Nick tells how overcoming his stutter led to acting and becoming spokesperson for The National Stuttering Foundation.
It was a challenge. I had a stutter ‘till… I still do today. I just work on it a lot. I obsess, if you will, with it, but I stuttered throughout my childhood.
I was playing baseball [and] when I quit playing I needed something else to do to occupy my time, because idle hands, the devil and stuff… So, I just talked to God and challenged myself, because talking in front of one person, much less than thousands of people terrified me.
So, I just decided to take the challenge. When you stutter, a lot of it is [that] you’re afraid you’re not being heard or you’re afraid that you’re being judged. I decided to take both and take my talents - as little as they were at the time - to Hollywood and get beat up for a while.
Working with the NSF, we’ve gotten a lot of letters and it’s reached a lot of the younger kids because I’ve been the youngest spokesperson so far, to date, I guess it reached out and touched a lot of people.
