The heat. The conditioning. The popping of pads.
Playing football is not an easy gig by any stretch of the imagination, especially during the heat of preseason drills. But there is one guy on the Nebraska football team that probably isn't going to be as frustrated with all of that as most football players inevitably will.
The Lincoln Journal-Star recently featured a story on Tyrone Fahie, who is a 6-foot-3, 250-pound redshirt freshman looking to earn a spot at defensive end. What's different about him, though, is the fact that he is a 25-year-old redshirt freshman who recentlly served two tours of duty in Iraq with the U.S. Navy.
Fahie (pronounced Foy) had not played an organized football game since his freshman year in high school. The Virginia Beach, Va., native was a fan of the Huskers, though, and became friends with a kid from Nebraska when he first attended boot camp in 2000. Their friendship and interest in Husker football led to him deciding he was going to play football at Nebraska once his military commitment was finished.
He signed up for the Navy in 2000 and was in military school on Sept. 11, 2001. He was a support communicator for the Navy's Seal Team One and made his first trip to Iraq in 2004. He served two tours of duty in Iraq before returning to the United States, and he is majoring in electrical engineering at Nebraska.
Fahie's interest in the Huskers hit a high point in 2005 when joined his Nebraska buddy and attended a Nebraska football game at Memorial Stadium. He was so taken by the experience that he made contact with then-associate athletic director for football Tim Cassidy. They remained in contact during Fahie's last trip to Iraq, and Fahie attended an open tryout last spring, where he eventually earned a chance to join the team.
Whether he sees time on the field or not, it's sure to be an experience of a lifetime for Fahie to put the pads on and run out in front of over 80,000 fans at Memorial Stadium. Compared to the experiences he had overseas -- working through the block of an opposing team's lineman should be a piece of cake.
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