Getting a meat loaf cake with mashed potato frosting on your birthday could be likened to a Christmas dinner of grilled cheese sandwiches and lima beans.
If you’re Nate Solder, the cafeteria favorite is all a part of a good diet.
Solder, a 6-foot-8, 240-pound senior linebacker and tight end at Buena Vista, hasn’t eaten sugar in more than five years. No sodas, no Gatorade, no cookies and certainly no birthday cake.
Solder’s sugar abstinence is the result of a bet he made with his father in an effort to promote healthy eating. Originally just a week-long test, Nate liked the feeling so much, he never went back.
This fall, Solder’s diet will consist mostly of chewing up running backs, fullbacks, quarterbacks and anyone else who touches the ball against the 10th-ranked Demons. His presence alone makes Buena Vista the favorite to win the western half of the Tri-Peaks League.
“I’m comfortable with people saying that,” Solder said of being singled out. “In my mind, I’m always just an instrument of our team.”
Solder runs the 40 in 4.9 seconds, but his footwork and agility are tremendous, the product of his other favorite sport, basketball. He is being recruited as a tight end and lineman but has stalled on early offers from Wyoming and Northern Colorado while he figures out if he wants to play on the hardwood or hash marks next year.
Solder has a 3.9 grade-point average and likes science and biology. His older brother, John, is an honor student and sophomore linebacker at Stanford, and both brothers love the outdoors – skiing and kayaking, specifically.
When asked to describe himself, Nate Solder called himself “kind of hidden. A lot of people think I don’t think all the time because I don’t say a lot,” he said. “I’m always thinking. I’m the silent type that always has something going on.”
Solder’s cerebral approach to life and football can be heard in his silence on the field. His emotions don’t rage from one extreme to the other, something his coach halfheartedly laments.
“Nate is such a nice kid,” Buena Vista coach Robert Marken said. “Nate doesn’t want to hurt people because he doesn’t want to show people up.”
Marken moved Solder off the defensive line to keep teams from running away from him and give him a chance to attack the ball.
“If he can get within several feet of the ball, his reach is so long he can take care of a lot of area,” Marken said.
The Demons lost the outright Tri-Peaks League title last season after a 27-26 loss at Lamar. In the preliminary round of the playoffs, Eaton sent Buena Vista home with a 42-25 loss, but not before Solder made an impression.
“We had a good offensive day against him, but we had to worry about him all the time,” Eaton coach Bill Mondt said. “You think at 6-8 he’d be easy to block, but he can really get down and hit people.
“He’s probably the best college prospect we played against last year,” Mondt said.
The Demons return 13 starters from last season and have proven athletes at all the skill positions. Returning to the playoffs is an expectation. The real test will be advancing past the opening round and proving the Demons can compete with the powerhouses from the Metropolitan and Patriot leagues.
Buena Vista has been bounced in the first round of the playoffs the past three seasons while being outscored by an average of 17 points.
“We’ve gotten there so many years, and we haven’t made any noise,” Solder said.
That alone would be something extra sweet for Solder.
