Monday Memory
Catching Up With Cancer Survivor Tim
Nelson
East Clinton’s First Lombardi Award
Winner
I keep way too many clippings of my writings
from 1973 forward and have been recycling many of them since digital access to
nearly all the 10 or so publications I wrote for are now available through
newspapers.com at the Clinton County History Center.
(Shameless plug here to join the history
center so you can access the database of thousands of newspapers.)
Fortunately, I did recently run across an old
clip headlined “Cancer Can’t Sideline Tim Nelson” from January of 1981. It was
an Associated Press article in the Cincinnati Enquirer which had been picked up
from a story I wrote in the Wilmington News-Journal.
It was timely because I found it on the eve of
the 50th anniversary of the presentation of the Vince Lombardi Award,
which Nelson won for his courage on and off the football field for East Clinton
in 1980.
The Lombardi Award, also known as the Rotary
Lombardi Award, was established on the college level in 1970 by the Rotary Club
of Houston, Texas, shortly after the death of NFL legend Vince Lombardi. It
honors the outstanding college football lineman who best embodies the values
and spirit of Vince Lombardi.
Two local community leaders, Clarence Graham
and Harold Losey, started it on the local high school level and the 50th
award was presented in November at a banquet hosted by the Wilmington Kiwanis
Club. It is believed to be one of the few local level Lombardi Awards being
presented across the country.
I always wondered what happened to Nelson, who
overcame a bout with cancer in the midst of his senior season. Through the
power of Facebook, I was able to contact Nelson, who, ironically, was preparing
for a trip to Wilmington from his Georgia home to attend the latest banquet.
When contacted in early November, Nelson said
he was digging through boxes, trying to find the scrapbook his mom kept for
him. “That was a memorable time in my life,” he said. “Andy Olds, one of my
best friends, called me last week and said he wanted to use my story in his
remarks at the banquet.
Olds, a former Lombardi nominee and long-time successful
football coach at Kings High School, related how his teammate missed several
games in the middle of his senior season because a tumor had wrapped around his
thyroid gland. He had the tumor removed and returned to finish the season.
Dr. Ruth Hayes removed the tumor, which turned
out to be benign, and Nelson finished the season by taking some extra
precautions with the incision. He has been cancer free ever since. “I was on medication
for the first year, but have been fine ever since,” Nelson said. “I do the routine
stuff like a physical every year but have had no problems.”
Nelson has since had a successful career in
logistics that started at Airborne Express at the Wilmington Air Park. It has taken
him and his wife, the former Robin Peterson of Wilmington, to several career stops
around the country. They have two sons, one of whom lives close by with their
two grandchildren. “I have had a wonderful life,” Nelson said. “I have been
very blessed.”
His unspoken lesson might be for all of us is to
listen to our body when something does not seem right.
For the second time in the award’s history,
there was a two-time winner of the Clinton County Lombardi Award. Clinton-Massie
senior Dakin Johnson won, joining East Clinton’s Tom Williams as a two-time
winner.
The event was started in 1973 by Losey and Graham,
whose families were in attendance as guests of the Kiwanis Club. There were 16
past winners of the award on hand for the special evening, including Don
Hamilton who won the first award in 1973.
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