When he got the fateful phone call last winter, Adam Nunes thought his cousin was joking. Seven months later, he still has trouble believing it’s real, that his beloved older sister, Char’Dae, really is gone. Sometimes, she comes to him in his dreams.
“But as time goes on, reality hits,” Nunes said Monday at the field behind South Park High in Buffalo. “I haven’t heard her voice in more than six months.”
Char’Dae Nunes died on Feb. 8, one week after her 21st birthday, when she fell out of an Uber on the westbound Kensington Expressway and was struck by another vehicle. Cheektowaga police determined that Char’Dae had climbed out the rear window up to her waist when she fell onto the road.
Cheektowaga Police ruled her death an accident. There was no explanation for why Char’Dae would have tried to get out of the vehicle. Her family and friends, who started a Go Fund Me in her memory, for are left with the ceaseless torment of not knowing why.
“Still no answers,” Charmaine Collins, the Nunes’s mother, said early this week. “After six months, the police closed the case. They said unless a miracle happens and someone comes with some solid evidence, we may never know. And that’s a hard pill to swallow.”
For Adam Nunes, his older sister had been a role model, a beacon who held down two jobs and was planning to return to college. After her death, she became the prime motivation for an undersized running back who was preparing diligently for his senior season as a captain for the South Park Sparks.
“It was a motivator for me this whole offseason. I feel like she pushed me more,” he said, his voice breaking. “Her not being with me here today hurts, but I’m happy that she could watch from above.”
Adam said he feels Dae Dae’s presence. He talks to her. At times, it feels as if she’s on his shoulder, a passenger angel, pushing him to go even faster. And last Friday at All-High Stadium, you’d have sworn she made her brother fly,
There has never been a performance quite like it. Nunes rushed for 593 yards (on 26 carries), shattering the state’s single-game record, in South Park’s 58-28 win over Iroquois. He had TD runs of 80, 65, 36, 61, 81 93 and 41 yards. Nunes leads Section VI in rushing (864 yards) and TDs (12) after three weeks.
Not surprisingly, Nunes got a lot of attention with his historic night. Sports Illustrated had an item on his record-setting performance. He was flooded with texts and on-line messages. Hall of Fame Bills running back great Thurman Thomas even sent along his good wishes.
“He texted me,” Nunes said. “At first, I thought he was lying. But he said, ‘I never put up those kind of numbers. Congratulations, young guy. I would love to meet you.’”
Nunes said he and head coach Tim Delaney were watching video highlights of Thurman in school on Monday. “He was very shifty,” Nunes said of Thomas, who is the Bills’ career rushing leader with 11,938 yards.
“I’m a one-cut person,” said Nunes, who is 5-foot-7, 150 pounds. Very quick.”
Delaney, who got his 100th win at South Park in Friday’s win, describes Nunes as “electric.” Watch the film of his touchdown runs against Iroquois, how he gets one step and then he’s gone. “See ya,” to use Delaney’s words.
“Our 4x100 team made it to the state finals and finished fourth (in Division 2 last May), and he’s one of the four,” Delaney said. “We have three of them playing, one of them graduated. We’re a fast team and he’s obviously a real fast kid. He clocked 4.5 at a UB camp in the summer.”
Delaney said Nunes has been drawing interest from a number of colleges, including Division I programs Fordham and Stony Brook. He said Adam is an honor student and qualifier who would likely be a slot receiver and kick returner at the next level.
Nunes said he’s determined to play in college and doesn’t worry that his size could work against him. His favorite player, former Alabama star Jahmyr Gibbs, is only 5-foot-9 and had 945 yards rushing and 10 touchdowns last year as a rookie for the Detroit Lions.
“People know what I’m capable of, and I know what I’m capable of,” he said, “so size doesn’t mean anything to me.”
Nunes is a confident young man, but not even he could have anticipated what happened last Friday at All-High Stadium, when he had more rushing yards and touchdowns than he had all of his junior season.
