LU’s Hursky true to his roots

By Chris Lang
Sports writer
Published: September 30, 2008

Nick Hursky quietly left the practice field the Thursday before Liberty played Western Carolina. He didn’t practice that day, and his right knee was wrapped in a soft brace. He walked with a noticeable limp, and Flames coach Danny Rocco shook his head when asked about Hursky’s status for the upcoming game.

Game-time decision … at best.

Of course, by Saturday, Hursky was on the field in Cullowhee, N.C., running hard in pre-game warm-ups, cutting and driving on a knee that was so swollen earlier in the week it required draining.

In a nutshell, that’s the Hursky template. He’s a Pittsburgh kid, and Pittsburgh kids are tough — throwbacks, Rocco said. A little knee fluid wasn’t going to be enough to keep a senior captain out of the Flames’ first road game of the year.

“It’s how we were brought up,” said teammate Colin Dugan, a close friend who also grew up in the Pittsburgh area. “Pittsburgh’s a blue-collar, hard-working town. It kind of rubs off on all of the football players that come out of there.”

Rocco himself is a Pittsburgh guy, one who —- along with his brother Frank — played football at Penn State and modeled his game after the hard-nosed, physical Pittsburgh Steeler teams of the 1970s. What he sees in Hursky is a player who isn’t willing to allow a minor bout of soreness keep him from contributing to his team.

“I think he’s a role model for the toughness, the commitment and the attitude it takes to play football at this level, and to be successful,” Rocco said. “And I tell you, he’s becoming a rare breed. A lot of these kids, they’ll say, ‘I’m a little bit sore, I don’t know if I should go.’ I mean, what are you talking about?

“He’s a throwback football player. He doesn’t understand why anybody would play the game any differently than he does.”

Sure, Hursky has skill, too. His 13-tackle effort last Saturday at Youngstown State was the second-best showing of his career, behind a 19-tackle performance in the 2005 season finale. He was all over the field at Stambaugh Stadium, coming up with three tackles for loss and a sack that pushed a driving YSU team out of field-goal range.

But it’s the toughness that impresses his teammates the most.

“He’s hurt and he’s putting out that much effort,” Dugan said. “It just shows the other linebackers that they really don’t have an excuse. They have to perform at a certain level. If they don’t, Nick’s going to get in their face. There’s a standard already set because of him.”

Hursky, like Rocco, comes from a football family. His father Mike played at Baldwin-Wallace College, and once his older brother began playing, Nick was hooked.

“I was really excited,” Hursky said. “I remember, they’d bring home his stuff and I’d steal it and run around in it. It was way too big for me. But I just grew up loving it.”

Hursky was an accomplished wrestler at Chartiers Valley High School in Carnegie, Pa., placing third in the state championship in the 215-pound class as a senior. Several Division I schools showed interest in Hursky wrestling talents. But only one — Liberty — showed interest in Hursky the football player, despite the fact that he was a three-time all-conference selection and the member of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette’s All-West team as a senior.

“I just wanted to play football,” Hursky said. “I’m just really happy Liberty stuck with me.”

Happy, at least, until his freshman season. About nine weeks into the 2005 season, Hursky was ready to call it quits. The Flames were in the middle of a 1-10 season, the worst in school history, and Hursky wondered if he should stay in Lynchburg.

“I was miserable. I hated it here,” he said. “I was really unhappy. I was away from my friends, my family. And 1-10? I never went 1-10 in anything in my life. It was just really embarrassing. I thought about transferring.

“Word got around. Wimbo (LU linebackers coach Robert Wimberly) found out about it and told me, ‘Don’t do it. It’s not worth it. Life’s not the same when you go back.’ I learned that when I went home for Thanksgiving. As bad as I thought it was here, it would have been worse had I gone back there.”

The trip home, and the hire of Rocco as the school’s head coach, gave Hursky something to think about.

“Liberty took a chance on me,” Hursky said. “So why not take a chance on coach Rocco? It’s been the best decision I’ve made my entire life.”

Hursky came back and played outside linebacker, though he knew he was being groomed to become the Mike linebacker in the Flames’ newly installed 3-4 defense. That role was filled by another Pittsburgh player — Manny Rojas, who after graduation stuck around first as a graduate assistant and then as a part of the Flames’ strength and conditioning program.

“He reminds me so much of Manny Rojas,” Wimberly said. “I don’t know what they’re drinking in the water up there, but he’s just a tough, hard-nosed kid who loves to practice. He loves this game inside and out.”

Hursky loves to hunt and fish and he’s a fan of the Pittsburgh Steelers (and, oddly enough, Harry Potter books). A kinesiology major, Hursky first wants to explore his professional football options. If that doesn’t work out, he wants to latch on somewhere as a graduate assistant coach. Though there are only eight regular-season games left in his career, he’s not ready for his football career to be over.

“I really want to be a college coach,” Hursky said. “I can’t get away from the game. I just love it too much.”