For those of you who get that dumb popup telling you to buy it.
LARAMIE -- Ruben Narcisse isn’t gone.
The former Wyoming linebacker, who died on Sept. 6, 2010, left his fingerprints all over the program. He never played a down for the Cowboys, but the freshman with the big dreams and the bigger smile impacted his teammates and coaches in a way that a sack or a touchdown never could.
After a day visiting friends and family in Colorado, former Cowboy Trey Fox fell asleep at approximately 5:30 a.m. while driving his Toyota Tundra on U.S. Highway 87. Six miles south of Laramie, the pickup truck struck a rock embankment and then a tree before rolling onto its side. Fox was injured, as were two of his teammates -- J.J. Quinlan and C.J. Morgan.
Narcisse, who was thrown from the vehicle, was killed.
“Young kids are supposed to have a full life in front of them,” Wyoming coach Dave Christensen said on Tuesday, remembering Narcisse. “They’re supposed to be invincible. But it’s a difficult lesson to learn.”
Slightly more than three years later, as the Cowboys prepare to take on Utah State Saturday in what might have been Narcisse’s final game, his fellow seniors haven’t forgotten him. Marqueston Huff smiles and leans back in his chair, describing enthusiastically how ‘Rube’ could enter a room and immediately change its outlook.
Robert Herron keeps going back to that smile. It was constant, he said, like the steady gusts of Wyoming wind.
Ruben always said the Cowboys would win the national championship, Quinlan tells you. He wasn’t being cocky or arrogant, either. He just believed it.
You talk to each one of them, and the truth comes into focus.
In the hearts and minds of the Cowboys, Ruben Narcisse never left.
Ruben Narcisse is in the locker room.
His locker, shielded behind a layer of thin glass, has been preserved. The lockers that surround Narcisse’s are marked by chaos, with items of clothing strewn in all directions and the body odor of 90 athletes hanging thickly in the air.
In walking to Narcisse's locker, you check your steps as if dodging land mines, because jersey tops and loose cleats and helmets litter the floor in palpable disarray.
One locker, his locker, is different from all the rest.
A white nameplate is posted across the front just below the highest shelf, the word “Narcisse” printed clearly in brown capital letters.
On the shelf, a white Wyoming helmet sits -- waiting. To its right, a green water bottle does the same, as if at any moment the 6-foot-1, 214-pound linebacker could grab both en route to the practice field.
Then, you notice the glass.
The locker is a sealed monument, cut off from the imperfect clutter of the scene surrounding it. The three-foot wide area is entombed like a display at a museum, available to gaze at but impossible to touch.
In the bathroom, on a white wall that separates the showers from the sink, a mural painted by one of Quinlan’s friends is prominently displayed.
War Memorial Stadium is recreated in paint, with trees lining the space behind both end zones. On Jonah Field the name “Ruben Narcisse” is etched between the hashes. Above the stadium, in the clouds, Ruben -- eyes hazy, hair short and neat -- stares back at you. The first thing you notice is the smile.
Before home games, Quinlan starts here, in front of the mural, looking into those eyes and saying a few quiet words to an old friend. Then, he moves on to that locker -- the one enshrined in glass.
“I say to him, ‘I’m about to go out for you, man.’ And I come out of the bathroom, I tap on the glass and I say, ‘Let’s go.’”
Junior linebacker Sonny Puletasi, Narcisse’s former roommate, sees the helmet and water bottle but knows his friend isn’t coming back. The curly-haired pass rusher speaks in a near-whisper, an imposing 251-pound frame giving way to a tender voice.
“Every time I walk by there, I see his name,” Puletasi says. “And it hits me.”
***
Ruben Narcisse is on the field.
Every day, every practice, the players say his name.
It’s the word you hear chanted from the inside of a huddle, dozens of voices pouring out in thunderous unison. No matter the age or position, whether they met Narcisse or only know him through stories, each Cowboy honors him on the field. For four seasons and counting, the Cowboys break on “Rube.”
“He was here, just like all the rest of us,” Herron said. “And when you break down and say that, you realize that he could have been here, but he’s not. So you just try to leave it all on the line.”
On Jonah Field, Narcisse is represented both by the name and the number.
His No. 12 circulated for the remainder of the 2010 season following his death, a different player donning the jersey in each of the final 11 games. In the years since, it has found a permanent home.
