A million times we've thought of you
A million times we've cried.
If love alone could have saved you,
You never would have died.

In life we loved you dearly,
In death we love you still.
In our hearts you hold a place
No one could ever fill.

It broke our hearts to lose you
But you did not go alone,
For part of us went with you
The day God took you home.



boat driver



Nick Pierce, Chip Pierce





senior prom



Mary Ellen, Charles, Leslie, Nick, Chris





surprise! nick's 19th birthday



Nick Pierce, Chris Braswell





nick and buddy







christmas boat parade crew



Leslie Elliot, Leigh Ann Speake, Brandon Speake, Nick Pierce





nick's boat







chillin in the zodiac



Chip Pierce, Nick Pierce





fishing buddies



Charles Debardeleben, Nick Pierce, John Davis, Josh Smith





bahamas trip



Leslie Elliot, Nick Pierce, Leigh Ann Speake, Brandon Speake, Chris Braswell, Joseph Braswell





fishing buddies, ole river condominiums



Josh Smith, Will Moore, Nick Pierce





family in vail, colorado



Chip, Ann, Nick, Brandon, Leigh Ann





1999 Spartans - Offensive line



John Davis 72, Nick Pierce 65, Will Moore 74, George O'Rear, Brooks Boylan 52, Josh Smith 33, & Spencer Ringland 55





nick pierce





fun at the lake



Nick Pierce, Will Moore, Josh Smith, John Davis





siblings



Nick, Leigh Ann





Remembering Nick





One of his offensive line teammates and good friend, Dr. Will Moore, shared some of his memory of Nick when awarding the scholarship for the foundation one year:

"I graduated from Mountain Brook in 2000 with Nick Pierce. A year and a half later, our lives were forever changed when Nick passed away from complications related to an undiagnosed case of Mono. Nick was a classmate, teammate, friend and inspiration. In the classroom, Nick excelled. After graduating as a National Merit Scholar, he enrolled in the engineering program at the University of Alabama on a Presidential Scholarship. As a teammate, Nick displayed a high level of intensity and perserverance. From little league to high school, we spent long hours on the practice field together as offensive linemen. Nick was always the one who encouraged us when we needed to work harder and the first one to crack a joke when things were tense and we needed to laugh. Nick was the kind of friend you could always count on. He valued friends and family in a beautiful and sincere way. I have great memories of fishing trips and late night drives. Fiercely loyal, he was the guy you called to help pull your truck out of the mud and showed up no matter when, no matter where, no questions asked. Personally, Nick has served as an inspiration. His stubbornness and toughness were legendary. His absense is a constant reminder to cherish every minute, live life to the fullest, and make time for others. It was his life and death that inspired me to meld together our shared interest in engineering and desire to help others into a career in orthopedic surgery. Just as he inspires me, I know that he changed the lives of so many others as well." 



Click here to download the NICK BOOK in pdf format


This memory book is a compilation of stories and pictures put together by Nick's friends & family to honor his memory in a positive and uplifting way.



MEMORIALS



Coach Yeager said that it was an honor to coach Nick. Coach describes Nick as a “fierce competitor, famous for never losing an argument, an exceptional student, an individual of the highest character, bust most importantly a friend to all.”






BIRMINGHAM NEWS





Article about the dangers of Mononucleosis






CRIMSON WHITE





Article about the memorial held on campus to honor Nick and fond memories shared by a few fellow students






NICK PIERCE



English Assignment-Book About Himself, 18 May 2000 Favorite Memory:



The sky flashed a brilliant yellow and the thunder rolled in the distance. Forbidding clouds threatened the quarry. The crystal water and the angry sky were such contrasts that a mood of tranquility hung in the air. The smell of ozone pervaded my nostrils and filled my lungs. I love that smell. Although rain would mean a delayed dive, I did not care. For some reason, rain is one of the most relaxing natural events. It calms the world around and slows things to a tedious crawl. Still miles away, we decided to make our dive. The relaxation experienced on a scuba dive in the frigid waters sixty feet deep is like that feeling right before sleep overcomes the mind. It is a natural high in which sounds and feelings are amplified and a supernatural state of heightened awareness is reached. “I will sleep well tonight,” I thought as I trekked up the long hill to unload my gear.






NICK PIERCE



Families by Birth:



My dad has believed in me and my abilities right from the beginning of my life. He coaxed and nurtured my talents immediately upon noticing them. Dad has always been there to take care of me when I mess up and don’t know what to do, but he is also there to let me clean up my own mess if he feels it is necessary for my moral growth. He has always treated me with respect, just as he would any other adult. Many people will never know how treating children as adults makes them feel like adults and strive to act as any other mature person. Having done this throughout my life, my dad has always been there to help me grow up and mature. This I thank him for the most. While all other parents were scolding their children, he was teaching me responsibility. People are always impressed with my manners and it is a great feeling to be complemented and given respect due any adult. Yep, my dad has always been there to make me a man.



fishing is not just a hobby
It's a state of mind.

