21 years ago, Derrick Nix received a new kidney. Boy, has he run with it

Derrick Nix served Ole Miss exceptionally well for 16 years as an offensive assistant football coach, working first with running backs, then with wide receivers, all the while helping recruit some of the most productive players in Ole Miss history.

Last week’s announcement that Nix was leaving Oxford to join Hugh Freeze’s staff at Auburn came as a surprise to this column, mainly because I knew Auburn had made a huge run at Nix a year ago when Freeze first got the Auburn job. Then, Nix turned down his former boss to remain at Ole Miss.

But this time, the Auburn offer came with a new job title: offensive coordinator, which naturally comes with a higher salary and presumably one step closer to some day becoming a head coach.

“It was hard as hell to leave Ole Miss,” Nix told AuburnUndercover.com. “I spent all of my adult life in Mississippi. My 16 years at Ole Miss has been great for me, but an opportunity like this to move up and become an offensive coordinator in this great league and do it around those guys was like a layup, a dream come true.”

It is a dream come true in a career that almost never happened. The Derrick Nix story is one of family, faith, and remarkable perseverance in the face of near tragedy. It is a story worth retelling, especially since many younger readers weren’t around 21 years ago when Nix’s dreams of a professional football career were dashed and, at the age of 22, Nix did not know whether he was going to live or die.

Nix, a Baptist preacher’s son from Attalla, Alabama, was a highly recruited high school football player. Home state schools Alabama and Auburn recruited him hard. Florida wanted him, and Georgia, too. But they all wanted him to play linebacker, as had an older brother, Tyrone, at Southern Miss. Tyrone, by then, was coaching for Jeff Bower at Southern Miss. They recruited Derrick and told him he would play running back in Hattiesburg.

And, boy, did he. Nix, who weighed 220 pounds and possessed break-away speed, ran for 1,180 yards as a true freshman. He could run around you, but would just as soon run through you or over you. “The Baby Bull,” they called him. He possessed all the intangibles, too. Nobody out-worked him. He was first on the practice field, the last to leave it. Bower absolutely adored him, both as a player and a person. Derrick Nix ran for 1,054 more yards as a sophomore in 1999, leading the Golden Eagles to a 9-3 season, a Liberty Bowl victory and a No. 14 finish in the the final AP Poll.

Nix’s heath issues began the next year. Southern Miss began the 2000 season losing a 19-16 heartbreaker at Tennessee, but then trounced No. 15 Alabama 21-0 in Birmingham the following week and then throttled Oklahoma State 28-6 at Stillwater. The Golden Eagles won five of their first six games before Nix was diagnosed with kidney issues that would end his season. Without Nix, those Eagles finished 7-4.

Nix sat out the 2001 season but came back as a senior in 2002 for a season that those who witnessed will never forget. Despite recurring kidney issues that sapped his strength and limited his endurance, he ran for 1,154 yards. In a 23-20 victory over defending Big Ten Conference champion Illinois, he ran for 202 yards. Most memorably, he scored on one 50-yard run, then, exhausted, he went to his knees, puking in the end zone.

“Derrick had it all,” Dan Rooney, a college scout for the Pittsburgh Steelers, once told Sports Illustrated. “He reminded me a lot of Deuce McAllister. He had a gliding style, but he also had great running ability. He could break tackles with power, but he also had good enough feet that he could be elusive in open space. And once he broke loose, he could finish a run. He was a can’t-miss prospect, the kind any NFL team would love to have.”

Somehow – and despite shoulder, ankle and heel injuries – Nix made it through the entire regular season, rushing for 139 yards in a 24-7 victory over East Carolina in the season finale. The next week, extensive medical tests showed that he had lost 90% of his kidney function and would need daily dialysis until a matching kidney was found. His football career was over.

I remember talking to Preston Nix, Derrick’s dad. “My son is still alive and God has a purpose for him,” the father said. “We will do what it takes. He still has a long battle in front of him, but he will fight it.”

And I remember talking to Derrick himself. “The night before a game, I used to envision myself scoring touchdowns. Now I envision myself with a new kidney, out on the field coaching,” he said.

Said Bower, “He’ll be a great coach, like his brother.”

Now then, this is going to make a really long, really complicated story short. The search for a new kidney ended with his oldest brother, Marcus, who was a perfect match. On June 6, 2003, doctors transplanted one of Marcus’s kidneys into Derrick’s abdomen.

A month later, Derrick Nix talked about it, saying he felt like a brand new person and hadn’t realized just how lousy he felt he felt before the transplant. “I get a lot of credit,” he said, “but my brother Marcus is the hero. He went into that hospital when nothing was wrong with him and let doctors cut on him and take that kidney for me.”

Derrick said he was still coming to grips with the end of his playing his career, but added, “I am going to become the best coach I can be.”

And now here he is, just over two decades later, an accomplished coach, a husband and a father, respected by all who know him, including those he leaves behind at Ole Miss. He never made the millions he would have made in the NFL, but he will make right at a million a year at Auburn. When Derrick Nix got his brother’s kidney and new lease on life 21 years ago, he ran with it. Indeed, he is still running.

Rick Cleveland, a native of Hattiesburg and resident of Jackson, has been Mississippi Today’s sports columnist since 2016.