Prior to the 2011 season, Christensen asked Puletasi -- Narcisse’s roommate and best friend on the team -- if he would like to wear Ruben’s number for the rest of his career. The redshirt freshman had to think about it, knowing that those numbers represented far more than a one and a two.
Eventually, he accepted Christensen’s proposal. And Puletasi, now a redshirt junior, hasn’t looked back.
“It’s an honor to represent him,” Puletasi said. “And letting his family see his number on the field, it means a lot, too.
Once every season, Lyonel Narcisse, Ruben’s father, travels to Laramie to watch a Wyoming football game in person. And for an instant, albeit brief, he is treated to a beautiful mirage.
“Some games I watch,” Narcisse said, “and it looks like Ruben is playing.”
For 36 consecutive games, Puletasi has held Ruben in his heart -- and on his chest.
***
Ruben Narcisse is in Haiti, with his teammates.
They’re all out there, together, raking a soccer field littered with rocks.
Narcisse’s dream, after a career at Wyoming and in the NFL, was to return to his mother and father’s native country of Haiti and help in any way he could. He wanted to teach the children the sport of football. He wanted to help them build a school.
Shortly after Narcisse’s death, Aaron Frude, the Fellowship of Christian Athletes representative for the University of Wyoming, realized that Narcisse’s dream hadn’t been extinguished.
He approached Lyonel Narcisse, who is a pastor at churches in both Florida and Haiti, and proposed that Wyoming student-athletes and coaches organize a mission trip to visit the country, which was devastated by earthquakes that killed more than 200,000 people and left 1.6 million more homeless in 2010.
Christensen, running backs coach Pete Kaligis and a group of football players and other UW student-athletes made that trip in 2012. A year later, another group did the same.
In their time in Haiti, Wyoming’s coaches and players taught children how to throw a football and volunteered at a local orphanage. They didn’t speak the same language as the children, yet the connection they formed amazes Kaligis even now.
“To watch [former Wyoming football players] Mike Purcell and Andrew Meredith coach, and give high fives and hug the kids, they didn’t speak the language,” Kaligis said. “But that bond that was made in three days just through sports, it was really special. It opened my eyes.”
Dominic Rufran will never forget that soccer field. During the 2013 trip, he and his teammates spent parts of two days raking large rocks off of the field so kids in the neighborhood could safely play on it.
The Haitian children didn’t have shoes, but they played anyway. On a field 2,600 miles from Laramie, “love of the game” wasn’t a cliché. It was demonstrated by bloody feet and scraped knees, by kids that had nothing except a soccer ball, a few clumps of grass and a minefield of jagged boulders separating the goals.
“They just have to play with whatever they have,” Rufran said. “If that means that there’s rocks on the field and it cuts up their feet, then so be it. They’re going to do what they love no matter what.”
And as the day went on the number of workers continued to grow, neighborhood kids arriving and joining the effort -- two cultures brought together by a common mission.
Lyonel Narcisse, surrounded by a group of people that had only known his son for a few months, saw Ruben’s dream coming true.
“They gave the kids hope,” Narcisse said, “through the University of Wyoming and the football team.”
***
Ruben Narcisse is in their hearts.
He’s everywhere and nowhere, all at once.
The gentle linebacker is on their helmets, a bold “RN” decal serving as a constant reminder. The initials are on the side of the equipment truck, too, traveling with the team from state to state.
His name is posted amongst his teammates on the online roster. If you click the hyperlink, you’ll see his name. You’ll see his smile.
He’s with Quinlan, who suffered serious injuries in the accident, pushing him to hug his wife and son each day before he leaves for practice.
“Every single night, I just talk to him and God,” Quinlan said. “To be here now, it’s like, ‘Wow, I shouldn’t be here.’”
The impact Narcisse has had can’t be measured on a stat sheet. Thousands of miles away, a soccer field in Haiti is clean because of him.
And in turn, Lyonel Narcisse’s family keeps growing.
“Now, to me they’re like my family. No matter what, I’m going to be sticking with Wyoming,” Narcisse said. “Even though my son’s four years ends this year, they’re going to be in my heart all my life.”
Also someone needs to take a picture of the Mural that was created for him, I for one would like to see it.
