Kenny Viser has seen more than his share of adversity since he graduated from Bishop Manogue High School in Reno in 2005.
“It has humbled me greatly,” the 24-year-old Viser said this week as he prepared for his first game in the Indoor Football League with the Fairbanks Grizzlies on Saturday against the Lehigh Valley Steelheads in Pennsylvania. “But everything happens for a reason.”
Adversity met him face to face in the early morning hours of May 24, 2008.
“It was the weekend after completing spring camp,” said Viser, then a red-shirt freshman for the Nevada Wolf Pack football team. “I started every snap (that spring) at cornerback.”
Viser was part of a soon-to-be historic 2006 freshman recruiting class at Nevada that also included the likes of Colin Kaepernick, Dontay Moch, Kevin Basped, Jonathon Amaya, John Bender, Mike Gallett, Vai Taua, Chris Wellington, Ryan Coulson, Virgil Green, Kevin Grimes and Brandon Fragger.
Viser, the top player in the state of Nevada in Class 3A as a Bishop Manogue running back, made a successful transition to cornerback in the summer and fall of 2006 at Nevada.
“That was a tough time, converting to cornerback in my first camp,” Viser said.
He made the switch because he was living his dream, playing for the Wolf Pack.
“I loved being the hometown kid playing for UNR and Coach (Chris Ault),” Viser said. “I loved playing for the Pack.”
At the time he felt he owed his entire college football career to the Wolf Pack.
“I thank all the coaches at UNR for seeing some things in me, being from Reno,” Viser said. “UNR is not known for recruiting locally and they offered me a full scholarship.”
How did he pay them back? He was arrested for careless driving and a D.U.I. at 4 a.m. on May 24, 2008.
“I blew a .10,” he said.
He also blew his Wolf Pack career out of the water. Suddenly, his Wolf Pack career, which started out so promising by being named the Scout Team Defensive Player of the Year in 2006 followed up by three starts as a red-shirt freshman in 2007, was over before it really got started.
“The D.U.I. set me back for two years,” Viser said. “I had everything stripped from me. It was the reason for me getting kicked off (the team).”
At first, he was angry with the Wolf Pack.
“I used to hate Coach Ault,” Viser said. “There were players on that team that dealt drugs and partied and drank and a lot more stuff the coaching staff didn’t see. I felt they wanted to make an example out of me.”
Wolf Pack associate athletic director Keith Hackett, told the campus newspaper, The Sagebrush, as much. “Ault’s response should make kids sit up and take notice of these punishments,” Hackett was quoted by the Sagebrush.
Viser’s troubles came in the middle of a flurry of Wolf Pack problems in the spring of 2008.
The day before Viser was arrested, seldom-used wide receiver Rocco Bene was also arrested for a D.U.I. Just an hour before Viser’s run-in with the law, at 3 a.m. on May 24, 2008, wide receiver Mike McCoy was also arrested for speeding and careless driving. All three incidents, despite taking place all within a 24-hour period, were unrelated, the university said at the time.
It was a difficult time for the Pack football program. And, for a while, it never seemed to end.
A day or so later after Viser, Bene and McCoy had their problems, Ezra Butler, the team’s Defensive Player of the Year in 2007, was arrested for a traffic violation. The police then discovered marijuana in his car and also gave him a D.U.I.
Butler, whose eligibility at Nevada had expired the previous fall, had just completed his first mini camp with the San Francisco 49ers. He was suspended one game as a Pack senior in 2007 for using marijuana.
Given the rash of arrests, the punishments Ault handed out were not surprising.
Viser and Bene were booted off the team because they had earlier team violations on their resume. McCoy, who had not committed a team rules violation before his incident, was placed on probation and suffered a reduction in his scholarship. Butler’s football eligibility had run out five months earlier.
Viser, now, doesn’t blame anyone but himself for his sudden exit from the Wolf Pack football team.
“I take the blame for getting a D.U.I. when I did,” said Viser, who had 20 tackles in 13 games as a freshman in 2007 and blocked a field goal attempt in the New Mexico Bowl. “That is the bad thing to come out of my time at UNR. It was more (my fault) than them. I have no complaints about UNR. I know I can’t blame (coach Chris Ault) for my mistakes. I wish him the best.”
Viser missed the entire 2008 season. He then enrolled at Idaho State, a Division I-AA school. Adversity, though, followed him to Pocatello, ID. He ended up being academically ineligible for the entire 2009 season.
“I wasn’t taking care of business,” Viser told the Idaho State Journal in the summer of 2010. “I was coming out here to play football and I wasn’t taking school seriously. The coaches took a chance on me from Nevada. And I felt I let them down.”
This time, though, he wasn’t mad at the Idaho State football program.
“The coaches could use me as an example,” Viser told the Idaho State Journal as he tried to make the Bengals’ roster in the summer of 2010. “If you take things for granted, it could all be gone in the blink of an eye. It was for me. It was definitely a life lesson.”
Unlike Nevada, Idaho State gave him a second chance. Viser ended up starting at cornerback for Idaho State in 2010, finishing fifth on the team in tackles with 57.
“He really is a good kid,” Idaho State head coach John Zamberlin told the Idaho State Journal in August 2010. “I am so proud of Kenny, that he has gotten his ship righted.”
The year at Idaho State, Viser said, was a dream come true.
“I loved the change of scenery,” he said. “We didn’t win games (Idaho State was 1-10 last year) but I learned how to go hard no matter if you are winning or losing. You learn how to build your character when you are losing games.”
Consider his character fully constructed.
“College was a big adjustment for me in every way,” Viser said. “I learned you have to be self driven or it will not work and that goes for football, college school work and college life.”
His college highlight, he said, took place in his very first college game as a Wolf Pack red shirt freshman in 2007.
“For me the best college moment came when Nevada went to Nebraska,” said Viser, who also played at Georgia with Idaho State last fall. “Seeing that atmosphere and experiencing what college football is all about. I would say my career was a success. I saw some of the top stadiums in the nation and played at the highest level.”
The Fairbanks Grizzlies, unfortunately, are not the highest level of professional football. The indoor game is played on a 50-yard field with eight players on the field on each team. But Viser couldn’t be happier to get the chance to continue his career.
“I’m not in the NFL yet but I am signed and working my way up the ladder,” he said.
Viser said he often thinks about what might have happened had he remained at Nevada. He was well aware of the Wolf Pack’s 13-1 season last year that took place mainly because of his fellow classmates from the 2006 recruiting class.
“It is nice to see that class I came in with doing so well,” he said. “It makes me think of what would have happened if I wouldn’t have gotten that D.U.I. But I’m just glad to be one of the few players from Reno still playing professional football.”
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