Dad's memories



Nick was so capable and able to do things so advanced for his age. The way he could accomplish tasks which normally were challenging to even much older people was truly amazing.


Since boating and fishing played such a significant role in our family life, many of my most vivid reflections are about things that Nick did while we were on the boat or fishing.


I fondly remember having Nicholas strapped into his car seat on his Granddaddy’s Formula King Mackerel fishing in the Gulf off Dauphin Island. As I recall, Nick was about a year old and we were at Mimi and Granddaddy’s house at the Island. We had the Notos with us including Sammy and Nichole, so we loaded them up with Leigh Ann and put Nicholas in his car seat and went out past Sand Island. Even though Nick was still in his car seat, he was ready to begin his fishing career, and sure enough, we caught several Kings including one he helped reel in.



A mother's memory





I remember watching the video “Swing Blade” with Nick and Spencer Ringland one night. I thought it was a depressing movie and wanted to turn it off, but they wanted to watch it to the end. When it was over, they both started imitating the main character (Carl?), hitching their pants up really high and pretending they were ordering a “coke and large fry.” They had me laughing so hard I was almost crying, and they sounded so much like him that it was uncanny.








After that Nick must have watched “Forrest Gump” because he started talking like Forrest all the time. I would be telling him to do his homework (kind of mad because he was procrastinating) and he would tuck his chin down into his neck and say in his Forrest voice, “But MaMaaa...” I would be laughing against my will when I was trying to be stern, and there was no way I could keep from laughing no matter how hard I tried. He was one of the best mimics I’ve ever known. I will always miss him...



fishing buddies



Will Moore, Nick Pierce, Spencer Ringland, Josh Smith





fun at the farm



Nick and Mom





the zodiac



Ann & Nick





vail memories



By Leigh Ann Speake
February, 2016



Skiing in Vail is always an emotional experience for me. Our trip to Vail during Christmas break of 1999 was the last family ski trip we took before Nick went on to hit the slopes in Heaven. It was also the last time mom skied, the last time we skied as a family.







After that trip it was 10 years before I went skiing again. Saying I took a break to get married and have kids is a convenient excuse, but the reality is that I was just too sad to want to go without Nick. It felt wrong somehow to go and enjoy something that he wasn’t able to do anymore, and I felt like I would write over and forget the memories if I made new ones in the same places. This is how I felt for a long time after he died, but with most places I didn’t have the choice to avoid them. In 2009 I returned to Vail with some wonderful friends, and I realized that I had forgotten how much I loved skiing, especially in this place. It was really tough at times, knowing that the last time I skied certain slopes that Nick was right beside me, but it was also amazing being able to feel that close to him when he had been gone for so long, having a place to remember so vividly the fun we had together. On that 2009 trip I think Dad & I both cried all the way down Blue Ox, one of Nick’s favorite runs. Remembering laughing until tears were frozen to my cheeks as Nick, Brandon & I walked through Vail Village, walking the same streets, and picturing him there all those years ago, I was surprised to find was actually a good feeling, and only slightly as sad as I thought it would be.





Now every time I visit Vail I feel like I can almost see him, hear his voice laughing or imitating some famous person, taste the snow dust from his skis as he pulled some turkey little brother move and sprayed me with a sliding stop. This is one of the places I feel the closest to him because I don’t have that many memories here without him to overwrite the ones we made together. It is with all of these thoughts that I completely appreciate and love every minute of being in this place, of skiing down the slopes that we shared on that last family ski trip.





Now, as Dad, Caitlin & I get to share this place again, I am thankful to have these kinds of memories with my family, both as a child and now as an adult. Only after many years did I finally realize that the memories don’t fade as easily as I feared. After Dad’s, Caitlin’s & my ski trip to Telluride last winter came so close to ending in tragedy for both Dad (heart attack) & Caitlin (cliff crash), I will not be taking any of this special time we have together for granted. I am so thankful for every moment we have together, for every memory we make together.





orange beach marina memory



By Leigh Ann Speake



When my brother Nick & I were growing up Orange Beach Marina was like a second home to us. We loved walking the docks, looking at the boats, learning from the salty charter boat captains, watching the tourists, imagining what was lurking below the surface of the oily black water, getting frozen treats at the dock store, smelling the fishy breezes, perusing the cleaning stations to see what was being caught, talking to the deck hands to see what lures were working, eavesdropping on the boat brokers working deals. We both loved working on the boat and helping Dad any way that we could.







