From a young age Nick worshiped his father a lot and respected not just because he was physically strong or famous in Silicon valley. Several times he witnessed how Olle with, what it seemed, casual remarks helped Nick’s mother to make breakthroughs in child cancer treatment. Although at that age Nick could not comprehend what it meant, he grasped the importance since Marianne’s pictures were frequent on the covers of medical journals.

Therefore, when his father suggested something to him, it sounded important and Nick started pondering about it.

Of course, at the time Nick was between 8 and 9, so it was not like he drew charts or did meditations on existential problem. He just thought about it while doing the thing he liked – while running.

As days flew by Nick started to observe other people around him as well. Noticing few of his fellow runners using I-Pods, he thought he finally understood what his father meant. And that was not about becoming a mediocrity. He was already falling behind! Other people were listening and learning new stuff while running and there was he – wasting the time staring at the birds and trees! He figured out he should use his running time while doing his other hobby – learning another language.

Children from two to five years are like sponges – they are capable of absorbing enormous amount of information. And that is the ideal time to teach child a foreign language, or even several. As a professor of medicine who specializes in pediatrics, Marianne obviously knew that. With her being french and Olle being swede, at home they spoke English. But she started to teach French to their son from when he was born along with English. Olle refused to teach even a word of Swedish based on his own theory that only 10 million people in the world spoke Swedish and every single one of them understood English – so learning Swedish was just a waste of time. In fact, Olle thought that learning any west-European language besides English was a waste of time, but he could not voice such opinion in front of his lovely French wife.

At the age of two Nick got his first ‘real’ English and French lessons, obviously disguised as games for the child. He learned them so effortlessly that few months later parents decided to add Spanish in the mix. When he was four and already could have small talk with their Mexican housekeeper, Marianne decided to experiment further and see where lie the boundaries of her child’s abilities and hired a grad student of Chinese origin to teach him Mandarin. Nick quickly fell in love with Chinese characters and, while the other kids were building sand castles, he was already drawing Hanzi and making weird sounds on the beach.

Thus, to advance his running effectiveness according to his father’s instructions, before the age of nine Nick got his first I-Pod and started listening to Portuguese audio lessons. Why Portuguese? His Spanish teacher told him that these languages were really similar and he could easily learn both.

Two weeks later during his regular morning run, a girl around age of 20 caught up to him, winked and asked, “Hey there little athlete! What kind of music are you listening to? Wanna share?”

After a short conversation Nick realized that he had gotten it all wrong – other people were not ahead of him – he was the one who was using his time ‘properly’! At least to his father’s standards.

Later that day at the dinner table he proudly presented his findings to parental judge committee. After getting a couple of praises Nick’s smile could not get wider.

Then Olle patted sons shoulder and said, “You did well! Continue thinking.”

Nick got really confused, “Why? Isn’t that all? What other improvements I can make?”

“No idea.” Olle replied, “When you find out – you tell us. That is what we all scientists do.”

Proud and at the same time confused Nick continued his ‘research’. But few weeks later he already forgot what he was working on and carelessly continued with his leisure morning and evening runs through the different San Francisco parks and beaches.

It was a couple of months later, one evening, when he was running at the Baker beach. Few youths were playing volleyball and after a bad hit the ball almost rolled into the water. Out of pure instinct Nick accelerated, dashed towards the ball and kicked it back before it got wet and then continued his run.

After a moment he got enlightened again – even after the short sprint he did not get more tired, his breathing almost did not change! Then he started to experiment.

A weird sight could be seen that day as Nick was dashing around the beach in the sunset, sometimes short sprints, sometimes longer. Well, be as it may, he went back to Marienne’s car all wet, tired, but happy. Then he just passed out on the back seat.

Next day he told father about his inspiration. Olle thought for a bit and said: “If you could become the fastest sprinter while still being able to hold your ground in long distances – that would be a great feat.”

Nick did not need more encouragement – now he had a new hobby. Besides the regular classes and private language lessons, he spent most of the time developing his own sprinting technique. It might have just been easier to get advise from a professional coach, but Nick wanted to learn this himself and his father fully supported him.

After half a year the usual joggers already recognized this weird kid who was making dashes while running. They unknowingly started to greet him and even had a chat once in a while. Soon he got a nickname – ‘Dash’.

If a child does vigorous everyday training, it is hard for others to not notice the growing physical potential. Referred by his gym class teacher during the 5th grade, coaches from different sports started to flood Nick with offers. He gladly accepted all of them and tried one sport after another.

The results were a bit mixed, one might say.

