Sacco: Same Gap, same Pride, same Pickle

SWOOPE

What did you expect? For Pickle Nuckols, in what could be his last home game, to throw off his helmet, beat his chest and let out some animalistic roar?

What? Did you expect him to join the rest of the exuberance as a few other Bison held their hands aloft toward an adoring home crowd? Seriously? Don’t tell me you expected that.

And don’t fill the air with your breath if you really expected Nuckols to put his hands up to his ears and do his best Hulk Hogan impression at midfield after beating archrival Riverheads 21-14.

Nope. Sorry. You’ll be disappointed. Nothing unexpected happened here Friday night.

You got the two same rivals you always get.

You got the same good-old smack-mouth, dried-snot-on-the-nose football game you should expect when Riverheads and Buffalo Gap take to the gridiron.

So why on the God’s green earth would you expect Nuckols to do any of that?

You weren’t hoping he would, finally, let everyone know that he did all he could to make sure the Bison won that game, were you?

So go ahead, ask him and you’ll get what you really expected. Just Pickle being, well, Pickle.

“I’m just glad we won,” he says, finally taking his helmet off just as someone runs into your elbow and asks you, “Is that Pickle?”

Um, yeah. That is Pickle. You know, the one who has his own line of hoodies out at Gap. (And, no, we’re not kidding. The sweaters are black with gold lettering that reads “Go Bison” up top with “It’s Pickle Time” underneath. You see, you can’t make this kind of stuff up.) And even if he runs for 104 yards and three scores on senior night (which he did), did you really expect it to be about him?

Ask him if he could have ever imagined any other way to go out. Go ahead. Ask.

“You mean beat Riverheads?” he asks back before you can even finish. “It’s great.”

What? You expected him to say something neat and give you some bulletin board material. Nah, you have to know what to expect, man. Because that’s why Nuckols is where he’s at now. Because this is where Nuckols always expected to be.

His adoring mom, Michelle, watches from a distance, smiling from ear to ear and never looking away from her son. She rambles as you ask her questions, slipping in and out of coherent statements and stopping to apologize.

“I’m sorry,” she says, never taking her eyes off her son. “Someday I’ll have something good to say.”

His loving dad, Mark, doing his darndest to hold back tears while watching Pickle talk into a TV camera.

“He was never one of those kids running around playing,” Mark says, remembering the days when his oldest son, Chris, played for the Bison. “He was always watching.”

Yes, Pickle smiling is expected. So are his kind waves and gentle handshakes despite his size.

Expected? Sure. He expected to play Friday nights.

“I wanted to play varsity when I was 8,” he says.

You see, he always expected to be here on that field running for scores.

Now, remembering what he did at Buffalo Gap for two years is all on you, Bison. He won’t remind you, and chances are he probably wouldn’t have to anyway.

Just like everything else he does, remembering Pickle Nuckols is just so darn expected.