Chip off old block: Nolan Turner follows in dad’s footsteps
NEW ORLEANS >> The resemblance is remarkable, even for father and son.
The thick, wavy hair. That firm jawline. The chiseled chin. Those dark, piercing eyes.
Sitting among his Clemson teammates during media day for the national championship game, Nolan Turner appears to have been lifted straight from the pages of a nearly three-decade-old Alabama football media guide, the one that featured a snapshot of his dad Kevin. With one big difference. “He put on a lot of weight in college,” Nolan Turner said Saturday, chuckling a bit. “He was like 250 pounds.”
Nolan is generously listed at 195, so it would’ve been a huge mismatch to go against his father.
“I’m glad I’m not playing against him,” Nolan said, the pride oozing from his voice. “He used to kill people back there.”
It’s an interesting choice of words, since football is the game that essentially killed Kevin Turner.
Yet, it’s also the game that provided him with so much joy.
Ditto for his son.
It’s part of their DNA. A big part.
“Football is just a special game,” Nolan Turner said. “It takes everybody on the team doing their job and that type of cohesion to make everything work. It teaches you a lot about life off the field, which you wouldn’t even know. Just the discipline, and the camaraderie, I love all of it.”
Kevin Turner was a tough, bruising fullback who played for Alabama in the late 1980s and early ‘90s. He went on to a long career in the NFL, where a battering-ram style left him with numerous concussions and would ultimately cost him his life.
Before he died in 2016 from ALS, Turner’s old college teammate, Clemson coach Dabo Swinney, gave Nolan a scholarship.
It was the only offer he got from a big-time school.
To most, it seemed nothing
Clemson safety Nolan
Turner is interviewed during media day for the NCAA College Football Playoff national championship game Saturday in New Orleans. Clemson is scheduled to play LSU on Monday.
more than a heartfelt gesture between friends, Swinney’s way of vowing to watch over Nolan after Kevin was gone.
Swinney never saw that way.
“It wasn’t some charity thing,” the coach said. “If I didn’t have a spot, he wouldn’t have gotten a scholarship.”
Swinney’s confidence in the player no one else wanted proved prophetic. In the Fiesta Bowl semifinal game, with Clemson’s two-year-long winning streak in peril, it was Turner who swallowed up an interception in the closing seconds to seal a 2923 victory over Ohio State.
“The right place at the right time,” Turner said. “A really cool moment.”
Through all the tears, all the helplessness, all the grief, Nolan has carved out quite a name for himself while following in his father’s footsteps.
He has already been part of two national championship teams (thought he didn’t play during the 2016 season, sitting out as a redshirt). He’ll get a chance for a third title Monday night, when Clemson faces top-ranked LSU and Heisman Trophywinning quarterback Joe Burrow.
Like his father, Nolan is a stellar athlete. He played receiver and defensive back at Vestavia Hills High School, where longtime coach Buddy Anderson described him as one of the best players ever to come through the storied program.
Asked what traits he shares with his father, Nolan points to their good hands.
it
Romeo Mays
Mason Boutain
Shelly Avelino
Kiira Saunders
Tara Othman
Wrestling
Wrestling
Wrestling
Wrestling
Benicia
Benicia
St. Pat’s
Benicia
Is someone missing? Email the Times-Herald sports department at sports@timesheraldonline.com.