Sports Bright: Bill Noethlich Minnesota Vikings – NFL
Saturday, May 8, 2010 22:58
When undrafted rookie free agent Bill Noethlich signed a contract with Minnesota Vikings, he overcame a string of personal tragedies that would devastate anybody.
Hard Work and Football Paying Off
I really enjoy posting my Sports Bright articles. With so much negative news in the world of sports (Tiger Woods, Ben Roethlisberger)–not to mention in the world at large–it’s a joy to write about positive stories.
I enjoy my Sports Bright articles so much that I usually post them immediately, jumping them to the front of the line. To put that in perspective, I have one story idea about the difference between American and European attitudes toward and participation in female team sports that I’ve been pondering since the Vancouver Olympic Games, and I have yet to delve into the 2010 baseball season–and hardball is my absolute favorite of sports.
I first read Bill Noethlich’s story on Yahoo! Sports, but the source story for that article was written by Judd Zulgad for the Minneapolis Star Tribune.
You have to like it anytime a player signs an NFL contract who did not come out of the pseudo-professional system that is NCAA Division I college football. But when that player is a young man such as Bill Noethlich, who has undergone so much personal tragedy at the age of 23, you have to root even harder. Noethlich only started playing football at the age of 15, at the suggestion of his grandfather as a way of coping with the death of his mother. He ended up playing college ball at tiny Southwest Minnesota State, and in the intervening years saw his grandfather and sister both die and the family house burn down. Yet football remained his rock, and his hard work has now paid off in the form of an undrafted rookie camp standout offered a contract by the Minnesota Vikings.
I hope that Noethlich’s dream continues and he makes the final Minnesota Vikings roster.
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