Among Hebrew speakers, "Shabbat shalom" is a commonly employed greeting, intended to wish someone a peaceful Sabbath – the 24-hour period between nightfall on Fridays to nightfall Saturdays.

Whenever his son came to visit, Jeff Ebner did his level best to provide Nate with serene Saturdays. As Nate got older, peace proved far more elusive most Sundays, which followed a familiar pattern.

First, Jeff and Nate got limber by stretching. Then they'd lace up their cleats and pop in their mouthpieces. Rather than going to a nearby athletic field, father and son instead hopped on their bikes and headed to 420 E. North Street, where the family's auto reclamation business, Ebner Sons, has existed for as long as the NFL has been playing professional football. Nate affectionately calls it "the junkyard."

There, the Ebners would participate in an extracurricular physical activity of an altogether different variety – a secret they kept pretty much between themselves. And the authorities.

"Man, we used to chase robbers. We used to beat the [$#!+] out of robbers," Nate recalls wistfully, the slightest hint of a mischievous grin forming at the corners of his mouth.

A busy, four-lane road, Springfield's E. North Street flows one-way toward the west of town. Several car dealerships occupy the real estate directly across the street. Any would-be criminals venturing onto the Ebner Sons property might therefore try their concealed escape through the back, by way of a wooded area and old train tracks that mimic the contours of Buck Creek. In all likelihood, the scoundrels wouldn't have accounted for the proprietor and his strapping young boy ambushing them.

"Springfield's a bad area, man," Nate adds with emphasis. "People were always stealing. We knew where the holes in the fences were. We'd set [the robbers] up, basically, to run out. I'd chase them, he'd usually be waiting for them… We did it all the time. We'd chase them, we'd catch them, beat the crap out of them, and then we'd send them to the police. I couldn't tell you how many times we did that."

Whether or not she was aware at the time of their roughing-up of robbers, Nancy Pritchett didn't mind at all that her son kept company with his father, her second ex-husband. She encouraged it, actually. Having split up when Nate was still an infant, Nancy and Jeff nevertheless remained on friendly terms. She had primary, weekday custody of their son in Mason, a community on the northern outskirts of Cincinnati, about an hour from Springfield. But Jeff and Nate saw each other two or three times a week, and many weekends as well.

"Jeff could see Nate anytime he wanted. Jeff was a great dad, a good person," Nancy remembers. "He and I may not have made it, but that doesn't mean Jeff wasn't the person I chose to marry. He was a great guy. Jeff's strengths were, if you're going to do something, do it. Do it 100-percent, don't do it halfway."

Jeff's philosophy seemed to apply to all areas of life, including the more sensitive, spiritual side.

Raised in a practicing Jewish family, Jeff felt it his responsibility to surround Nate with the same religious and cultural traditions. He also regaled his son with tales of his brief journey to Israel in 1989 as a competitor in the Maccabiah Games (a quadrennial event commonly known as the "Jewish Olympics").

Nate's mother, a Christian, wholeheartedly supported this exposure to multiple faiths.

"Jeff became a principal at the synagogue in Springfield that he took Nate to on the weekends," she continues. "He knew that if he wanted Nate to understand the Jewish faith, he was going to have to participate in that. He became very involved in it. I had no problem with Nate being introduced to both religions and choosing whatever he felt he could relate to."

While proud of his dual heritage, Nate admits, "I'm just not a super religious person."