Dad’s buddy, & resident OB boat broker Jim Greene, cleaned out his storage shed one day. He had an old deer mount that was looking rough, so he had cut out the antlers & thrown the deer head onto his trash pile. Nick & I got a brilliant idea. Amongst the creatures at the marina were some very large wharf rats. Dad had a 41’ Viking Convertible at the time, and our slip had a trash can directly in front of it.





Nick & I decided to put the deer head in the bushes behind the trash can. We then camped out on the flybridge of the Viking so we could watch people react. It was the best kind of entertainment, and we were rolling in laughter for hours, but Dad’s reaction was the best by far.





After emptying all the trash cans on the boat & making several trips to the big trash can without noticing anything out of the ordinary, he made one final trip & was so surprised and startled by the giant “rat” in the bushes that he jumped back screaming & almost fell in the water. We thought it was the funniest thing we’d ever seen.





april fools day



By Leigh Ann Speake
4/1/2020



You know when you're young and you get really excited, like so excited you're physically vibrating? Well, being a kid from Alabama, waking up to snow on the ground was one of the most special treats, one that filled you with that kind of excitement. I still get a mild version of it as an adult when I wake up to snow on the ground, even when I'm in places it's supposed to snow.





Generally speaking my brother and I were like any other teenagers, unmotivated to get out of bed in the mornings, even on a day we were starting a road trip for spring break. On this trip our family of 4 would be driving through Mississippi, Louisiana, and Oklahoma to go to a convention for Dad's work, then on to see cousins in Texas before looping back to Alabama.





As a family goes, we were a close one. We enjoyed each other's company, and we had so much fun together. Our family spent a lot of time in the car, traveling to Orange Beach every other weekend, some long road trips to South Florida, trips to Washington, DC, North Carolina, Kentucky, Tennessee, Texas, etc. My mom and brother joked around all the time, pushing each other's buttons, usually until one of them took it too far and they ended up mad at each other. Nick would always sit behind Mom in the car. She would reach back and grab his knee, which was very ticklish. He would kick her seat in retaliation, and we would all be in tears laughing, before they eventually got mad because neither knew when to stop.





One time Nick and I filled the entire back seat with stuffed animals, ready to take them on our adventure. Dad freaked out and made us put them back in the house. We tried to sneak our cat Killer into the car amongst the stuffed animals once, and after that Killer thought he was supposed to get in the car when we were packing it up to go on trips. Typical cat, he also tried to pack himself into our suitcases every time too! Dad used to say that our clutter made him feel like he was traveling with a band of gypsies, but we never let that stop us from loading up games, toys, etc. so we could be entertained and surrounded in a cocoon of road trip fun.





This was before the time of electronic entertainment devices, so we would eventually get bored, no matter how much entertainment we packed for ourselves. The boredom would lead to Nick and me getting into shoving or finger poking fights, or ridiculous arguments. Mom would pull down the vanity mirror to watch us from the front seat. She would tell us that we couldn't cross the line of the fabric seam on the back seat, look at each other, or talk to each other, officially pitting us together against her and ending our fights almost instantly.





This morning was starting out like any other teenager-dragging morning. Dad was ready to go, and we weren't cooperating. So, he thought it would be funny to wake us up in true April Fool's Day fashion. Did I mention that we were leaving for our trip on April 1st? He came racing into our rooms yelling, "It's snowing! It's snowing!"





Well, of course, we jumped out of our beds, raced to the windows, ripped back our curtains... to see bright, green grass everywhere! The turkey! It worked. He got us good. We were up, full of adrenaline, and not long after that we were on the road.





Well, Nick and I didn't think his joke was that funny. Most people don't think pranks are funny when they're the victim, and we were no different. We decided we would get revenge. We had driven for about 8 hours, and all of a sudden Nick, in a very convincing, overly excited voice, yelled, "Killer!!!", like he was the most excited kid on the planet that his cat had stowed away in the car with us.





Dad immediately hit the brakes and started muttering under his breath about finding an out of town vet, etc. About 2 or 3 minutes later he suddenly realized that Mom wasn't participating in his freak out. When he started to look around, wondering about that, Mom, Nick and I burst out laughing. I guess we shouldn't have shared our revenge plans with her, but we feared the mom-wrath if we left her out, so cutting our prank a little short was still worth it! This is still one of my favorite road trip memories!









Nicholas Franklin Pierce Memorial Foundation



2225 Ruffner Road Irondale, AL 35210
205-323-1585