When Nick Sink found out he was going to start at center in place for injured Steven Hayes against Marshall in Week 3, he knew the first two people he was going to tell.
He quickly unlocked his phone and called his parents, Dan and Rita, back in his hometown of Fishers, Indiana.
Nick, in a high-pitched voice, recreated the excitement that his parents expressed through the phone when he told them he was going to get his first career start for the Bobcats.
“My parents have always been big in coming to my games,” Nick said. “They mean a lot to me and I love them. Whether I was playing or not, they’ve been really supportive, and I had to notify them first.”
Nick and his family are a tight-knit bunch. When he and his siblings are home from school, they hang out and catch up while eating Rita’s homemade buffalo chicken — one of Nick’s favorites. It’s a rarity when all the Sinks are together, but it’s something they make the most of when the occurrence does happen.
But one of the biggest and most important things that Nick and his family share is their motto.
“Keep fighting.”
It’s a phrase that Sink and his siblings have heard as they’ve grown up, and it’s one they tell themselves whenever challenges may seem too difficult to handle.
“In sports and in life, I think you’re going to have your ups and your downs, but you just have to get back up and keep swinging and go to the next thing,” Dan said. “Things may not go your way, but you just have to get up and keep fighting and move on.”
For most of his time at Ohio, Sink has done just that. A redshirt junior, Sink has spent the better part of his career with the second team units but has appeared in 13 games prior to this season. Throughout the 2019 fall camp, Sink consistently got reps with the starting offensive line, but he was never the go-to guy.
Sink didn’t feel nervous when he made his first start on the road at Marshall in front of a big crowd eager to rattle a long-time rival. For Sink, those nerves went away when he saw the experience of his teammates around him.
On his left side is Brett Kitrell, one of the more experienced interior offensive linemen on the Bobcats’ roster. Kitrell has played at both guard and center the last two seasons, but he didn’t have much to say much to Sink. He knows he’d be prepared to take the field whenever Ohio needed him to.
“We’ve grown a culture here on the offensive line where the next man up is going to be ready, and that next man up was Nick Sink,” Kitrell said. “Leading up to that week, he stepped up like it was nothing. He meshed with us really well. He’s a guy that’s not afraid to take charge of the offensive line.”
Kitrell and Sink are roommates on away trips, and while they spend time talking about the next game, they spent a majority of their evening watching clips from the movie Nacho Libre — one of their favorites. To say that Sink was nervous and lost sleep would be a gross misstatement.
“It’s ultimately just a football game, Sink said. “You just have to relax and go out there have fun playing,”
For Sink and the rest of the Bobcats’ offensive line, they looked about as relaxed as an offensive line could in his first start. It didn’t allow any sacks against Marshall — it allowed six against Pitt the week before — and the offense put up 438 total yards.
The following week presented a different challenge as Ohio’s offense slumped in its last nonconference game of the season. While the offense looked lost in the first half, it scored the second half saw 19 points put up on the scoreboard and areas to improve on.
There is no given time estimate on when Hayes will return from injury and as a result, how much longer Sink will be in the starting lineup. But that doesn’t matter to Sink. His mission won’t change. He’ll just do what he always has done and will always continue to do.
Keep fighting.
