Nick Bender Feature
10/23/2000 12:00:00 AM | Football
Oct. 23, 2000
Welcome to the zone, where the cheers of 40,000 football fans don't exist... until the moment of impact. It's the very moment Nick Bender lives for. It is the moment when his hurling body hits the body of his opponent so hard that the "smack" between the hitting of pads and the "thud" of the ball carrier hitting the turf seem only milliseconds apart. It's a bone-jarring affair that Bender says he feels more than he hears. Nonetheless it's the ultimate football high in his opinion.
"You start making plays and you get into a flow, and then you feel like you can do anything," Bender said. "You jump around, you're getting everybody fired up, and you don't even think about having to breathe. You're out there having a good time laying it all on the line."
Football is perfect world, according to Bender. The fifth-year senior linebacker plays the game as though his opponents are faceless, nameless. And the players always decide the outcome. "Regardless of who is on the team, their names are insignificant. Every week you line up across from each other and the score is 0-0, and the clock starts, and the best team always wins that week. It's so pure. The team that works the hardest and plays the best together is going to win. You get a clean slate every week, so to me it's a perfect world."
The experience is all about the journey through four quarters in an attempt to earn superiority for a day while cleaning a few clocks along the way.
"My parents always tell me, 'We always yell for you, can you hear us?' I never hear people in the crowd, but when I hit somebody and the whole crowd goes 'oooohhh,' I can feel that, and I love it. I feed off it. I try to do it every play. When the crowd recognizes you hitting somebody, that means you're doing it right."
The secret of Nick Bender's success is that he doesn't mind getting his hands dirty. Some of that can be attributed to the culture in which he grew up. But there is no denying the senior linebacker has emerged a leader, not just by default, but by hard work. Bender was the team's leading tackler entering the Deacons' Oct. 21 game at Maryland, and chances are he will be at the top of the tackle list the entire season.
Bender is a senior citizen compared with most of his teammates, and he is playing like the seasoned veteran the coaching staff had hoped for. "It's a little different here this year," head coach Jim Caldwell of Wake Forest said. "In the past, we've had several guys with us who have been in their fifth year, but now he is one of the few. He's an important leader on the field, and he sets a great example off the field as well. Two years ago when we suffered a lot of injuries, he got quite a bit of playing time. He is a guy we rely on now to set the defense. He's kind of like the quarterback back there. Some of the younger guys look to him to set the tempo in practice. He's all day. He sets a very good tempo out there in practice, and he's the kind of guy you love coaching."
The high-voltage Bender already has more tackles in six games this season than he had in 21 games over the previous two seasons. He had a team-leading 11 tackles in both the Virginia and Vanderbilt games and is a proven hit man in the open field. He is one of just three seniors that were in the starting lineup in the season opener, and he rightfully relishes his role as team captain, veteran and player-coach.
"One thing Coach (Theo) Lemon has said lately that made me think a little bit is not to take for granted being on the first team defense. I realized I could never possibly do that because I've worked for the past four years to get where I am. What it comes down to is knowing what you want and going after it."
Bender has played three different linebacker positions during his five years at Wake Forest, and he says it has given him a more in-depth understanding of the overall defense. "It's amazing how every year with it you realize more and more things and it just all comes together. Right now, I feel like I know it well enough to teach it." And Bender does teach it to the freshmen and sophomores that make up the majority of the 2000 team.
Wake Forest's 0-6 start has been difficult for the entire program but a little more frustrating for the proud 11 seniors on this year's roster. Those seniors experienced the step-by-step process of building last year's bowl team. Now, it's almost like starting over.
"It's been tougher getting off to the start we got off to this year," Bender said. "I know what we've got works. If we run it right and have faith in each other and our coaches, we'd be winning right now."
But Bender has yet to accept defeat and recently took the initiative to set the record straight among his teammates. He admits that with losing comes tension, arguing and the kinds of self-destructive feelings that lead to further defeat.
"We had a squad meeting and it was the first time I ever sat in front of the team by myself," Bender said. "Before practice or after meetings usually the captains or seniors will walk up front and start talking. It wasn't for any one particular reason, but I was the only one who came up. I sat down in the chair. It wasn't a planned speech. I said what I wanted to say, and that opened it up and got guys to talk to each other.
"We just had to get a lot of things out in the open. Basically it came down to we always talk about being a family, but after practice we all go our own ways. We needed to back up our words."
Character-building actions like that recent encounter have not only earned the respect of his younger teammates, but the respect of his classmates. "We've been here five year together, and we came in as linebackers," defensive end Bryan Ray said. "He's a rah-rah guy and a great special teams player. He got his shot to play linebacker this year and he's doing a great job. He's waited his turn and been patient. A lot of guys wouldn't have stuck it out, but it's paying off for him this year. We're the old folks out there. We tease each other in the huddle, but keep each other up out there. He kind of feeds off of me, and vice versa... I'm glad he's on my side."
Bender has spent many recent Monday nights at the home of Dr. John Litcher, a professor and one of his mentors in the education department. Litcher and Bender go out to the pond and fish. Fishing and hunting were a part Bender's life growing up in Nazareth, Pa., a small town community close to the Poconos and about a one-hour drive north of Philadelphia. Bender has been hunting since the age of 12 and calls himself a true outdoorsman. Nazareth is known for Mario Andretti, the Martin Guitar Factory and the Lone Star Cement Mill, where several of Bender's relatives have worked.
Although fishing at a pond far outside the city limits of Winston-Salem isn't quite the same as hunting or fishing back home, Bender enjoys the chance to simply get away from the grind of practice, video study and meetings, and class assignments.
"He (Litcher) lives back in the woods, and this past week we didn't catch much," Bender said. "But I could care less. We get a little competitive sometimes. I'm sure he likes it, but it means a lot to me because it helps me get away a little bit and just relax. We get out there and talk a little, and sometimes we don't even talk at all. It's just a good time. I'm fortunate being in grad school right now to have a little time to do that kind of stuff."
Bender is quite sure of where he is headed. The plan is to play football as long as his talents will allow and then head back to his rural roots in Nazareth to teach and coach. In the back of his mind, he knows that he already owns an undergraduate education degree from Wake Forest and the master's degree that he will earn will probably ensure that future. So in the meantime, he will pursue professional football.
But before he begins a career in education, Bender wants to get back to some good old-fashioned manual labor. The life of a college student just isn't quite the real world in his opinion, and taste of hard physical work is what he believes will remind him what all the degrees are really worth. "I want to get my hands dirty again," he said. "Maybe work in construction with my uncle, or work on the farm."