Curt McKeever: Lincoln native Peterson is a two-sport Deacon
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WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. — The first thing I wanted to ask Tyler Peterson is how could a kid from Lincoln, probably more proficient in high school at heaving a 12-pound shot than 250-pound defensive linemen, wind up in the Appalachian Mountains — to play major-college football?
His tale makes me feel better about being in the 1 percentile of camcorder-toting parents who still shoot video on tape.
Score one for the old-school generation.
Anyway, the long-story-short version has Peterson, a shot put state gold medalist at Lincoln Southeast, sending the coach in charge of the throwers at Wake Forest a tape showing his spinning moves and grunts.
“I had (it) on the back (part) of my highlight film for football, and I didn’t really tell him, I just sent out the tape forwarded to the track part,” Peterson recalled. Well, “he ended up rewinding and (saw) the football highlights and took it up to the offensive line coach.”
That fella was intrigued enough to ask for more tape, and the next thing Peterson knows, he’s getting a football scholarship offer from the Demon Deacons.
(Feel free right now to go dust off the trusty old VCR — assuming it’s still got a place next to that shiny DVD burner.)
“Wake did not know anything about me as a football player,” said Peterson, adding that when he received his first package from the school’s track program he had to ask where Wake Forest was located.
Now, a guy who used to be a regular at NU home games sounds like he’d be just fine if he never had to leave this place.
Personally, football’s going just OK for the 6-foot-5, 305-pounder everyone calls ‘Boomer,’ a nickname he inherited after checking into this world at 10 pounds just before the Fourth of July 20 years ago.
A third-year sophomore, Peterson would like larger helpings of playing time as a reserve offensive tackle, but he’s appreciative of the scraps that come from blocking on extra points and field goals. Getting to do so against Nebraska today would truly be gravy.
In the spring, he competes some in track and field and, despite being a part-time thrower, has finished eighth in the last two Atlantic Coast Conference meets.
Not quite BMOC material yet. Then again, that’s far from the only thing stirring Peterson’s straw.
“The education I’m getting is almost like an Ivy League education,” he said. “Coming away with something like that, I think, is just as important as getting to play in a big-time college atmosphere.”
But when it comes to the latter, Peterson couldn’t have picked a more exciting time to be at Wake Forest.
Last year, the Deacons, having finished below .500 in the ACC for 13 straight seasons, were picked to finish last in the league’s Atlantic Division.
Then they lost their top pass rusher, starting quarterback and preseason all-conference running back to season-ending injuries in the first three games.
Three months later, they were celebrating their first league championship in 36 years and first invitation to the Orange Bowl.
The amazing run included sweeping ‘Tobacco Road’ rivals Duke, North Carolina and North Carolina State for the first time in 19 seasons. Wake Forest also won at Florida State for the first time since 1959 en route to going 6-0 on the road.
“Last year was crazy,” Peterson said. “Every week it seemed like somebody new got hurt that was playing a lot, so every week it was, ‘Can we come out and beat so-and-so without whoever went down?’ It was a scary season, I guess, because we had to switch so many people, and game to game it was kind of ‘Will we win? Will we lose?’
“But we handled ourselves well. Everybody stepped up when they needed to, and just played the game.”
Peterson saw action in just two games (one was Florida State). But when the Deacons received their conference championship rings last spring, he felt the same kind of pride as when Southeast won the 2002 Class A state crown.
By the way, on that team, he was a sophomore reserve who watched in awe as senior Bo Ruud, now the anchor on the Husker defense, played through a back injury to lead the charge.
“I didn’t play too much (last year),” said Peterson, “but it was still kind of fun being part of the team.”
Actually, it was a ton of fun. Just ask Peterson about his ACC championship ring.
“I don’t wear my ring. I keep it far, far away from everybody,” he said. “That’s something very important to me.”
Reach Curt McKeever at 473-7441 or cmckeever@journalstar.com.
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