The Legend of The Dude

This is a shout out to my best friend and one of the coolest dudes around: My brother, Niko aka The Dude.

I may be his older (albeit smaller) brother, but I sure do look up to this kid. The Dude has been through a lot this past year and I was unfortunately away, out of the country, living in Germany the whole time.

This is a guy who persevered through all of my "big brother antics" when we were younger (when I still happened to be the older AND bigger brother) and several other hardships to develop into an intelligent, strikingly handsome, athletic as hell, lovable, competitive, and endearing individual. I don't think my parents could have asked for a better 3rd child, the perpetual 'baby' of the family.


When I was only a Sophomore in college and The Dude was going through his college search and football recruiting process I received a phone call from him. He wanted to tell me about an essay he wrote for a college application. The prompt, or theme, for this particular essay was to say who his hero was and why. He was so excited to tell me about it because, as it turned out, I happened to be his guy, his hero.

At the time, I didn't know what to say to something like this. I didn't even know if I liked having this type of hefty responsibility bestowed upon my already faulty shoulders (I had shoulder surgery just a short year before). But, it was, and to this day it is still such an honor to have had my little brother tell that to me.


Well, Dude, here's to you. I truly and sincerely admire the relentless work you have put in this past year.

I couldn't ask for two better role models than our kickass father and you, Dude. I really mean that.

So, thanks for being one of MY Hero's too.

I love you and can't wait to see ya in about a month!




-russ