By Mike London
Salisbury Post
SALISBURY — Big offensive lineman Malik Williams and not-s0-big safety Nick Clement were excused early from Wednesday’s Salisbury football practice for the best possible reason — National Honor Society inductions.
They are exceptional scholars. Williams’ 3.8 GPA makes him recruitable where a player with similar size and talent and a 2.5 GPA wouldn’t be.
Williams, one of the eight OLs named to play in the upcoming Queen City Bowl all-star game and one of the county’s top linemen, you’ve probably heard of.
But unless you follow Salisbury baseball really, really closely, you never have heard of Clement. There’s a good reason for that.
Clement is a junior. As a sophomore, he suffered a complete knee blowout in the jayvee football game with Walkertown in late August 2024.
“Nick didn’t just tear his ACL, he tore about everything else,” Trivett said. “He still had a PCL, but that was the only knee ligament left. It was a bad injury. The ACL, the MCL, the meniscus, they were gone.”
Trivett has seen a lot of ACL injuries over the years and a lot of grueling ACL rehabs as young athletes fight to get back on the field. There are no redshirt seasons in high school, and the clock ticks relentlessly against the wounded players. You can’t get those games back. You can’t get those lifetime memories and friendships and relationships with coaches and teammates back.
Rehab is just pain and sweat, with no guarantee there ever will be any light at the end of a long, dark tunnel.
“It was a long, hard rehab for me,” Clement said. “It’s tough not being able to play, to have to stand around and not being able to help your team. I wanted to get back for at least some of my junior football season.”
It’s been a hard year for the Hornets. The major step up in competition from a 2A league they had dominated to the 4A/5A South Piedmont Conference — Salisbury and South Rowan are the only 4As in that eight-team league — coincided with close to a total rebuild for the Hornets, who graduated an incredibly successful senior class last spring.
The Hornets, who had gotten used to racking up double-digit wins every season, didn’t have any easy non-conference contests prior to SPC play and dropped six of their first seven games.
“I’m fine,” said Trivett when asked about his state of mind. “People forget I coached at Central Davidson and there was a stretch when we won once in three years. I’ve been on both ends of it and I can handle it. Our problem this year hasn’t been a lack of talent. We’ve got a lot of speed. We’re one of the few teams that could run with Robinson and we lost a 14-0 game there. We were down 7-0 in the fourth quarter at Forest Hills and let it get away from us. We were tied a long time with Carson. But our guys are young. We’re inexperienced. We’ve made a lot of mistakes, and penalties and turnovers have cost us ballgames. The big battle has been to convince our kids that they’re not a bad team.”
While positive news hasn’t come to Trivett’s office often this season, he did receive some uplifting information last Friday when Clement knocked on his door and said, “Coach, I’ve been cleared to play! I can play.”
“He had an extra-long rehab from the knee injury,” Trivett said. “There were a couple of times when he was close to getting back and experienced a setback. It was great news that he could play.”
Ask Salisbury DBs coach Tay Little, who played at Carson-Newman, about Clement and he beams with pride. Clement is one of his guys, and he was one of his guys even when he couldn’t suit up.
“Nick is a program guy who has been with us since he was a freshman,” Little said. “He had a very tough injury to overcome, a long road back to be on the field with his teammates. The kid works hard. He never gave up.”
Clement was in uniform for Friday’s game against South Rowan. He was an active football player for the first time since that Walkertown jayvee game. It had been 14 months.
“I was excited,” Clement said. “I couldn’t wait to run down the field and hit somebody.”
The Hornets gave him his chance to do that.
“His first play was a kickoff,” Little said. “Boom, he makes the solo tackle. His second play was a kickoff. Boom, he makes the solo tackle again.”
The Hornets eased Clement back into things. He played only one series on defense. He made two tackles, one on a tight end who caught a pass over the middle and one on a running back.
“Six plays and he made four solo tackles, made some good hits,” Trivett said. “That’s not bad.”
The important thing to Clement was that the Hornets won 42-7, and he was able to help some. His role may have been minor from a statistical standpoint, but it was major from an inspirational standpoint.
“You can’t ask for more from any kid than what Nick gave us,” Trivett said.
