wide receiver when Alex was there, so I had a lit­tle bit of expe­ri­ence there,” he responded when asked if the tran­si­tion from high school quar­ter­back to col­lege wide receiver was a dif­fi­cult move.

A biol­ogy major who wants to go on to a post-graduate advanced nurs­ing pro­gram, Jack talked about being on the same team as his brother.

“It was really fun,” he stated. “In prac­tice, we got to go against each other and that was always fun,” adding that there was some trash-talking going on between the siblings.

As did Alex, Jack spoke highly of Larry Kehres.

“He’s a really good coach. Any­time, you can call him and talk to him about things. He’s really per­son­able and his focus is on Mount Union. Comin’ into the pro­gram, there might be a cou­ple of guys who are cocky. If they score a touch­down and cel­e­brate too much, he gets right in their face and tells them that’s not what Mount Union is about.”

In talk­ing about win­ning the national cham­pi­onship game, they both recalled what it was like when they real­ized the title was going to be theirs.

“I started to get excited toward the end of the game as we started to take a knee on offense,” said Alex. “I looked at the crowd and they were going crazy. It was almost like a dream. I was on cloud nine. After the game, Jack and I gave each other a big hug. I think I picked him up. How many peo­ple can win a national cham­pi­onship and play with their brother?”

Jack said, “The point in the game for me was there were about two min­utes left, we were up by 18, they had the ball at about the 50 on fourth down and punted. I was really happy for our seniors. This group of seniors is a really great group of guys. We were a senior dom­i­nated team, and they pro­vided great lead­er­ship. We really wanted to win for them.”

The broth­ers also men­tioned the sup­port they received from fam­ily mem­bers as well as the Galion community.

“Our par­ents and grand­par­ents went to every game and that meant a lot,” Alex stated. “A lot of friends from Galion came up and sup­ported the team, too. That shows how much love they have for you.”

Jack said, “That meant a lot to have fam­ily mem­bers there and it was nice to be able to talk to them after the games. It was nice know­ing all the Galion peo­ple were behind us, too.”

Again talk­ing about the cham­pi­onship game, Alex did some reflect­ing. “That was the last time Jack and I will ever play together. We’ve been team­mates since we were kids. It was a great way to go out.”

Posted by Jon Kleinknecht on Dec 20 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.