“I didn’t see it coming,” he said with a smile. “I was worried about getting ‘Laney his 100th win. When I look back at it, it feels like a dream, like it wasn’t real. I enjoy the moment, embrace the moment, but it’s done now. We’ve still got a whole lot of games to play, got to prepare for the next team.”
Jaymier Taylor, the Sparks’ senior defensive end and tight end, said he couldn't have seen the huge night coming, either. But he wasn’t shocked, knowing how hard Nunes worked in the offseason to be a better player as a senior and leader.
“He worked hard, every day,” said Taylor, who transferred to South Park from Health Sciences this year. “Drills, they would go out to Johnny B (Wiley Stadium) and get extra work in, almost every week, every Saturday. I think that played a big part in breaking the record.
“He’s a great teammate,” Taylor said. “He’s always thinking about his teammates before himself. That’s all he cares about, is us. He was supposed to get eight touchdowns, but he let one of our teammates get the other one.”
Nunes said he learned much about leadership from former Sparks quarterback Noah Willoughby, who set the Section VI career passing record last season and is now playing collegiately for Lock Haven. He knows he’s set an impossible standard and that outsiders might see 100 yards as a comedown.
“I was just thinking about that,” Nunes said. “But as long as I can contribute to the team, play my role and get the W, I don’t care what anybody says, I’m just trying to win and have fun with my team.”
Things get exceedingly tougher this week. The Sparks (3-0) host Pioneer, which is also 3-0 and defeated South Park in last year’s Class B sectional semifinal. Pioneer lost to Health Sciences in the final.
“This is the one you want to win,” said Delaney, whose team is nursing a variety of injuries this week, “because you’ll basically win the division and have a really good look at the playoffs and the seedings.” Either week, it’ll be a season to remember for the Sparks and Nunes, who could be on his way to a 2,000-yard season. His football exploits also give his family a way to forget their grief for a few hours every week.
“It’s really what I look forward to,” said Collins, his mom. “It’s what I look for. I am so happy, I got my tee shirts, I got a chain made with his number 7 on it. Football is his passion. He’s been playing since I put him in Little League at age 5. He fell in love with it. So, football is life.”
The entire family takes joy in Adam’s achievements. Charmaine said there’s a big support system at games, including her twin sister, mother, aunt and brother. They all wear No. 7 jerseys. Adam is wearing the number this season because it was Char’Dae’s favorite.
The family was still glowing after Nunes’s performance against Iroquois. In the parking lot afterwards, Delaney’s mother, Tina, approached Charmaine and asked if she could hug her. She then told her she had also lost a daughter. Martina died in a car accident in 2006, one month before high school graduation. Tim's parents have been active in support groups with parents who lost children ever since.
“That was an emotional experience in the parking lot,” said Collins, who had four children. “She knows exactly what it’s like. Anything is a trigger. Right now the Bills are one. Char’Dae loved the Bills. She would be getting ready to go to a Bills party with her Bills gear on right now. Everything is up and down. I have my bad days. It’s very up and down.”
There’s the horror of a daughter’s death, and the anguish of not knowing. Also, the residual anger that comes with knowing some people assume the worst, that Char’Dae, a smart young woman with so much to live for, could have wanted to hurt herself that day. There’s no way her daughter could have been suicidal.
The circumstances of Char'Dae's death might never be clear, but life moves on. For now, life is football. Watching Adam float down the field, perhaps toward the fulfilling college life her daughter was denied, is a momentary sanctuary from her grief.
“It was a very emotional time,” said Collins, a 2000 South Park grad, “because you want to be happy for one kid, but you miss another. He told me, ‘Mommy, I was crying on the field’ and I was like, ‘I was crying in the stands.’ I was happy for him and thinking of her, because she definitely would have been there.”
Nunes was thinking of changing his number after his junior season. He considered wearing No. 2 instead of No. 7. His mom talked him out of it
“I told him, ’It was Char’Dae’s favorite number, the last one she saw you in,” Collins said. “‘You should keep 7.’ He was like ‘OK’. Then when he scored seven touchdowns, I felt it was like her talking to us.”
Link for GoFundMe:
Comments