Lance Nimmo
October 07, 2002 10:20 AM | General
By Lainie Guiddy
Mountaineer
Illustrated
As
a boy, Lance Nimmo found no greater pleasure in life than riding around his
family’s 350-acre farm on the tractor with his grandfather while he was mowing
hay. Under the early sun, waiting for the dew to dry up, watching a man who knew
the benefits of his land and his way of life, Nimmo learned a lot about the
world he was growing up in and the commitment it took to earn a living
agriculturally.
In retrospect, being raised on a farm in Western Pennsylvania contributed a lot to the person the senior offensive lineman has become. The resolve with which Nimmo attacks life on the gridiron can easily be attributed to countless hours he has spent on the farm.
Nimmo Farms, in New Castle, Pa., grows corn, oats and spelt (a long stalk crop that resembles wheat, but is more golden and sturdy; it is grown mostly for straw, though it can be used for feed). In addition to the crops, the Nimmo family also has about 150 head of beef cattle after which they tend.
"It was a great place to grow up," says the two-year starting offensive lineman. "I always wanted to be around every aspect of it. There was just something about the tractors and the equipment when I was growing up. I couldn’t get enough.
"Even now, I relish every chance I get to go home and do something on the farm. I’m fascinated with it."
The chances to be part of his family’s day-to-day operation come less often now that he resides in Morgantown. But, when the summer months come around, Nimmo can be found rising early with the rest of the family.
Getting up before dawn, he and his family members do the barn work necessary to maintain their beef cattle while they wait for the morning dew to dissolve. Once it has gone, the finance major and the rest of the family mow hay until around 2:00 p.m., when they begin bailing, a job that continues until dusk and the end of daylight forces them inside.
All in all, summer farm work is a 13-hour-a-day job. Work like that makes preseason two-a-days appear considerably less taxing, and provides Nimmo with an outlook on life that extends to his approach to football.
"Something like Division I football is really tough," the three-time BIG EAST academic all-star explains. "When you stick with it, acquire the level of discipline needed, learn how to budget your time and don’t quit, it builds character."
Character-building experiences are something to which Nimmo is no stranger. In the third quarter of the first game of his senior year at Laurel High, the then defensive lineman saw the opposing quarterback break containment and take off toward the first down marker. Nimmo took off in pursuit, ran the QB down, grabbed his jersey and pulled him back, forcing a would-be fourth down. It was a great play, except that his right leg was caught behind him and when a fellow Wildcat hit the quarterback from the front, the only place for the QB to land was on Nimmo’s leg, cleanly breaking his fibula. Instantaneously, his senior season ended, and, at the time, Nimmo thought that his football career was over.
"I figured there was no more football, at least not at the Division I level" he says of the time immediately following his injury. "I figured if I was lucky I would be playing at IUP (Indiana University of Pennsylvania) or Slippery Rock, somewhere near my hometown. I never thought the coaches would give me the opportunity to still play DI and I’m very grateful that they did."
Four games into the only senior season he will ever have, Nimmo is concerned with only one thing: getting to and winning a bowl game. He was on board in 2000 when the Mountaineers went to the Music City Bowl and wants nothing more than to close his time at West Virginia in the same manner.
"I think if the seniors can lead this team to a bowl game and a win, my career here has been successful."
Focused on his mission, come fourth quarter, Nimmo can be found, chin strap on, ready to go. He won’t say much to get his fellow offensive linemen fired up; that’s not his style. Perhaps in all those long hours on the farm, he learned that it takes action, not words, to get things done.
"I’m going to block for Avon (Cobourne) or Rasheed (Marshall), or whoever has the ball, with the mentality that I’m not going to give up a sack or a negative yardage play. My teammates are going to see that confidence in me and feed off it more than any words I could say."
With that confidence and determination in place, Nimmo is set to make the most of the games he has left. Bowl or no bowl, he will have succeeded.
Knowing and understanding that he has been privileged to play Division I football, Nimmo sees the sun setting on his career, and just as during his summers back home on the farm, he wishes to push it back up into the sky, getting as much time out of his days on Mountaineer Field as possible.