Nick disliked the soccer to the core. He just could not understand why it is the most popular sport in the world. The frequent ‘short sprint around the field’ was exactly his jam, but he found it plain stupid for few people to wait at one side of the field while others tried to ‘manage’ the soccer ball on the other. With the help of his ‘unbiased’ father Nick did some research and found out that the high end soccer is all about pretending getting hurt, then falling to the ground and rolling around. Father and son agreed that playing such sport is way below the dignity of any Berglund.

The pace of basketball was amazing. At the start Nick went to the first basketball classes with stars shining in his eyes. But soon he found out the whole dribbling concept to be irritating. Moreover – throwing the ball in the small basket was illogical. Why couldn’t they make it bigger? After few weeks Nick gave a verdict – this game was too annoying.

There was no discussion about hockey at all. Marianne put her fist down and said: “Only over my dead body! My son will not play a game where dozen people try to run him over with knives strapped at the soles of their boots!” Similar ruling was made regarding football because of the injury potential.

Baseball was kind of cool, but only the part where he could get his dashing mojo running. Since Nick mostly found himself standing around, he decided that the game was boring.

In the end during one family dinner, father, mother and son trio unanimously voted to postpone any decisions regarding sports for next few upcoming years.

But saying ‘no’ did not stop offers from coming in. Seeing Nick’s potential, coaches were trying all possible methods, promising college tuition fees, fame, popularity and the future of a professional athlete. To which Nick, even imitating his father’s tone, replied: “Professional sports is form of entertainment. I don’t plan to become entertainer and to amuse other people. I do sports for fun!”

Listening from the side Olle could not have been prouder. His son really understood the true values, but coaches could only shake their heads about this father-son pair wasting a bright talent.

Thus Nick’s official ‘sports carrier’ took place only during the gym classes, but his abilities continued to improve. He never stopped his running habits. Every morning and evening he wore his I-Pod and dashed around the parks of San Francisco.

It was only after Nick turned 13, he was approached by his classmate who invited him to come over for a football training class. On a whim Nick joined and did not even notice when the class ended. To his big surprise he really enjoyed this weird game. He liked the teamwork and concept of formations. He did not ‘find pleasant’ the close contact part of the game, but he felt he could overcome it. May be he was becoming more mature, may be he enjoyed the company of his peers or may be he found a ‘practical’ application to his physical abilities. It was as if a small new world opened in front of his eyes.

Needless to say this world was almost shut down the very same evening.

“Merde! No way in hell!”. Marianne slammed her fist on the table.

“Chérie ...” Olle touched her hand and looked at her with the biggest puppy eyes he could muster, “For the first time Nicolas wants to play and train with others. Don’t you think we should support it?”

“Do you know the amount of injuries kids get there?” Marianne was not giving up easily. “Some professionals even get permanent disabilities!”

“Well. First of all youths at Nicks age do not have the body mass to cause such damage and second – even if he gets hurt a little bit, he can just change his mind and not play anymore. He is doing it for fun anyway.” Olle replied.

“So you want our only son to get hurt! You bastard! Why the hell did I marry you!” Marianne was really furious. Born in south of France she had that hot Mediterranean temper. Both father and son knew they have triggered a volcano eruption or at least a massive forest fire.

“Mom, I promise I will be careful.” Nick tried put out the flames.

“And please tell me – how are you planning to do that?” Mother was still fuming.

In the end they all came to agreement. Nick was allowed to train, but only till his first injury – no matter how small it was. He and his father understood this was the only compromise that could be made. And, if in future Nick will get injured, they will have to think of something. And, obviously, he was not going to give up on his morning runs. One hobby should not become a hindrance to the other.

On the next day Nick finally signed up for school’s football team. The start turned out to be a bit bumpy since he was used to do things alone. But with the time he blended in and was able to really show off. Somehow guys on the team found out his nickname and also started calling him ‘Dash’. Now it was more suitable than ever because, possibly due to his mothers strict warnings, he tried to avoid getting any injury and, in addition to his speed, sometimes it really seemed as if he was non-stop dashing over the football field.

Soon the star called ‘Dash’ was born. It kept rising through the high school and then university. The strange part was – Nick never got hurt! Of course, there were some minor bruises now and then which were carefully hidden from Marianne, but other than that – no injuries at all! That was a miracle on its own.

With him getting better, obviously, opponents paid more and more attention targeting him in all possible ways. But he was still managing to leave trails of fallen bodies behind him after successful touchdowns over and over again, and that to the great joy of his growing crowd of fans.