'Inspiration to us all': Fernandina Beach's Nolan Blackard signs to play college football

Standing near the middle of a 12-strong line of Fernandina Beach athletes a mile from the Atlantic Ocean, the arm holding the pen was only part of the story for Nolan Blackard.

With right hand gripping that pen, left arm attached to a prosthetic hand, Blackard officially unlocked his doorway to college football, one of a dozen Fernandina Beach athletes from football to lacrosse to golf celebrating a college signing Wednesday inside the Nassau County school's cafeteria on Wednesday.

Born without the lower portion of his left arm, he hasn't let any obstacles keep him from his goals on the gridiron — even if this particular goal once seemed far longer than a football field's distance away.

"I never thought I would be here [signing with a college]," he said.

He's here now, a four-year varsity player for the Nassau County school now on course for the college gridiron.

Blackard wears a prosthetic hand much of the time, including during Wednesday's ceremony, but football is an exception. Even with no left hand to fend off pass rushers, he's grown into an effective blocker on the Pirates' front.

Standing on Wednesday's stage, he waited his turn next to football teammate Joshua Modupe, a linebacker signing with Army West Point. Then, the moment came.

Destination college football, no matter the obstacles.

"He's been such an inspiration to us all," Fernandina Beach athletic director Mike Woodard said.

CLEARING THE OBSTACLES

Blackard's road to college football began with attitude. That's the way his parents, Jeff and Melinda, saw it from the start.

"I think, for Nolan, he doesn't view himself being different than anybody else," Jeff Blackard said. "Everybody's got challenges that they've got to overcome in life, and he's never felt sorry for himself."

Because of his father's Navy background, Nolan experienced multiple stops at different parts of the country before the family anchored in Nassau County.

Although he competed in soccer early on while growing up, he didn't play his first snaps of football until seventh grade, a level when many players already have years of gridiron testing under their belts.

Steep learning curve or not, he didn't lose heart.

"It was really tough at first," he said. "But you just kind of stick with it and get better, and then kind of find your way."

For Blackard, the road to the college gridiron in some ways looked much like the path for thousands of others around America: effort and motivation, countless hours in the weight room and plenty of encouragement.

"He just had a lot of support from his coaches. They never told him he couldn't do it," Melinda Blackard said. "He just kept going and going."

TAKING THE NEXT STEP

Jude Swearingen couldn't quite believe what he was seeing.

Then head coach at Fernandina Beach, he was setting up workouts during the offseason months ahead of the 2020 campaign when a newcomer arrived at the weight room. Swearingen noticed his height — already 6-4, he estimated, in middle school — and his weight, upward of 200 pounds. And his missing hand.

"He steps up, jumps in, I see him, and I'm like, 'We're going to have to figure out a new way to do things," Swearingen recalled.

Swearingen said the school implemented methods to ensure that Blackard could safely participate in weight training, and his strength grew quickly.

Once he entered high school, Blackard broke into the varsity roster quickly on his way to four years in Pirate blue. As a freshman in 2020, he was part of the Fernandina Beach team that beat county rival West Nassau 34-22 for the Pirates' first-ever Florida High School Athletic Association postseason victory.

For most of his four years with the football squad, he lined up as starting right tackle, learning his craft at the position.

"He had to learn how to utilize leverage with his [right] hand against blockers," Swearingen said. "He learned to create a blow with that other hand, then being able to latch on and use his footwork."

Standing 6 feet, 6 inches, Blackard has prototypical height for an offensive tackle. And although his listed weight of 250 pounds is smaller than many linemen in the modern game, he's learned how to compensate by winning the mental battle.

"You just kind of learn your opponent and figure out how to beat him," he said.

Still, it wasn't until the last year or so that he really started to weigh the possibilities: Could he someday advance beyond high school to play college football?

"It was a dream of his to go play college football," Jeff Blackard said. "It's something that I don't know that he thought that he would attain, but he did, and we're just proud of him to go do it."

During the fall, Nolan said he reached out to numerous colleges, including the Polk County-based Southeastern, which compiled a 5-5 record in the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics last season under head coach Adam Waugh. Pretty soon, his persistence paid off.

"I was just constantly researching and I found them, and it looked like a great campus," he said. "I emailed them and then we started talking. I went out for a tour, then they called me about a week later and they gave me an offer."

He becomes the most recent Northeast Florida athlete of note to advance beyond high school sports with a limb difference.

A dozen years ago, Carson Pickett won the Florida Dairy Farmers Miss Soccer award and a Florida High School Athletic Association girls soccer championship at St. Johns Country Day on her way to an NCAA title at Florida State. Now in her ninth year of professional soccer, she plays for Racing Louisville of the National Women's Soccer League and owns two caps for the United States women's national team.

While Blackard's football future is just getting started, he's already made an impact at Fernandina Beach.

"That obstacle, on a daily basis, he does not even think he has," Woodard said. "It's really just what we see, because he doesn't feel that way [having a disability] inside. He's an exceptional young man and we can't wait to hear about what he is doing at the next level."

'JUST SURREAL' SIGNING DAY FOR PIRATES

For Blackard, Wednesday's ceremony brought a chance to join teammates from sports all around the school in an afternoon of celebration.

"It's just surreal," he said. "I'm very grateful and thankful for all my family and everybody else that's helped me to get here."

Woodard said the signing was the largest on record in a single ceremony for Fernandina Beach.

"It's kind of cool to have all these different people from the different sports, and the crowd was nice," said West Florida-bound outfielder Xavier Hutton-Corp, who signed along with a half-dozen other teammates from the baseball squad.

The school's baseball signings also included Sean Benjamin (University of North Florida), Grant Blalock (Faulkner), Caden Hartman (Pensacola State College), Sam Simonds (Southern Wesleyan) and Gage Dickerson and Nathan Patrick (both Florida State College at Jacksonville), part of the Pirates team that built a 19-game winning streak in the 2023 season.

Dozens of assembled students at Fernandina Beach also cheered the Wednesday decisions of Jed Anderson (LaGrange, men's soccer), Tanner Millar (North Georgia, men's golf) and the school's first-ever men's lacrosse signee, Nolan Humphreys, who cemented his college future at Husson.

The future is coming fast for Fernandina Beach's senior athletes. Now, as Blackard sets his sights on the Interstate 4 corridor, he's ready to begin taking on a new set of challenges.

He's a college football player now. Officially.

"I'm just looking forward to continue playing football," he said, "continuing my journey and having a lot of fun doing it."

This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: Nolan Blackard: Fernandina lineman, one hand, college football signing