Work ethic speaks loudly for Webste

There is certainly no one on the Broncos' defense louder than Nate Webster, but all it took was one late-night phone call in early January for everything to go silent.

His mother, Linda, was on the other end of the line. She was crying. "Your daddy's not breathing," Webster remembered her saying.

Nate Webster Sr. had suffered a major heart attack at his home in Tampa, Fla.

"At one point, he was dead," Webster said. "The paramedics brought him back."

Webster flew to Florida the next day and spent about three months there while his father recuperated. During that time, Webster lost 15 pounds from the stress.

But the ordeal gave him a new perspective once he returned to Denver for offseason conditioning in March, about he time he learned he would be switching from strong side to middle linebacker, the same position he played at the University of Miami and earlier in his career with Tampa Bay.

"My dad's been so strong and worked so hard for so many years to be a provider for us. I have never seen him at a weak point, never ever, so to see him down and unconscious, that hit me hard," Webster said. "Right then and there, I just wanted to dedicate and put a lot of focus into getting into the best shape of my life."

Coaches noticed. Mike Shanahan commented on the day before training camp started last month that Webster had never been in better condition. After almost three weeks of camp, Webster is listed first on the depth chart at middle linebacker, ahead of Niko Koutouvides, who was signed away from Seattle in the offseason with the intention he would be the starter.

Webster, who was credited with 100 tackles by the Broncos in 2007, started the preseason opener against the Houston Texans, though the battle is far from over. Koutouvides led the first-team defense Monday and Tuesday.

"It's going to go down to the wire, and that's the way it should be," Koutouvides said. "Give both players every opportunity to show what they've got."

What makes the battle more interesting is that Webster and Koutouvides are so different.

Koutouvides, a Connecticut native who went to Purdue, isn't flashy or loud. Webster, though, is impossible to ignore, from his overly baggy mesh shorts that hang nearly to his ankles to his tendency to lose his helmet in piles of tacklers.

And, of course, there is that voice.

Almost every day, he issues a guttural yell as he walks toward the practice field, and hardly a play goes by without him making some sort of comment to the offense.

"He's a live-wire kind of guy, always talking," defensive coordinator Bob Slowik said. "He always has to be talking, has to be moving."

That kind of behavior has endeared him to teammates, though he knows he has to learn to better curb his emotions at times during games. It wasn't something he always knew how to do when he was younger.

"Back in the day, I used to be a bit dirty under the piles," Webster said. "But the cameras see everything, plus it's just part of growing up and being smarter, and not wanting to put your team in a bad situation, get a penalty, do anything that will hurt your chances of winning the game."

Webster's father has recovered enough from the heart attack to travel, and he and Linda are staying with Webster in Denver during training camp.
Linda cooks, and the three spend as much time as possible talking about when Webster and his siblings were young.

"I want to get him out here to participate, to see as much of me as he can, whether it's coming to games or practices, or just being around me, period," Webster said, "because I'm a daddy's boy."

(denverpost.com)