Friday nights at the team hotel is where Badgers’ bonds are built
October 13, 2018 | Football, Andy Baggot, Varsity Magazine
It’s a weekly tradition that is key to building chemistry. Who’s your roommate the night before game day?
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BY ANDY BAGGOT
UWBadgers.com Insider
MADISON, Wis. — Scott Nelson made the confession with a scowl that spread quickly across his face.
Wisconsin's redshirt freshman free safety was freshly fed, laying on his hotel room bed, when he was asked if he had any school work to do.
He did.
Not the ideal situation for Nelson knowing that in less than 24 hours he would be lining up for the Badgers for their Big Ten Conference game with Nebraska at Camp Randall Stadium.
"I don't like doing homework on Fridays before games," he said. "I try to (finish everything) by Friday afternoon, or Thursday for away games, out of my system. So whatever I have to do before I leave I try and do."
So what happened this time?
"I found it a little late," Nelson said of an online worksheet in Geography 170. "It's due tomorrow morning at 11."
Will it take long?
"Hopefully not," Nelson said.
It would not be the first moment of enlightenment for Nelson on the weekend, nor would it be the harshest. How fortunate that he has an able guide laying on the other double bed.
Senior strong safety D'Cota Dixon handpicked Nelson to be his roommate for weekends spent at the team hotel. Upperclassmen can choose their roomies and Dixon opted for Nelson for a host of reasons.
One is their shared place in the back end of the Wisconsin defense.
One is their roles as mentor and understudy.
One is their mutual respect.
One is their emotional compatibility.
"I admire him as a brother," Dixon said of Nelson. "But also, on the football side, we're like-minded people."
How so?
"He's an alpha," Dixon said. "I'm an alpha."
Dixon, by choice, is trying to do the same thing for Nelson that his past mentors at the safety position did for him. In 2014 and '15 it was Michael Caputo, a two-time co-captain. In 2016 it was Leo Musso, voted the team's Most Valuable Player.
Dixon, a 24-year-old black man from Florida, and Nelson, a 19-year-old white kid from Detroit, spend a lot of time together. You see it on the field before and after practice. You see it in the Camp Randall locker room even though their stalls are in different sections of the vast headquarters. You see it the night before games when Dixon and Nelson share a meal with their teammates and, later, when they exchange insights from Bibles they both have at the ready.
Their vibe is part of a familiar routine that defines every hotel stay by the Badgers, whether it's at Iowa or Michigan or Penn State, or at home when players, coaches and support personnel gather, have dinner, relax, socialize and focus.
After the latest meal, tight ends coach Mickey Turner gathered his charges on padded benches just off the hotel lobby and reviewed some prep material.
Senior nose tackle Olive Sagapolu exited the dining area and headed back to his room.
"Got to get some homework done," the community and nonprofit leadership major said.
Players with family members on hand eventually connected with them in the lobby until curfew.
Dixon said the bonding is essential to the cause.
"That's what makes going out every Saturday that much more special because you've got your guys with you," he said. "For me, that's my why.
"When I see a guy smiling and enjoying the moment, that kind of energy's contagious. It makes you want to play harder for these guys, the guys you line up with, prepare with, cry with, laugh with, go through pain with."
Dixon and Nelson are one of only two consistent senior-freshman rooming pairs this season. The other is Sagapolu and first-year defensive end Kayden Lyles.
Dixon gravitated toward Nelson last season when it became apparent that the two had a lot in common.
"When he was a (true) freshman, I knew he was a dog in mentality," Dixon said, complimenting Nelson. "He reminded me of myself when I was coming in.
"He wasn't complacent. He wasn't just happy to be here. He wasn't content just being in the jersey and saying, 'Oh, I'm a Badger.' You could see how he lived it in workouts."
Dixon said he noticed early on that Nelson was a unique character with a bright future. It was Nelson who consistently beat Dixon in offseason agility tests.
"I knew he had that kind of mentality, that grit, to him," Dixon said.
Wisconsin coaches thought Nelson was good enough to contribute as a true freshman in 2017, but opted to lean on an array of veterans in the secondary and redshirt him instead.
Nelson, listed at 6-foot-2 and 202 pounds, has started the first five games at free safety heading into a Big Ten showdown at Michigan. He and Dixon, listed at 5-10 and 198, rank third on the team with 25 tackles apiece.
Dixon said it's important to note that since Nelson became the starter — one of 15 Badgers to make his starting debut this season — "he's not become complacent."
