Thursday, August 21, 2008
Full speed ahead for Pulaski County's Nubian Peak
The future Virginia Tech tailback’s lone focus right now is one last great football season at Pulaski County.
Photo by Matt Gentry | The Roanoke Times
Pulaski County running back Nubian Peak (5) has rushed for 2,108 yards over the past two seasons. He has already accepted a scholarship offer from Virginia Tech, allowing him to focus on trying to lead the Cougars to another solid run in the River Ridge District a second straight trip to the postseason.
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DUBLIN — There’s a moment in the highlight video when Nubian Peak makes a high school kid look about 4 years old.
Peak’s running toward the right sideline, on a collision course with a would-be tackler, when he ducks his head ever so slightly inside before breaking outside for an extra 10 yards. You can see the defender’s shoulders slump as he realizes how badly he’s been juked.
There’s another moment that was even better, one that brings a smile to the Pulaski County coach’s face just thinking about it. It came during a road scrimmage a couple of years ago.
“The defender was coming at him,” Cougars coach Jack Turner recalls. “Nubian stepped one way, spun the other way, and two guys collided into each other.”
And Peak was off again.
They’ve seen him abuse one, split two, spin away from three. But there was a time in Peak’s high school career not long ago when everything came at him at once, when a lesser teenager probably would have been smashed to pieces.
Instead, Peak sliced right through it.
And now he’s off, Virginia Tech scholarship in hand, senior season awaiting, with a whole band of Pulaski County teammates racing right behind him, fists in the air.
Cougar conversion
Watching Nubian Peak play tailback, you’d think he was born to play football.
But he wasn’t. Even though his father was a scholarship basketball player at Maryland-Eastern Shore, Peak’s parents stressed academics above all else and didn’t steer him into sports.
The priorities are evident in the name Vernon and Donna Peak gave their son. They named him after the Nubians, an African ethnic group known for their intelligence, wealth and progressive culture.
“They were a very smart race,” Nubian Peak said. “And my dad just felt — well, I didn’t really know what he was thinking at the time — but he just stuck me with that name. It has a lot of sentimental meaning to me. A lot of people don’t understand, but I take pride in it.”
Sort of the way Pulaski County takes pride in its high school football. And growing up here, the game seeped into Peak slowly, the way it does with so many kids.
“Oh, yeah,” he said. “A lot of people don’t know. And maybe I can’t speak for everybody else and the way they do things at their high school, but Cougar football in this county, it’s almost everything. If you wanted to see somebody, you would come here Friday night to see them.”
Peak doubts he would be playing football if it weren’t for this pervasive culture, one that infects so many on the current Cougars squad.
“It’s a part of us,” Turner said. “These kids, they come and they see us coming down those steps and they hear '2001’ playing and they see those lights hitting those gold helmets. … It’s just a great high school atmosphere, and it sticks with you. There’s a mystique about it.”
But two years ago, just as Peak was poised to become a star, that mystique took some major hits.
Lost season
A precocious speedster, Peak practiced with the varsity throughout his freshman season and played with the big squad in the second half. His sophomore year promised an even greater progression.
But things started to go wrong, sharply and quickly, before the season even began. Star tailback Kevin Crouse was ruled ineligible for his senior season. Injuries began to decimate the squad. And then, after their third game, Kenneth Dobson — one of the patriarchs of the program and the man for whom the stadium is named — died suddenly, casting a pall over the team.
After the Cougars finished 2-8, tragedy struck again when Crouse took his own life.
“He lived right down the street from me,” Peak said, his voice cracking. “That was very hard, not only for me, but for everyone. Everybody loved Kevin. He was a great kid. We saw a lot of bad stuff that year.”
On the field, Peak showed signs of greatness but got battered every Friday night. At 5-foot-11 and about 30 pounds lighter than he is now, he struggled with the demand of the power-oriented Wing-T offense.
“At my size, it was just impossible to stay healthy for a 10-week period with the type of offense that we had,” Peak said. “I would carry the ball anywhere from 20 to 25 times a game. And for a 160-pound guy, you know, it’s rough.”
In the coaches’ office, Turner and his staff went to work designing a more appropriate offense. Meanwhile, Peak hit the weight room, determined to enter his junior year a stronger player.
Breakout
Tim Cromer’s assessment of Nubian Peak last season?
“He was fast,” Cromer said, then chuckled at the thought of needing to say anything else.
Cromer, the coach of River Ridge District-rival Christiansburg, saw Peak at his finest in 2007. The junior tailback darted for a career-high 248 yards against the Blue Demons.
The speed was the most obvious asset, but Cromer also noticed something else.
“The thing that impressed me the most when we were watching film, quite honestly, was his ability to block,” Cromer said. “I know that sounds weird, but that’s what we were looking at: He might have been their best blocker. And I think that’s one of the things that makes him a complete back.”
With 20 pounds of muscle added to his frame and a new spread offense providing him more opportunities in space, Peak rushed for 1,412 yards and 17 touchdowns while taking River Ridge offensive back of the year honors.
“Size-wise, I’m still not the type of player that’s just going to be able to truck a linebacker or something like that,” Peak said. “But I think my game allows my to be very elusive and very slippery and very hard to tackle in the open field.”
He displayed all these attributes while piling up the highlights, which were catalogued and posted on Youtube.com by a Pulaski County booster known as “Cougar Dave.”
Peak greatly appreciated the exposure.
But he was about to get a whole lot more.
Life begins at 40
The Virginia Tech coaches looked at their stop-watches, then at Peak. A 4.31-second 40? That couldn’t be right.
“I think they wanted to wait and see what I ran the second time,” Peak said with a smile, recalling the prospects camp this past summer in Blacksburg.
So he ran again — and notched a 4.25.
Back in Dublin, Turner’s phone rang.
“I had somebody call me every time he did something,” Turner said. “They called and said: 'Coach, you’re not going to believe this.’ Well, I believe. I think the sky’s the limit for Nubian. But I was shocked at that type of speed.”
So was Peak. He’d only run a timed 40-yard dash one other time before the Tech camp and hadn’t approached those numbers.
“The 40 is everything,” Peak said. “And it doesn’t necessarily tell what kind of football player you are, because you can be super fast but just not have the awareness to put yourself in position to make plays. But the college coaches really look at it.
“I guess coaches love speed, you know? They love it.”
The coaches at Tech loved it enough to offer Peak a scholarship two days later. Peak — a lifelong Hokies fan — accepted immediately.
“It still hasn’t really set in yet,” Peak said. “You see somebody walking by and they have Virginia Tech apparel on, and you’re like 'Wow, I’ll be going to play there next year.’ It’s still kind of mind-boggling.”
All of it is. The fact that not only is he playing football, but he’s playing it so well. The fact that a year after that heart-breaking 2-8 season, the Cougars were back in the playoffs in 2007. The fact that he’s going to represent his favorite high school this season, his favorite university the next.
“I’m really having fun right now,” Peak said. “Unless something goes terribly wrong, I couldn’t really ask for much more.”
But the cameras can.
And they’ll be poised in the stands every week this season, waiting to capture the next highlight.
