White: Whirlwind 7-month ride for Sash

If you don't have a rooting interest in the Super Bowl, root for Tyler Sash.

No. 39 is a prominent special teams player and rookie reserve safety for the New York Giants. The native Iowan starred in football and basketball at Oskaloosa High School, about an hour southeast of Des Moines. He went on to earn All-America and All-Big Ten honors at Iowa, where he started for three years before being drafted last spring in the sixth round by the Giants.

But don't root for him only because you’re a Hawkeye fan or because he grew up in the state. Root for him because he's a decent young man, someone who seems determined not to get caught up in the trappings of being a professional athlete. A true role model, not a manufactured one.

You see, Tyler played basketball for my brother, Bryan, who is the head coach at Oskaloosa. On Fourth of July weekend last summer, my family headed to Osky for a get-together at Bryan's house.

Bryan's gatherings always include basketball. He has a spacious cement court in his backyard, with two hoops and a full 3-point line. It's perfect for a serious game of full-court 3-on-3, which is what we played that day for about two hours in the searing heat.

When I saw the muscular young man with the bald head and the Iowa T-shirt arrive, I knew it was Tyler. At first I wondered why, thinking he should have been in a rookie training camp somewhere by then. But then I remembered that the NFL players still were locked out. A collective bargaining agreement hadn't yet been reached between the owners and players. He had still yet to set foot in an NFL facility, even though the start of the regular season was just two months away.

So Tyler came to play some basketball. The games were fiercely competitive, as usual. Tyler often was on my team. He was outstanding on defense and an excellent rebounder, as you'd expect. But his jump shot had abandoned him. A terrific long-range shooter in high school, you could tell he'd been spending much more time in the weight room than on his jumper.

Finally, after a few games, the smart-aleck in me took over.

"Do you play any other sports?'' I asked. He smiled.

The impressive thing to me wasn't that he came to play basketball at his former coach's house. It was that he stayed. He engaged in conversation with several people he didn't know all that well. If I was an NFL draft choice at age 23, I'm not sure I would have carried myself with the same maturity.

He stayed and barbequed with us. In the evening we broke into teams and played "Minute to Win It.'' Tyler was right there with everybody else, stacking metal nuts on the end of a popsicle stick hanging out of his mouth, among other silly games.

And now, seven months later, Tyler will be playing in the biggest game of them all.

Now comes the confession. I wasn't a big Tyler Sash fan the few times I watched him play basketball in high school. While he was certainly a great talent and capable of making a flurry of 3-pointers, I also thought he took too many bad shots. I didn't think he always made the players around him better. I didn't always like his body language on the court.

It seemed he completely changed when he got to Iowa. He became a rock in the Hawkeye secondary. He seemingly said and did everything the right way. He probably grew up. Sound familiar to anyone?

Now he's a young man with a deep faith who has started a not-for-profit apparel line called #GBNB. It's stands for, Get Better Not Bitter. According to the Facebook website, it's a daily reminder that your attitude can influence more than you can imagine. The proceeds go to disadvantaged youth.

So Hawkeye fan or not, it's OK to root for Tyler Sash. Or as my 4-year-old niece Brooke, who often sports his No. 9 Iowa jersey, yells out, "Tylersash!'' any time there's a football game of any kind on TV.

On Sunday, this Cowboys fan will be rooting for the Giants.

Enjoy the game.

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