In late November, Georgia beat Georgia Tech in a heart-stopping, eight-overtime classic.
In one of the most exciting games of the entire college football season, Georgia’s fifth-year defensive tackle, Nazir Stackhouse, fell asleep.
It wasn’t the only time. Now an undrafted rookie defensive tackle with the Green Bay Packers, Stackhouse dozed off on the sideline against Ole Miss. He fell asleep in the locker room at halftime of a noon game against South Carolina.
“There’d be times when our offense is out there for 15 plays and I’m like, ‘I’m tired. Hurry up and score so we can go back on defense,’” Stackhouse said on Sunday at Packers training camp.
Stackhouse has narcolepsy. “I’ve had it my whole life,” he said. The Packers appear to have it under control with what he called “a type of Adderall” that needed approval from the league.
Sleep studies conducted right before spring practice following his freshman season at Georgia diagnosed him with narcolepsy as well as sleep apnea.
Stackhouse talked openly about it on Sunday, even making light of it a couple times.
During one game, “I was like, ‘Golly, I hope I don’t doze off because the camera’s right there,’” Stackhouse said. “I remember one time we were playing Cincinnati in 2020. They had me on the camera for maybe a split-second waking up out of a nap. You couldn’t even tell I was sleeping. I started yawning and sh**. Those cameras, man. I try to do whatever it takes.”
It was a struggle at Georgia. He said the medication he was given, Wakix, was unreliable. With it, he might get a headache, which made it hard to practice. Without it, he might fall asleep – which he did occasionally during team meetings. He said he stopped using it after his junior season and then restarted last season.
“I’ll get minor headaches – minor migraines and stuff – and it’s hard to go through practice with that,” he said. “Shoot, coming from Georgia, they don’t want to hear that. Our coaches didn’t want to hear all that. So, they’ll always say, ‘Push through, push through,’ and it’s kind of tough doing that knowing they don’t really know for real. So, that’s all I could do was just bear it.”
That meant doing anything he could think of to stay awake in meetings. The coaches would continually throw questions at him to keep him engaged. Sometimes, he’d stand during meetings. Other times, the coaches would “do a little walk-through” to keep him focused.
“It’s hard,” he said. “The crazy thing is because you know it could happen, you think about it, so you try to do your best to stay awake. I know myself more than a lot of people know themselves, so it’s like I know I’m going to fall asleep if I slouch in my chair like this or if I’m just sitting in meetings looking at a coach. So, I try to do something to keep myself up.
“So, if taking notes is going to help me stay up, then I’m going to do that. I used to get rubberbands and put them on my wrist and pop them when I felt like I was dozing off. … It is definitely hard. I do find myself paying attention, at the split-second and blink of an eye, I’ll be knocked out just like that.”
Of course, the impact runs deeper than football. Narcolepsy affected his studies and friendships.
“Just having narcolepsy all the way up to now, it’s a challenge,” he said. “Your friends think you’re lazy. Friends, they call you Sleepy. Everyone calls me Sleepy. At Georgia, that was my nickname, Big Sleepy. But I embraced it. It was a joke from the beginning but it’s a part of me. It’s something I can’t run away from, so I just have to learn how to live with it.”
In April, Stackhouse said he fell asleep behind the wheel.
Now, he said, “I avoid driving. Now that I’m on medication that works, I can trust myself behind the wheel every now and then. I don’t like to get too comfortable behind it because, obviously, when you get comfortable, you start getting lackadaisical. So, when I need to, I can drive.” Otherwise, he calls an Uber or takes advantage of the Packers’ shuttle service.
While Stackhouse went undrafted – he started ahead of the Packers’ sixth-round pick, Warren Brinson, at Georgia – the team has high hopes. Its big, run-stopping defensive tackle from the past couple seasons, T.J. Slaton, signed with the Bengals in free agency. Stackhouse has the size to fill that role. While the Packers didn’t like him enough to draft him, they liked him enough to give him $150,000 guaranteed – which is more than their seventh-round picks received.
“I’m striving to get more,” he said. “They want to give me $150,000, that’s great, but I just want them to know that I’m going to get more and I’m going to show you why I should have more. And that’s the whole goal is to get a three-year contract and then something. That’s my whole goal.”
The native of Stone Mountain, Ga., had other opportunities after the draft, including signing with the home-state Falcons, but the Packers were the first team to call.
“I almost picked (Atlanta) because it’s at home and I’d be more comfortable doing it while I’m at home,” he explained, “but coming to Green Bay was also an eye opener for me because I need to get out of my comfort zone. And this is a great opportunity to do it, especially in a city like this. And the fans, they only bleed green and gold. I would love to be in an organization like that. And so just coming here and (coach Matt) LaFleur welcoming me and saying, ‘We’d love for you to come out here and show us what you’ve got.’ So, I’m embracing that opportunity.”
The Packers have only four defensive tackles on their roster who’ve played in a game: Kenny Clark, Devonte Wyatt, Karl Brooks and Colby Wooden. Brinson and Stackhouse could be vying for one spot.
“Basically, whatever the coach needs me to do, I can do that and then some,” Stackhouse said. “‘You need me to be a backup for Kenny Clark? I can do that, Coach.’ Sh**, if you need me to start, I can do that, too, as well. VO [assistant defensive line coach Vince Oghobaase] told me, ‘Don’t go out there playing like you’re a second guy. Go out there playing like you already got a job.’ And so I take that mindset with me every day.”
Stackhouse spoke at ease about a disorder that might be embarrassing. He hopes his story can serve as an “inspiration” to people fighting the same challenges.
“I seen this one girl who has cataplexy, which is a form of narcolepsy,” Stackhouse said. “Narcolepsy, that’s Stage 1. Cataplexy, that’s more advanced. Narcolepsy, you just doze off every now and then. Cataplexy, it happens at any time. It can happen when you’re excited. It can happen when you’re laughing. Like, cataplexy is a form of narcolepsy? I did not know that. I was like, wow.
“So, I just want to inspire people who have it, no matter what stage. Yeah, you can do it. You can do anything. You just have to learn how to live with it and it’s a part of you. You can’t run away from it.
“The people who I’ve grown up with, who’ve been around me and respect me and still like me as a person, regardless of my conditions, I appreciate them for it. Having narcolepsy isn’t easy. You try to enjoy times with friends and you’re just dozing off, and now you just look like the guy who sleeps all the time. That’s not what we want. I always had those friends around me that were like, ‘Oh, Naz, don’t mind him. Just wake him up. He’s good. He’s fine with it. It’s normal.’ People who know me or are close to me or I played with, they know that I have it and they don’t even acknowledge it until it happens.”
