By Jim Polzin – Wisconsin State Journal –
They are separated by only 14 yards rushing in the University of Wisconsin football record books. There’s Brent Moss at No. 9 in program history with 3,428 career yards and Terrell Fletcher one spot below him at 3,414 yards.
There’s an entire generation of UW fans who either were not yet born or too young to appreciate the greatness of that special tandem. They may not know this: There was a time the Badgers had seven individual 1,000-yard rushing seasons; that number is now 35, a surge that began with Moss and Fletcher nearly three decades ago.
Or this: There was a time when Moss’ 1,637 yards in 1993 and Fletcher’s 1,476 the following year were the top two single-season marks at UW; they now stand at 10th and 17th, respectively.
Even those of us who were fortunate to have seen Moss and Fletcher play may not know this tidbit: They weren’t particularly fond of each other while putting up those splashy numbers and serving as two of the building blocks in Barry Alvarez’s massive rebuilding project.
I wasn’t aware of that tension until hearing about it from Fletcher a few days after Moss died of kidney failure in his hometown of Racine on Nov. 13 at the age of 50. A somewhat cryptic social media message from Fletcher led me to reach out to him to see if there was a story to tell.
It was better than I ever could have imagined, a tale of regret turning into redemption, of friction giving way to friendship.