The Gift Of Grab

A look through the Newark Star-Ledger clippings Waudda has in a scrapbook reveals that Nard was doing the same thing in high school. He averaged 15.8 rebounds (and 23.2 points) as a senior, yet major colleges put no stock in those numbers. Waudda saved every tiny story and box score, from the games she witnessed Nard rebounding for her, and the games about which she could only hear his stories. She sometimes annotated the scrapbook entries in her unsteady hand, such as the article from Dec. 17, 2005, which is headlined FARIED SPARKLES AS TECHNOLOGY TRIUMPHS. That was his junior year, and he had 25 points and 22 rebounds in a playoff game. What Waudda wrote next to it, in thick red marker, is the only epitaph Nard's career will ever need: "He played his ass off."