BAKERSFIELD - When he was an assistant wrestling coach at CSUB, Darryl Pope was famous for subjecting his freshmen to a frightening Cobra maneuver to teach them what position not to get into.

Most wrestlers got up from it petrified. Not Stephen Neal.

"Instead of being this little puppy dog that's scared, he gets up and his eyes are watering and he's foaming at the mouth," Pope recalled 28 years later. "He comes right back after me and I'm like, 'This kid's got what it takes.'"

But few could have predicted just how far Neal's talents would take him in sports – all the way to the Super Bowl.

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