Mike Vaccaro

Mike Vaccaro

NFL

One child’s courage inspired Nelson to two-TD day

When it was time to head back to work, when team meetings beckoned back at the team hotel and a fun day in the city was nearing an end, David Nelson had one final question for his new friend.

“Is there anything I can do for you tomorrow?” Nelson asked.

This is the part, in the movie, where Davion Only asks Babe Ruth to hit a home run for him — or, at the least, where he would ask David Nelson to score a touchdown for him. And maybe two.

Davion is 15. He was born in prison to a mother serving time for petty theft and cocaine distribution. He has spent his whole life in foster care; when last June he decided to find his birth mother he discovered La-Dwina Ilene “Big Dust” McCloud had died two weeks earlier in Clearwater, Fla.

“The things this kid has experienced in his life,” David Nelson said Sunday afternoon. “It’s humbling just to think about.”

It was a few months ago when Davion stood in front of the congregation at St. Mark Missionary Baptist Church in St. Petersburg, opened his heart, and asked for the most heart-rending gift a child could request: a family.

“I’ll take anyone,” Davion said that morning. “Old or young, dad or mom, black, white, purple. I don’t care. And I would be really appreciative. The best I could be.”

Ten thousand people responded, and if you can find a better Christmas story than that, good luck to you. That is how Davion is spending the Christmas season, visiting prospective parents. And this weekend he and another Florida orphan, 13-year-old Taylor Diaz, had an especially unforgettable treat: spending time with David Nelson.

Along with his two brothers, Patrick and Daniel, Nelson runs i’mMe, a foundation that tries to aid and assist orphans, whose mission statement reads, in part: “to empower, love, and care for each orphan, as well as provide every child with a family environment, education, food, and clean water.”

So on Saturday David, Tayor and Davion had lunch at Tao, they went to the M&M Store, they went to FAO Schwartz, they tried to see as much of Manhattan as the daylight allowed. Then work beckoned, and as much as Nelson would have gladly spent the night with his new friends, too, he needed to prepare for Sunday’s game with the Browns — who happened to cut him at the end of training camp this summer.

And so the question.

“Is there anything I can do tomorrow?”

And the response was enough to stir David Nelson’s heart.

“Just this,” Davion replied. “When you make your first catch tomorrow, point to the sky. When you do that, I’ll know you’re thinking of me.”

So it was that with just under 90 seconds left in the first half at MetLife Stadium, Nelson was lined up with his teammates at the Browns’ 6-yard-line, third-and-goal, down 10-0. It had been another quiet couple of quarters for the Jets’ offense. MetLife was restless, little more than half-filled.

Nelson was Geno Smith’s third option on the play; one of the big flaws in Smith’s game is if his primary receiver is covered, he rarely makes it though the rest of his progressions. He did this time. He threaded the football though a mass of hands, right to Nelson, open in the end zone.

Nelson knew his friend was upstairs at MetLife, sitting in the family-section suites, no doubt beaming from ear to ear. And also knew he made a promise.

So he pointed. To the sky. For Davion.

“I wish I could have planned something like that, my first catch being a touchdown,” Nelson would say later.

He would add three more catches and another TD, and each time he pointed to the sky, and the Jets won 24-13, and he’d gone and had himself a Babe Ruth moment. Two TDs for his pal.

“You probably noticed I played a lot better today than I’ve been playing,” he said, smiling. “I don’t think that’s an accident. Davion’s story inspired me in ways you can’t imagine. All the stressing and pressing of playing this game — none of that really mattered all that much after I spent some time with him.”

There was so much drama around the Jets Sunday, Rex Ryan’s job status, and Geno Smith’s future. Nelson has heard the frequent buzz: part of Geno’s problem is a lack of quality talent around him. None of that disappears now. But for a day, David Nelson felt empowered to play a good bit beyond his ceiling.

For a day, his new friend helped make him one dangerous wide receiver.