Sometimes we all take college basketball a little too seriously.  Just in time for Thanksgiving, guest columnist Rick Reilly reminds us what real heroes are made of.

by Rick Reilly

In just a few short months, March Madness will capture our imaginations and televisions, broadcasting images of heroes like Tyler Hansbrough of North Carolina and Stephen Curry of Davidson.  One face you will not see on television during March will be that of Nick Bomblero.   Even early in the season, I can tell you that Hansbrough and Curry will not beat Nick in being my MVP – college basketball’s Most Valuable Person.

Nick hails from tiny Plainfield Teachers College in Plainfield, New Jersey.  They play in the East Coast Technical & Educational Athletic Association.  You probably have never heard of them, or third-string point guard Bomblero.  It’s not easy to find them on ESPN.

Then again, nothing in life has come easy for Nick.  Not since the freak Power Wheels accident that claimed most of his right arm and the lower half of his left leg.  Through a life of adversity and pain, he has persevered to become the Plainfield team’s biggest inspiration, despite having yet to score in a game.  He may not have as many rebounds as Hansbrough, or as many points as Curry, but Bomblero leads the country in Heart.

Nick gets around the court pretty swiftly on his prosthetic leg, and has developed into one of the team’s best free throw shooters.  And if they kept a stat for Hustle, he would lead the country in that too.

“Nick is simply too good to be true,” beams Plainfield coach Hop Simpkins, “his story is just unbelievable, utterly unbelievable.”

Nothing can stop Nick.  Not even the three buses that have clobbered him since he started school here.  Instead of getting mad - or looking both ways when he crossed the street - Nick recovered from his injuries and started the National Bus-Pedestrian Awareness Foundation, which now boasts more that one hundred thousand members.  Outside of basketball, Nick is a triple major who also serves as a part-time tutor. 

And there is no rest to be had at home, where Nick is the sole caregiver for his diabetic parents and bed-stricken grandparents.  The five of them share a studio apartment five miles from campus, to which Nick must walk every day.  Nick also fosters seven dogs rescued from Hurricane Katrina, and is in the process of adopting three orphans from Cameroon permanently disabled by malaria.

But Nick dismisses any praise you give him.

“I am only doing what any college student would do – play ball, study - I am living the dream.”

That basketball dream will end in late February.  And we will surely all stand and applaud those college heroes that cut down the nets after the national championship game in April.

But excuse this writer for standing and applauding a little longer for the Plainfield Point Guard That Could.