It’s the kind of thing a rambunctious adolescent Nebraska male would say. Daddy, I want to play for the Huskers.

That’s nice, son, now go help your mother with the dishes.

Only that’s not how it went with Garrett Nelson. Then in junior high, when the son of a former Husker wrestler turned and said those words to his father the response was immediate. And challenging.

“It was like he said, OK, let’s see if the kid really means it,” remembers Garrett, who is entering his senior year at Scottsbluff High School. What followed was a Nebraska wrestling camp that included five dual matches a day, every day of the week, and that didn’t even include the running of the stadium steps. And not alone.

“I was the second biggest kid there, about 200 pounds, and I had to carry this 285-pound kid up and down the stadium steps seven times,” he recalls, his eyes growing brighter as he tells his story. “There was also a four-mile run around the bottom row of the stadium seating but I did it all with a smile on my face. If that’s what it took to be a Husker, that’s what I was going to do.”

Driven by his quest Nelson saw his dream come true last summer when he committed to play college football for the Nebraska Cornhuskers. “It was an out-of-body experience,” says Garrett. “After (Friday Night Lights) camp they told me to go see (former defensive coordinator) Coach Diaco. He said they’d like to offer me a scholarship and I didn’t hear the hundred words he said after that. Later when I told my grandpa about it he said all excitedly, ‘ YOU got an offer from Nebraska?’ I have never cried so uncontrollably as I did after that.”

Garrett has been bringing tears to the eyes of his high school opponents ever since. He’s a four-year starter who really emerged as a dominant high school player during the course of his junior season, the 2017. Last year with about everybody on the field coming for him - that happens when you’re a Husker commit - he still managed 11 tackles for loss and seven sacks, earning unanimous all-Huskerland and Super State honors.

The kid had arrived.

And he’d done it only a couple of years after he arrived at Scottsbluff High. See, he’d attended Gering schools, in the other Panhandle Twin City, through his eighth grade year.

“I knew this was a good school and it had a good football program. I have always gotten treated well here at Scottsbluff and the coaches do things right. It has been a great fit for me as a person and as a player,” says Garrett.

Even as a freshman Nelson was a bit of a prodigy, wrestling varsity at a Class B school, and as sophomore he was a guy varsity coaches couldn’t help but notice. Garrett saw to that.

“I was some sort of scout team all-American at the start of that year,” remembers Garrett, laughing at the memory. “I did some crazy things out there to get people to say ‘oh’ and take notice. I kept working and pretty soon I was starting at defensive end. I still remember my first tackle.”

That might be a little harder than you think - he had 14 of them that night.

As a junior he helped lead a still youthful Scottsbluff team to eight regular season wins and another in the playoffs. It took eventual champion York to knock them out of the Class B postseason. Like most great competitors he remembers that loss much more than all the wins.

“York was so huge and athletic, they were out to dominate you. As a leader on our team I want our guys to think like that on every play. Dominate every play, every game, that’s what this game is all about,” says Garrett.

Born in Minnesota, Garrett and his family moved to Gering when his father, Chris Nelson, took a new job. He has earned a 3.4 GPA and also finished third at the state DECA competition, qualifying for nationals. “I guess they liked the way I talk,” he tells you. His other sport is wrestling and last winter he won the Class B 285 gold while weighing only 230 pounds. Once in college he plans to study finance.

And once he’s on the football field in college he has another goal.

“I want to be one of the Huskers they talk about, guys like Scott Frost, Barrett Ruud, Carlos Polk. I want my name to be in the at conversation. I want to be the type of player who makes all-Big 10 and is considered for the Butkus Award and awards like that. Being scared is OK. Being afraid to fail is OK, that’s actually what motivates me. But you never want to quit, never.”