Steve Ellis, the Colonel football team’s starting strong safety and team captain, has done a lot to build up his reputation going into the 2001 season. Ellis, a native of Stringer, Miss., garnishes the nickname of “Prime Time,” and has evolved into one of the Colonels emotional leaders on the football team.

“He is our emotional leader, he gets us all going. He is a vocal guy,” said Daryl Daye, the Colonels head football coach.

He finished last season with a 99 tackles, registering 70 solo tackles and 29 assisted tackles. Ellis also finished last season among the top seven in tackles.

“Steve is a guy that can play corner or safety. He is very valuable,” Daye said.

Although Ellis’s football career started in the seventh grade, he was born into a game that had been played by many others before him in his family. Football was kind of like his birthright.

“Football was brought to me when I was born,” Ellis said. “All of my family played sports, my brother played ball at the university of Southern Mississippi.”

Ellis was brought into the football world early in his career, with a position as ball boy for his brothers high school teams from the age of eight to the age of 12. Ellis said that he looked up to those football teams for their impressive record of 42-1 in four years.

Although Ellis is now featured on the team as a defensive specialist, he played both offense and defense at Stringer High School, a small district I-A school in Mississippi.

“I went to a I-A school, so I played pretty much everything like quarterback, running back, punt return and kick return,” he said.

At the end of his high school career, Ellis had won the honors of All-district, All-state and district MVP.

Ellis said that the camaraderie that was showed to him by the football players from Nicholls when he came on his visit was one of the main factors that influenced him to come to Nicholls.

As compared to the two previous seasons that he has played, he says that this upcoming year will be his favorite one.

This year the atmosphere is different, we all bonded together and we have one thing to do, and that is win the conference,” he said.

There is also a driving force in Ellis that pushes him to be the best. The death of his father came one day before he was supposed to arrive to Nicholls for the fall drills his freshman year.

“When my father was in the hospital he told me to take care of my mother, and that just pushed me to be the best. That’s why I think I work so hard,” Ellis said.

Ellis shares a goal that most football players from all universities share, and that is making it to the National Football League.

“I think everybody wants to go to the league, and that has been my goal since I started playing football, Ellis said.

Ellis feels comfortable with his role as a team leader, and he feels that he has led by example.

A lot of people could sum Ellis’s career at Nicholls as good, great or even excellent, but he pretty much wraps it up in one word, “fabulous.”