Sam Riddle got into the car with his father and, as they drove away from Oregon, Riddle began to cry. He didn’t stop for an hour.

Riddle’s son, Mason, turned 2 months old the day he left. Briahnna, his then-fiancée and current wife, urged him to try North Dakota. Riddle felt wracked with doubt.

“Leaving that morning was one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do,” he said. “I told my dad to turn the car around, that I couldn’t do it.”

Fifteen hundred miles later, the 18-year-old stepped out of the car. The quarterback had arrived at the University of North Dakota, one of Division I-AA’s best football programs. As Dave Riddle dropped his son off, at a good school on scholarship, he felt like a proud father. Sam felt like anything but.

The moment he left the practice field or meeting room, without fail, he was reminded of the distance between him and his family. The things people told him would make the transition easier — Skype, FaceTime and texting — made it harder, he said. Riddle was watching his son grow up through a glass screen.

Around 4 a.m. on Thursday, Aug. 22, 2013, 25 days after leaving Oregon, Riddle boarded a train back home. After the 31-hour ride, Riddle got a haircut and went to Briahnna’s house. He spent Saturday with his family. Sunday, he moved into a dorm at Linfield College in McMinnville, Oregon, a Division III school near his hometown that had recruited him out of high school.

Two years later, Riddle starts at quarterback, and is leading the 3-0 Wildcats offense, which averages 56.3 points per game, second in Division III. But the two years in between were anything but easy.

“Things with my side of the family were rough,” Riddle said of his return. “I resented them a little bit. They tried patching things up with me and nothing really happened. (They didn’t want) me to come home.”

 

Dave, a schoolteacher for 32 years, saw his son’s coming home as forfeiting a scholarship for the $45,000 tuition of Linfield. The family had a strict budget growing up, Riddle said. His fiancée and son moved in with Briahnna’s grandparents and became so busy that they barely saw Riddle’s family.

There were occasional Sunday night dinners and a few other times spent together, but mostly Riddle’s parents didn’t see Mason until Saturday at the football games, which helped to ease the tension.

“We just realized that we needed to be supportive of him,” Dave said. “It’s going much further than our feelings. His happiness is much more important than money or scholarships … He stepped up big time.”

Both Riddle and his father said they’ve never been closer than they are now.

Riddle discusses parenting challenges with his father, but doesn’t normally seek advice, Dave said. He’s confident and responsible, similar qualities which caught the attention of Linfield quarterback coach Aaron Boehme.

A sophomore at the time, Riddle was named the starter ahead of a junior and senior in 2014. Boehme noticed Riddle’s attention to detail in learning offensive schemes. The same attention to detail required to be a husband and a dad, he said.

“For Sam, football…is kind of his getaway for a bit,” Boehme said.

Riddle has a routine. He wakes up at 6 a.m. to get Mason ready and Briahnna heads to work at Wells Fargo. There’s a long day ahead with cleaning the new duplex they live in: daycare, laundry, homework, school, making dinner. And football.

“I’m not going to lie, it’s hard,” Riddle said. “It’s been hard to face real life.”

“We could’ve easily decided no more football,” Briahnna said. “It easily could’ve been, ‘You need to go to school and work part- to full-time to support us.’ But football has been such a big part of his life.”

Mason enjoys it too. The 2-year-old throws a spiral, wears his father’s helmet and Briahnna has a hard time getting him to wear something other than Linfield gear.

“Mommy! Football field! Football field!” Mason pleaded this summer, knowing dad was at practice.

Briahnna drove to the field. When practice ended, the little boy ran out to his father.

Riddle scooped him up. He smiled, standing on a field far from North Dakota, wearing his football pads and holding his son.

“When he comes out, even today, he shows up all smiles and just to be with his buddies,” Boehme said. “He’s a 19-year-old kid. It’s good for him.”

Published on October 7, 2015 at 9:02 pm

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