Fifth-round pick driven to make impact at WR
He clings to the memory, a symbolic moment he can’t release. It revealed his motivation; his talent; his competitiveness. Twelve-year-old Niles Paul readies himself at the starting line for the 80-meter hurdles at the 2001 Junior Olympics in Sacramento.
Suddenly he hears his dad yelling.
“She’s still here! She’s still here!” his dad shouts as he holds up the phone and points.
Paul’s mom, too sick with hepatitis B to attend, is on the other line. After talking moments earlier with her son, she now was encouraging him via speakerphone. Paul couldn’t hear her, but he got the message.
Suddenly, a kid ranked in the 30s in his event finished second overall. His mom was thrilled. His dad was proud. The son was disappointed.
“Because I wanted to win it for her,” he said.
Six months later she died, ending a seven-year battle. Nine years later Marjorie Paul’s son, a fifth-round pick by the Redskins in April, pushes himself hard, in part by the memory of his mom.
“He’s always been driven,” said Ted Gilmore, his receivers coach at Nebraska who now holds the same position at USC. “From a competition standpoint, he was way beyond his years as a freshman. He wasn’t intimidated by the older guys. He is a tough SOB. He won’t back down from a fight.
“I don’t care how many vets [the Redskins] have at receiver, Niles Paul is not going to take a back seat to anybody.”
That stems from a choice he made after his mom died. Paul said his two older brothers, both solid athletes, became less devoted to sports. But Paul’s competitiveness deepened. In fact, the day of his mom’s funeral he wanted to attend the seventh grade science fair to defend his title. He wasn’t allowed. He finished second, but is convinced that had he presented his project — about AA battery voltage — he would have won.
“He was mad,” said his father, Nicki Paul.
A year after his mom died, his father remarried and moved the family to Newport News, Va. Niles Paul clashed with his stepmom and temporarily stopped playing football. But within two years, the marriage ended and the family returned to Omaha, where he starred in high school.
“Just a real tough time,” said Paul, who has a tattoo of his mom on his right arm. “I used my anger in a positive way where my brothers used it in a negative way. You’ll see I have a fearlessness about me. I take joy in hitting somebody. I use my mom as the driving factor in my life. It was a bad situation that molded me into this angry person. I play angry.”
The anger comes from years of pain. Hepatic comas were common for his mom. So, too, was this question: Who are you? That’s what his mom, dazed by a combination of illness and medicine, would sometimes ask. Two liver transplants failed.
But his mom remained a mom. She insisted he read two hours every day in the summer. She kept him from practices if he brought home a “C” on his report card.
After her death, his father, the brother of former NFL running back Ahman Green, coaxed more out of his son, jogging with him in the mornings — pushing him to get stronger and faster. His other sons resisted, but Niles did not.
“He didn’t lose his focus,” Nicki Paul, who spent six years in the Army, said. “Niles was just a competitive kid period. He refused to lose.
“The things he wants to achieve, he’s achieved. He was an honor student, National Honor Society. He told his mom he would play for Nebraska when he saw Ahman playing.”
He continues moving forward, shoved along by the past.
“I don’t think that’s something you just get over,” he said. “I think about my mom every day. It was a tough time and I doubt I’ll ever forget it. It was a learning experience. Now I strive to make her proud.”
