MADISON, Wis. — Luke Fickell was just two months into his job as Wisconsin’s football coach when he took a break from his busy schedule and quietly returned to Columbus, Ohio, to see an old friend one last time.
Dimitrious Stanley, a former teammate of Fickell’s at Ohio State, was dying of complications from prostate cancer at 48. Fickell and ex-Buckeye players Ryan Miller, Tommy Hoying and Ty Howard visited Stanley in the hospital that day in February to reminisce, laugh and provide comfort.
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As the five of them shared stories, Stanley turned to Fickell and thanked him for altering his travel and recruiting plans so they could spend time together. That’s when, as Howard recalled, Fickell made it clear that this was what being teammates was all about: a bond established three decades earlier that lasted well beyond what happened on the field. Sitting there, holding Stanley’s hand, was the only thing that mattered.
“His commitment to the brotherhood and the camaraderie and just the heart of football has always been there,” Howard said. “To hear that from Luke, we always knew that about the guy. But the way he honored the brotherhood of football is like one I’ve never seen before. Ultimate competitor, ultimate keeper of the brotherhood within that locker room.
“That’s why he coaches. It’s not about the money. It’s not about the hierarchy and position. It’s all about the guys that sweat, bleed and fight together and about maintaining the true spirit of competition.”
On Saturday, Fickell’s Wisconsin team will host No. 3 Ohio State, where Fickell once started 50 consecutive games at nose guard and later coached on the staff for 15 years. These are the stories of Fickell, the player, that help to explain the person and coach he has become.
‘Luke didn’t start fights. He finished them.’
Fickell arrived at Ohio State as a freshman in 1992 after earning Ohio lineman of the year honors at St. Francis DeSales High School in Columbus. He also compiled a 106-0 record on his way to three consecutive wrestling state championships, including two in the heavyweight division.
John Cooper (head coach, 1988-2000): They don’t get any tougher than Luke Fickell. I’m going to tell you right now.
Ryan Miller (linebacker, 1992-96): He probably to this day is the best high school wrestler in the state of Ohio.
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Cooper: He went undefeated for three years in a row. Hell, he pinned just about everybody he wrestled.
Lorenzo Styles Sr. (linebacker, 1992-94): But when you get in a room full of alpha males, sometimes things get said and people want to react a certain way.
Matt Finkes (defensive lineman, 1993-96): I think guys underestimated his meanness and what he could do until they really got in there with him.
Ty Howard (defensive back, 1992-96): We were freshmen at Ohio State. I’m not going to say this D-lineman’s name that came in with us. But he was a trash talker, big guy, just ran his mouth. He wasn’t trying to bully Luke, per se. But he was one of those guys that would never back down. He just kept going, kept going at Luke.
Styles: Most fights in football turn into wrestling matches, and I don’t think you want to do that with a wrestler.
Howard: We all knew that Luke was an all-world wrestler. We just didn’t know how quickly Luke’s fuse would go before he would let loose on the guy. And the guy kept going and kept going. And then Luke finally just grabbed the guy by his chest and said, “Look, leave me alone. Let’s just play football.” The guy goes to remove Luke’s hand, and this guy was probably every bit of 275, 280. Luke tossed this guy like he was my size, and I’m a defensive back. It really opened up a lot of people’s eyes.
Winfield Garnett (defensive lineman, 1994-97): I saw a couple guys underestimate Luke and they ended up with their feet in the air getting slammed.
Eddie George (running back, 1992-95): That’s one dude that you did not want to see in an alley or get in a fight with at practice because he would twist you in knots.
Fickell started 50 consecutive games on the Ohio State D-line. (Andy Lyons / Getty Images)Finkes: Obviously in camp there’s always fights. Offensive and defensive linemen are always fighting. One time, somebody came down and down-blocked him and a scrum broke out. Luke just tossed him. Like, a five-point, freestyle, feet-above-the-head toss.
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Miller: The two of us were on the scout team together while redshirting as freshmen. We’re just young Buckeyes trying to cut our teeth against the No. 1 offense. And Luke every other practice would be in a fight with some senior and he’d be hip-tossing them. And these guys didn’t know how to do that. It was kind of comical.
