ITHACA, N.Y. -- Nomar Tejada has played corner, safety, inside linebacker, defensive line and outside linebacker at Cornell. What he wants his teammates to know is simpler.

"Wherever I'm needed, I'm available," Tejada said.

It's a philosophy built over years, and across a few countries. For most of his life, football wasn't the plan. Basketball was.

In sixth grade, Tejada was diagnosed with erythromelalgia, a rare condition. Heart rate issues tied to it led to back-to-back seizures, and doctors put him in a medically induced coma for several days. He remembers waking up and thinking his athletic career was over.

What followed was a year in and out of Boston Children's Hospital, including a month in the ICU. His mom was beside him through countless nights, his dad drove to the hospital after work every night, and his sister, Brianna, was a constant support. All he wanted was to get back on a court.

"All I wanted to do is continue playing basketball," he said.

Then the symptoms vanished, and he went home. In eighth grade, his family moved to the Dominican Republic, where his father, who had built a business in the U.S., had always planned to return. Tejada, who was born in Massachusetts and grew up speaking English and Spanish, was moving away from friends and the place he spent his childhood. It was hard.

"It ended up being a blessing in disguise," he said.

His dad, he says, did everything he could to connect him with the basketball community there. Before he knew it, Tejada was practicing with the Dominican national team. The team started with about 50 players and cut down to 12, and Tejada made it as the sixth man. At the U16 Americas Championship in Brazil, the Dominican Republic won bronze, finishing behind the United States and Canada, a result he calls extremely rare for the country.

"I was blessed just to be on that team," Tejada said.

Then COVID closed the door. The team qualified for the U17 World Cup in Bulgaria, and the pandemic shut it down. Tejada returned to the U.S. for prep school basketball, first at Woodstock Academy in Connecticut, where he was the youngest player on the team, playing in a mask and living in a locked-down dorm. His parents, who had attended every practice back home, couldn't watch anymore.

"No longer having them there to cheer me on took a hard hit on me," he said.

He transferred to Brooks School in North Andover, Massachusetts, repeating his junior year. Brooks encourages students to do extracurricular activities each semester, and friends kept suggesting football. Tejada, a basketball player, wanted nothing to do with it.

"Us basketball players don't really like contact," he said. "We shy away from it."

He dabbled with football that fall, in and out, while a lingering knee injury limited him on the basketball court. College coaches, including Ivy League programs, took notice, but he could sense their uncertainty about whether he could stay healthy for four years. That summer, he talked to his parents, counselors and mentors. His friends were already saying the same thing: if he took football seriously, he could be good.

"It seemed almost as if it was a fantasy," Tejada said.

He gave himself a year to find out. Brooks finished with just one loss and won the bowl game, and the season had a purpose beyond the scoreboard. The team had lost its kicker, Preston Settles, the previous spring, and Tejada, who held for him, says every game was played in his memory.

"What drove me again was to play for something so much bigger than myself," he said.

In the bowl game, Tejada dropped into coverage at safety, intercepted a pass and returned it for a touchdown, the first pick-six of his career.

The calls from college coaches started quickly. Cornell was the first to reach out, and Tejada says the relationship felt natural right away. He called his parents.

"Look, as much as I love basketball, the doors have been open to play football," he said.

At his first Cornell practice, coaches put him at corner, a position he had never played, not even in high school.

"I'd watched no film, no technique about how to play corner," Tejada said.

The coaches treated him as a project, and he says they were patient. Older players stayed with him after practice to work on technique. A coach told him to watch the seniors and follow what they did, and he often saw Damon Barnes in the facility long after practice.

It still got hard. In his first week of practice, a senior running downfield tossed him aside with one hand, and Tejada says he questioned his life in football. As the year went on, there were days he watched clips of the basketball team and wondered if he should go back.

"There were days where I thought I had made the wrong decision," Tejada said.

What kept him going was community. One night after practice, a senior teammate, Jake Stebbins, noticed he was struggling and invited him to his home, where he made dinner and talked.

"This dude doesn't really know much about me, but he sees that I'm struggling and he cares for me enough to invite me into his home," Tejada said.

The lesson stuck. "It's okay to struggle, and being okay with that, but just never give up," he said. It also deepened his faith. Tejada, who grew up in a Christian household, now leads Fellowship of Christian Athletes, worship and Bible studies, and team chapels.

"It's truly the foundation of it all," he said.

On the days he questioned things or didn't want to give his all because he wasn't in the position he thought he could be in, he says his faith is what got him through.

"Knowing that God had my back and had a greater purpose and a greater plan for me is truly what's gotten me through each and every year," Tejada said.

Academics were a struggle early, too. He says he got a C in his freshman writing seminar and was up at 2 a.m. studying for a business class. He knew there were two roads.

"Continue on the path that I was on, or truly strive for change," Tejada said.

He chose change, surrounding himself with teammates who were disciplined about class, and he credits Cornell for pushing him further than he thought he could go. He is on track to graduate from the S.C. Johnson College of Business and is picking up a minor in engineering management, with aspirations of working for a general contractor. He's also a member of the Red Key Society and Big Red Buddies.

On the field, the road was just as unpredictable, with a different position coach for nearly every stop. It made building a foundation hard.

"I never really truly had time to get my feet under me," he said.

It also made him someone the coaches can count on. These days, his biggest impact comes on special teams, and what he wants to bring there is simple.

"It's how I show up with a smile on my face each and every day," he said. "That's truly what I want it to be about."

His father's example is the model. He started his own company from nothing and worked from early morning until late at night for 20 years. Tejada's days now start at 6 a.m. and end around 10 p.m.

"He's laughing, and he's like, 'Yep, now do it for 20 years and let me know how it goes,'" Tejada said.

One idea in particular has stuck with him. A speaker once asked the team: what are you willing to give with no guarantee of an outcome?

"Maybe I won't start for four years, but am I willing to work toward that each and every year?" Tejada said. "Am I willing to give my all each and every week with no guarantee of an Ivy League championship?"

His answer is on the field every Saturday.

"Whatever the team needs," Tejada said, "I want the guys to know I'm willing and able and available to do exactly what it takes."

Corner, safety, linebacker, special teams. Wherever Nomar Tejada lines up, the answer is the same.