MEADVILLE, Pa. – From start to finish, Nick Reiser’s football career at Allegheny College kept getting better and better, culminating in first-team All-America honors from not one, not two, but three nationally-recognized organizations after the 1996 season. Those certificates represent a small portion of a career that has made Reiser, class of 1997, one of the newest members of the Allegheny Athletic Hall of Fame. He will be inducted along with five others this Sunday (June 3) at noon in the Tippie Alumni Center.
Reiser, a native of Butler, Pa., came to Allegheny in the fall of 1993 on the heels of a successful football career at Knoch High School. As a senior, he led Knoch to a 10-2 record and the Greater Allegheny Conference championship in 1992, earning all-conference and all-district accolades along the way. Reiser wasn’t the only athlete in the family, however, as his brother Chris played football at the University of Pennsylvania, his sister Lynda swam for Washington & Jefferson College, and his brother Kurt ’93 was an All-America tight end for the Gators, catching the game-winning touchdown pass in the 1990 Stagg Bowl against Lycoming College. He had a lot to live up to, but he didn’t let any of it get in the way of a successful beginning to his career at Allegheny.
“Nick was a competitor from the very beginning,” said current Thiel College head coach Jack Leipheimer, who was Allegheny’s defensive coordinator from 1989 to 2000. “He could have played at a higher level, but chose to come to Allegheny. He had excellent size, strength, and speed. He was a leader - very charismatic off the field and extremely intense on the field.”
Reiser’s intensity translated to instant success individually and for the Gators as a team in 1993. As a freshman, he started every game and ranked eighth on the team with 43 total tackles. He added three sacks and a team high nine quarterback hurries, becoming just the third first-year in the history of the North Coast Athletic Conference and the first Allegheny player to grab first-team All-League honors. Allegheny captured its fifth conference title that fall with an unblemished 8-0 record and finished 9-2 overall, with its only two losses coming to NAIA Division II power Westminster (Pa.) College (24-17) and eventual Division III national champion Mount Union College (40-7) in the first round of the NCAA playoffs.
Even with that much success in only his first year, Reiser didn’t stop trying to improve.
“The key for Nick as a starter and all-conference player as a freshman,” said Ken O’Keefe, Allegheny’s head coach from 1990-97 and the current offensive coordinator at the University of Iowa, “was that he continued to get better as he got older. He was determined to improve and get better every year.”
Reiser suffered no ill-effects of a “sophomore slump” in 1994, once again finishing among the leading tacklers to go with a team high 9.5 sacks. He snatched up first-team All-NCAC accolades as Allegheny marched to another perfect regular season (10-0), including a 14-9 victory over eventual NAIA champion Westminster and an 8-0 record with three shutouts against league foes. The Gators finished first in the nation in the regular season polls, but bowed out of the first round of the playoffs with a 28-19 loss to Mount Union. Reiser did all he could in the postseason, tallying six tackles and 1.5 sacks against the Purple Raiders.
After his impressive sophomore campaign, Reiser began popping up on everyone’s radar, ranging from opposing teams to nationally-recognized publications. Prior to the 1995 season, he was tabbed a pre-season All-American by Street & Smith’s.
“By the middle of his sophomore year and throughout the rest of his career,” said Leipheimer, “opposing teams always had a new scheme of some kind or a new protection when they played us to try and account for Nick.”
Despite this fact, Reiser continued to bring it everyday to the gridiron, whether it was practice or game time.
“Nick would not take it easy on you ever, not in practice or in games,” said O’Keefe. “No one liked going up against him. Anyone that was out there knew where he was at all times.”
“If you want to play the linebacker position,” he added, “you better be pretty tenacious and never settle. That’s the way he played.”
The preseason billing was fulfilled by Reiser at the end of the 1995 season as the then-junior was tabbed a first-team All-American by both Hewlett-Packard and the Football Gazette after leading the Gator defense with 96 total tackles (59 solo) with nine tackles for a loss (44 yards), one interception, and 8.5 sacks. He tallied 10 or more stops in a game five times, including a season-high 16 against Westminster, and he was named All-NCAC First Team for a third time. Allegheny came up on the short-end of the league title, dropping one contest to Wittenberg University (31-17), though Reiser came up huge in the game with 15 stops. The team bounced back to win its final seven games, three by shutout, to finish 11th in the nation.
Reiser’s first three seasons led to a dramatic senior year for the Butler native, beginning with pre-season NCAA Division III Defensive Player of the Year honors from College Sports magazine, as well as pre-season All-America recognition by both Street & Smith’s and The Sporting News. He didn’t disappoint, starting all 11 games and leading the way with 85 total tackles and 6.5 sacks. Reiser was tabbed first-team All-NCAC for a fourth time, marking just the second four-time honoree in the history of the conference. He was also given the Hank Critchfield Award, an honor bestowed upon the best defensive player in the NCAC, in addition to being lauded with most valuable player honors from his own team. To cap the season, Reiser was named All-American First Team by the American Football Coaches Association, Hewlett-Packard, and Football Gazette.
As a team, Allegheny captured its third NCAC title in Reiser’s tenure by posting an 8-0 mark against league foes, with none of those contests being decided by less than 10 points. The Gators finished the regular season 10-0, setting up another meeting with Mount Union in the first round of the playoffs. The Purple Raiders came out the victors 31-26 en route to the national championship, though it was the only victory they posted on the season by less than 18 points. Allegheny, with its impressive showing against Mount, finished second overall in the final national poll by Football Gazette.
For his career, Reiser racked up 274 tackles (120 assisted, 154 solo) with 27.5 sacks, tying teammate Bob Tatsch ’97 for first on the school’s all-time list. He started every game he played in (43) and is still only one of five players to ever receive first-team All-NCAC accolades four times. Allegheny’s defensive unit was among the best in the nation from 1993 to 1996, ranking in the top 10 in points allowed per game each year, including fourth with a miniscule 8.4 in 1994. Overall, the team finished with a record of 38-5 over that time period, with three losses to Mount Union in the NCAA playoffs. Reiser’s graduating class may have been one of the greatest to grace the conference ranks as the class of 1997 posted a record of 31-1 in the NCAC with three regular season titles.
The accolades haven’t stopped rolling in for Reiser just because he stopped playing football. At the conclusion of his college career, he was named an NCAA Post-Graduate Scholar, becoming just the second Gator to earn the honor. Also, as the NCAC celebrated its 20th anniversary in 2004, Reiser was tabbed to the conference’s All-Decade Team (1993-2002) as a member of the defense – the only Allegheny defender to earn such a distinction for that time period.
“Nick was the best player I have every coached, and he probably could have been better had I left him alone,” said Leipheimer. “He was so versatile that I moved him around a lot and had him play a variety of positions. If I had let him alone at outside linebacker, he probably would have had even more impressive statistics then he does now.”
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