That's not the norm, according to Dixon.
"I think a lot of people, when they get that privilege so early, they abuse it," he said. "They don't understand. They fall off. They get complacent. They like the image of being a football player, but they don't actually love the game of football."
Nelson does.
"He will be a captain," Dixon declared. "It's not that he wants to be one. That's just who he is. He has to own that."
Nelson, who leads the Badgers with five pass break-ups and has one of the four interceptions recorded thus far, said rooming with Dixon represents comfort.
"I shared a room with my brother for the longest time — bunk beds — so I'm used to living in the same room with somebody," Nelson said of his older sibling, Adam.
The only rule is that Nelson gets the bed closest to the window.
"It's a vet thing," Dixon explained. "When I was young, I was the guy on the window side. It's a little bit brighter."
According to Dixon, most of the in-room down time the night before a game is spent on FaceTime with friends and family members.
While Nelson said he sleeps without issue, Dixon tends to be more restless. They'll get up depending on whether the game is late morning, mid-afternoon or at night.
Nelson said Dixon "is helping me through the process" of being on time, preparing and going over details of the upcoming game.
What has Nelson learned from sharing a room with Dixon?
"You can tell how much this matters to him," Nelson said. "He always wakes up first. He never says anything. He just gets his iPad and he's watching film or looking at his notebook.
"He's very detailed. He's a perfectionist. That's a blessing and a curse because he's always trying to improve and sometimes will get frustrated when it's not perfect."
What has Dixon learned from sharing close quarters with Nelson?
"He brings his Bible with him," Dixon said with a smile. "That's something I've always done. I never told him to do that. I thought that was really cool."
Their shared sense of faith extends to their voluntary involvement with the Fellowship of Christian Athletes.
"There's been times when me and him haven't been on the same page, but I love him," Dixon said of Nelson. "I know who he is."
Nelson said "there's been a couple times" where he and Dixon have had football-related conflicts.
"Sometimes our emotions get out there," Nelson said.
"When he's mad, he'll either start talking a lot to let it out or he won't say anything. I'm similar. If I'm mad, I don't say anything."
Nelson and Dixon are known to have conversations with themselves.
"He talks to himself," Dixon said with a laugh. "I do that all the time. I'm weird like that.
"'C'mon, Dixon.'
"He'll do that, too. 'C'mon, Scotty.'"
"It makes you want to play harder for these guys, the guys you line up with, prepare with, cry with, laugh with, go through pain with" Badger brotherhood is special. Look no further than the bond senior @DcotaDixon1 and freshman @_scottnelson share. 📱💻 http://go.wisc.edu/varsity-9-7
— Wisconsin Football (@BadgerFootball) October 11, 2018
Twenty-four hours after they bunked down for the night, against the backdrop of victory, Dixon was in physical pain and Nelson was emotionally distraught.
The Badgers knocked off Nebraska 41-24, but Dixon limped to the locker room on an injured right leg and was met there by a tearful Nelson, who'd been ejected for targeting late in the third quarter. The penalty not only banished Nelson from the game, he must sit out the opening half of the Michigan game.
At one point in the postgame din, Nelson, in sweat clothes with a hood pulled over his head, sat down quietly next to Dixon in front of the latter's locker.
"Keep your head up," Dixon told his young teammate.
Nelson said the situation was "very difficult, very frustrating" because his personal foul put the Badgers, already young and green in the secondary, in a tighter bind.
"I guess I have to get my head out of the way," he said after seeing one replay of the sequence involving Nebraska running back Maurice Washington. "Try and go a little lower next time."
Dixon and Nelson thought the defensive backfield held up well in the first half against Nebraska, but missed assignments and the lack of a consistent pass rush led to problems in the second half.
"It's tough when you have a mobile quarterback," Dixon said of Adrian Martinez, the true freshman for the Cornhuskers who threw for 384 yards and two touchdowns. "There's only so long you can cover (receivers).
"It wasn't my best game at all, but I felt as a unit we did fine."
Dixon said the Huskers did "a lot of new stuff" that he hadn't seen on video, wrinkles that were "messing with our coverages a little bit."
It wasn't a surprise for Dixon to see that his roommate had been crying.
"He's passionate," he said of Nelson. "He'll be all right. He'll bounce back."
In the meantime, Dixon will do his best to get Nelson ready for the next challenge. Their shared knowledge has an end game.
"He'll be special here," Dixon said.
