too close too home
Brian Nichols
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From The Morning Call -- March 12, 2005
Ex-KU student has violent history
By Joe McDermott
Of The Morning Call
The man wanted in the courthouse shooting deaths of an Atlanta judge and two others was described by former football teammates and coaches at Kutztown University as a martial arts expert with a knack for trouble.
Brian G. Nichols, 33, attended Kutztown as a biology major for three semesters in 1989 and 1990 and played outside linebacker for the Golden Bears, according to a statement university officials released Friday afternoon.
He was arrested three times in 1990 and 1991 on charges ranging from disorderly conduct to making terroristic threats while attending Kutztown and living in the area, according to Berks County court records.
''Is that who that was? You just gave me goosebumps,'' said Dieruff High School football coach Jake Williams, Nichols' position coach during the 1989 season. ''I would never in a million years have put that together.''
Williams remembered Nichols as a talented athlete from inner-city Baltimore.
''He was a physical specimen like you wouldn't believe,'' Williams said, comparing Nichols to male model Tyson Beckford. Athletically, he was a match for Kutztown alumnus John Mobley, who went on to play in the National Football League.
''He was every bit the athlete Mobley was, but without the football ability,'' said Williams, who took over as Dieruff's coach earlier this year.
Williams said Nichols was involved in several heated disputes while at Kutztown. ''I would get wind, as his coach, that he was in altercations and he hurt people. But he never started them,'' Williams said, adding most of the incidents happened when older students confronted him.
Kutztown officials contacted Atlanta police after learning of Nichols' connection to the school, according to the statement released by Director of University Relations Philip R. Breeze.
''Kutztown University joins the rest of America in sending its condolences to the families of this tragic shooting and hopes the culprit is captured,'' the statement adds.
Public information available from university records shows Nichols was a biology major who played linebacker. He had 17 tackles during the 1989 season.
Fellow linebacker Nick Pergine said Nichols was a martial arts expert who showed his moves on the practice field.
''He was a bad dude. You didn't mess with him, but he wasn't a bully or an intimidator,'' said Pergine, who recognized Nichols from televised photos. ''He was a good ballplayer, but he was no troublemaker.''
Kutztown assistant coach Mark Steinmeyer, who was on the team with Nichols in 1989, said Nichols primarily played special teams but saw some game time on defense.
''He was only on the team for one season, and he didn't make a significant contribution,'' Steinmeyer said in the university statement.
Nichols, a native of Lexington, S.C., was arrested at least three times during his short stay in the Kutztown area, according to District Judge Gail Greth of Fleetwood.
Greth said the first arrest occurred May 3, 1990, when university police charged Nichols with making terroristic threats, simple assault, disorderly conduct and harassment. The misdemeanor terroristic threats and simple assault charges were dropped when he pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct and harassment, Greth said.
According to Berks County court records, the charges stemmed from an incident in the university's South Dining Hall.
Nichols was arrested twice on Feb. 28, 1991. Greth said her records do not detail the alleged offenses, but do show university police charged him with criminal trespass and Kutztown police charged him with misdemeanor criminal mischief and disorderly conduct.
He was jailed for at least one night before posting bail, and all the charges were later dropped, Greth said.
In 1990, Nichols had an address on Briar Circle South in Kutztown. When he was arrested in 1991, he listed a post office box in Stony Run, Albany Township, north of Kutztown, she said.
Nichols grew up in Baltimore and attended Cardinal Gibbons High School, where he played varsity football, practiced martial arts and dreamed about becoming a professional athlete, according to a high school buddy.
He was close to his older brother, Mark, his only sibling who is now a barber in Plantation, Fla., relatives said.
Brian Nichols dropped out of Kutztown in his sophomore year, and by 1995 found his way to Georgia. He lived in an upscale apartment complex in Atlanta, where a neighbor described him as a ''nuisance'' because he'd occasionally let his pit bull roam around the complex.
Nichols' mother, Clathera Nichols, is retired from the Internal Revenue Service, and his father, Gene, was an entrepreneur. They are in Africa, where Clathera is working for a local revenue department, and plan to return to the United States next week, relatives said.
joe.mcdermott@mcall.com
610-820-6533
Morning Call reporter Romy Varghese, the Baltimore Sun and the South Florida Sun-Sentinel contributed to this story.