George: He was quiet, but he was an ass-kicker.
Howard: He’ll never punch first. But if you tick the guy off, it’s just bad news.
Garnett: Luke didn’t start fights. He finished them.
Howard: Even as a freshman, Luke was undersized, but, man, he was dominant.
Finkes: The guy played nose guard in the Big Ten at like 265 pounds. You don’t do that without being a tough son of a bitch.
‘Most disciplined guy I’ve ever come across’
Fickell won the starting nose guard role as a redshirt freshman in 1993 and started every game for the rest of his college career. He earned academic All-Big Ten honors four times.
Howard: Even back then, he had this quiet demeanor, quiet leadership about him. We figured he might even consider the military at some point. But that raw focus and discipline, that stood out.
George: I thought that him and Mike Vrabel (one of Fickell’s college roommates, who declined an interview request for this story through a Tennessee Titans team spokesperson) would be either strength coaches or coaches at some point in time because they were always in the gym. They just loved the game so much.
Miller: He’d always show up early to the weight room, stay late, always get extra workouts in, always run extra. He was just the quintessential student-athlete. If you were a coach, you had to love him.
Garnett: The talent probably wasn’t as high, but our D-line coach loved him so much. When we were in meetings, he was the most serious one, taking notes. He just had that more mature demeanor at a younger age than the rest of us.
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Howard: His film study, his preparation, was unmatched. You would think Luke was a quarterback. And the guy played D-tackle. It was uncanny.
Finkes: Sitting in the film room watching film with him, he was always a very analytical player. We played with Dan Wilkinson. Dan never had to watch film because he was just better than everybody else. But Luke was probably more of a film junkie and sat in there and really watched it because he didn’t have those fantastic physical abilities, so he had to make sure he had every advantage he could get.
Styles: His consistency is something that should be marveled on because he’s always, every game, where he’s supposed to be and maintaining that certain level of intensity throughout whole seasons.
Howard: Most disciplined guy I’ve ever come across.
Cooper: He’s one of those guys that did everything right.
Garnett: If you told Luke to take two steps, he’d take two steps. If you told him to have this type of hand placement, he’d have that type of hand placement. He was just super technically sound, which allowed him to play the nose tackle position at a slightly lighter weight than the typical nose tackle.
Cooper: I think wrestling really helped him become a really good football player early in his career. Because wrestlers use their hands. He got leverage and he was low to the ground, hard to block. You had to double-team him. You double-team him, we had some other guys in the defensive line that could play.
George: If Luke got you in his grasp, it was all over. He was really violent with his hands, had a low center of gravity and great leverage.
Styles: Standing up against some of those bigger guys, I didn’t know if he would be able to take on those double-teams as he did. But the more I played with him, I couldn’t ask for a better nose guard.
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Finkes: I was Luke’s roommate for three years. He’s a guy who always loved the big challenges. He was a guy that you could never tell him no because he was going to prove you wrong.
Miller: He was by far a quintessential leadership by his actions. He wasn’t a vocal guy, like a crazy rah-rah guy. He was more when the whistle blows, I’m going to go as hard as I can and through the whistle every play. He would never take a play off, and you always could count on him. But he never said a word. He would just get back in the huddle.
George: You could see then that he had the leadership ability because he was more about action, not just talking. And when he did speak, it spoke volumes.
Miller: We were in the second half of a game at Iowa our senior year. We were winning, but they scored a couple touchdowns, and things weren’t going the way we wanted them to be going. And Luke had enough. He was visibly upset, grabbed a couple guys’ facemasks in the huddle and had a few choice words for us, saying, “We’re stopping them right now.” Everyone was shocked he said something because it was so out of character. The next play was a big loss and we went crazy. People were pumped and it lit the fire under us to stop them and get off the field to win the game.
Finkes: I think the gravity of when he did speak and when he did step in and have something to say really carried a ton of weight because everyone respected him so much because of the toughness, the tenacity.
‘One of the most courageous performances I’ve ever seen’
Ohio State earned Big Ten co-championships in 1993 and 1996 with Fickell in the lineup. The undefeated Buckeyes lost at home to Michigan in the ’96 regular-season finale before beating Arizona State 20-17 in the Rose Bowl to finish No. 2 in the final AP Top 25 on a team Cooper said was perhaps the best he ever coached.
Howard: Regardless of where you came from, regardless of your race, if you were a competitor, you worked hard and were about team, he had your back.
Styles: He was one of those guys who made sure that everyone was where they were supposed to be when they were supposed to be there and that we were all held accountable.
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Cooper: He was very popular with his teammates.
George: Just in my years of playing with Vrabes and Luke and those guys, you get a sense of iron sharpening iron. And that’s what we did. We pushed each other, we challenged each other. We held each other accountable. They brought the best out of me, and I would think that we brought the best out of each other and all of us.
Fickell went on to be a longtime OSU assistant — and interim coach in 2011. (Doug Pensinger / Getty Images)Howard: Our senior year, we played Michigan in the Shoe. We were favored and I recall Greg Bellisari, he was one of our captains who played linebacker. We’re doing senior announcements when your last game, they call your name out, your parents and you come to midfield and take a bow in front of the fans. For some reason, Greg’s coming out and the Michigan players take the field at the exact same time. As Greg was running down to see his parents, the Michigan players ran out and essentially knocked him over. And even during senior day, we’re preparing for a game, that’s probably the most animated and fired up I’ve seen Fick.
Miller: There’s no doubt in my mind he was the heart and soul of the entire team. That was the kind of leader he was.
Garnett: Luke was just a good dude.
Howard: They knocked Greg over and Luke was with his parents and everyone else. Luke was the first guy to take off and go assist Greg. He probably ran through six, seven, eight Michigan guys, probably knocking two or three over. There was almost a full-fledged fight before the game. He’s a team-first, brotherhood-first guy. He’s going into the heart of the Michigan team, the heart of the storm to rescue Greg. It just speaks to the guy’s leadership, his commitment to his teammates.
Styles: He and I, the way we ran our huddle, he and I were basically face-to-face every call. So if my breath was stinking, he was able to smell it. When you get close to somebody like that, that energy kind of rubs off on each other and I think that fueled what our defense was about.
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Finkes: Then to be able to play with a torn pectoral muscle, that’s Luke right there in a nutshell.
Miller: We were about a week out from playing in the Rose Bowl in our last game and we were horsing around before practice during stretching. Luke would wrestle guys during warm-ups just to kind of get the juices flowing, especially some of these defensive linemen that were bigger than him. So guys would wrestle around during warm-ups while kids are stretching. And he hip-tossed this kid. And it was such a ridiculous move that it looked like something out of WWF. And this kid that he threw was a big old kid, big defensive lineman.
Finkes: You could tell when he did that in practice that it was bad.
Miller: He’s in pain. He practices the whole practice. We get done with the practice. We’re getting ice and the trainers are checking him out. Immediately, his entire chest is black and blue. He tore his pec off of his bone there.
Garnett: And of course he still played in the game.
Cooper: I can’t remember that kid ever missing a practice or a play or anything. He’s as tough as nails.
Howard: He was bandaged up. The guy could barely move. But Luke being Luke, he had to answer the bell. And he always did.
Finkes: Once he sets his mind to something, he’s going to be successful at it.
Miller: Any other human on the planet probably couldn’t play in the Rose Bowl. But they put some kind of crazy brace on him, taped him up, gave him some pain medicine and my man was unbelievable in that game playing with one arm basically, fighting off double teams. There’s probably pictures of him holding the Rose Bowl trophy with one arm with his shoulder pads off and that bandage and brace all on his arm. To this day, it’s one of the most courageous performances I’ve ever seen.
Finkes: Nothing stops him. Nothing can dissuade him. He’s going to keep on task. He’s going to attack everything with the intensity that he can. He just continues to overcome obstacles and whatever is put in front of him. I think he’s done that his entire life.
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Cooper: He’s one of those local guys that made good. I couldn’t be prouder of anybody I coached.
(Top photos: Stacy Revere and Jonathan Daniel / Getty Images)
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