MANKATO, Minn. — On any given Friday or Saturday night, the cluster of bars in downtown Mankato, Minnesota, near the intersection of Front and Cherry Streets, is a hive for 20-somethings, many of them students at nearby Minnesota State. People pop in and out of Rounders and Blue Bricks and other bars, loading up on cheap beer and cocktails. Then at around 2 a.m., closing time, they empty into the streets en masse, like puppies released from a pen.

As to be expected, the occasional fight breaks out. Alcohol and the hubris of youth puff the insignificant—a spilled drink, a misheard remark—into something bigger, hard words are spoken, and then…violence.

The fight that occurred early on the morning of May 11, 2014, was like most others in that it started over something trivial. According to court documents, Philip Nelson, then a 20-year-old quarterback at Rutgers, saw a bouncer at Blue Bricks kiss his girlfriend on the hand. This stewed inside him, and then he found himself outside, a little before 2 a.m.

He encountered 24-year-old Isaac Kolstad, a former football player at Minnesota State, who, like Nelson, grew up in the area. Nelson mistook Kolstad for the bouncer, according to court and police documents, had words with him and pushed Kolstad in the back. Friends briefly separated the two, but then Kolstad retaliated, running at Nelson and throwing a flying punch that sent him to the ground.

Seconds later, a man police would later say was Trevor Shelley, who went to high school with Nelson, entered the fracas. He blindsided Kolstad with a punch that knocked him unconscious, according to the criminal complaint filed by police. Kolstad's head hit the pavement. Witnesses would later tell of the horrifying thud they heard.

The fight—caught on video by a mounted police camera—featured one final savage act: Nelson walked to where Kolstad lay motionless near a stopped car and kicked him in the head.

"When the call came in, none of the responding officers would have thought this would be any different from other incidents in the area we have experienced," says Amy Vokal, the deputy director of the Mankato Department of Public Safety. "No one anticipated this would be as devastating as it turned out to be."

They could not have guessed the fight would put Kolstad in the hospital with brain injuries that doctors assumed would kill him. They could not know the incident would cost Nelson his scholarship at Rutgers, damage his NFL aspirations and initially lead to two felony assault charges. They certainly could not have predicted the reverberations from that night's events would continue a year later.

Today, Nelson is still trying to restart his college football career; Kolstad is battling the aftereffects of his devastating injuries; two well-liked local families remain at odds, each demanding their own version of justice. And there is the lingering unease the whole affair has caused among the citizens of Mankato, a place where "Minnesota Nice" remains a real sentiment.

"It is like a lake early in the morning, so calm, and then you throw some rocks in," says Kenneth White, a local attorney hired by the Kolstad family. "In this case, the rocks were the lives of these young men that sunk to the bottom, and it has created all these ripples."

When Molly Kolstad was awoken by a knock on her bedroom door at around 2:30 a.m. on May 11 and then told by one of Isaac's friends that her husband had been in a fight, she figured he had suffered, at worst, a black eye.

"I got up and was like, 'OK, I'll go to the hospital and bring him home,'" she said. If that had been the extent of his injuries, it would have made a good cocktail party story, how Isaac made his pregnant wife fetch him from the hospital…on Mother's Day.

"But then I got to the hospital and they asked me if I knew what Isaac's last wishes were."

Court documents state that the blows Kolstad took to the head fractured his skull, and then fluid filled his lungs, preventing air from reaching his brain. At Mayo Clinic Health Services hospital, he was immediately put on life support and placed in a medically induced coma, according to a blog the family updated.

During one procedure less than a week after the fight, a significant portion of dead brain tissue was removed to help with swelling. Other surgeries followed, and the consensus early on was that if Isaac lived—a big if—there was only a 3 percent chance he would emerge as a functional person.

On a recent Saturday afternoon, Molly sat on a sofa in the living room of the Kolstads' home in a working-class neighborhood near downtown. Next to her was Isaac, who watched his two daughters—Haidyn, four, and nine-month-old Malia—play with photographs of the family spread out on the floor.

He isn't the same muscled former linebacker he once was. He moves gingerly now, and his right arm is slow to react, taking several seconds to, say, reach up and shake a visitor's hand. His speech is also slow and deliberate. But he is very much a functional individual. Molly calls him "my 3 percent man."

On weekdays, Molly takes the children to daycare and goes to work as a nurse at the hospital where Isaac was once a patient. Isaac vacuums, does laundry and makes the occasional grilled cheese. He also has physical therapy four days a week at a facility near Minneapolis and occupational and speech therapy at home.

"Before [the fight], I didn't have the determination I have now," Isaac says. "Now, if I can't do something, I want to try it again."

"I have never seen him frustrated," Molly added. "I get frustrated."

She flashes a smile at Isaac. "But not him. He's always positive. There was a time when he came out of the coma and asked, 'Why am I here?' and I told him what happened and I could see he was angry. That was my moment to say, 'We can't focus on that.' Once he was alert, we established we have to be positive or we won't get through this."

That the Kolstads are through to this point is a Mankato Miracle. It is a credit to their resolve, to the work of the doctors, nurses and therapists who helped Isaac and to the Kolstads' friends and family.

Isaac's employer at the time of the incident, Fastenal, an industrial supply company, raised more than $66,000 during a fundraiser, and another $72,000 was donated online. A friend let Molly use a house near Minneapolis when Isaac was receiving treatment in the area, and there have been family members who assisted them in myriad ways during the eight total months he was in the hospital.

That included three days when Molly was also bedridden. On June 4, less than a month after the fight, Molly gave birth to Malia. Isaac was still in a coma at the time and in a room on the third floor of the hospital. Molly was on the fifth floor.

It was a difficult birth. Malia had the umbilical cord wrapped around her neck four times (she said she was told the record was five), necessitating an emergency C-section. Molly lost so much blood during the procedure she received a transfusion. "Nothing was easy in 2014," she said.

At the time of the fight, the Kolstads' life had momentum. They had purchased their first home less than a year earlier. Isaac had been hired as a salesman at Fastenal only four months prior. They had one child and another on the way.

The couple, who began dating when they were both seniors at Mankato East High, were rounding out their life together. Now they mark smaller milestones: the day Isaac stopped wearing a gait belt, which people used to catch him when he fell; his first shower unassisted; the day he ran the length of a basketball court without falling.

"We can't really look too far into the future," Molly said, "And we try and not look back. Anything that is not helpful we try and not let it in."

That proved difficult as the court case against Philip Nelson played out. On January 20, Blue Earth County Judge Bradley Walker reduced Nelson's charges to a single count of fifth-degree assault, a misdemeanor, to which Nelson pleaded guilty. Walker's decision came after medical experts concluded that Shelley's punch and Kolstad's head hitting the pavement—not anything Nelson did—likely caused Kolstad's brain damage.

Then came an emotionally charged sentencing hearing on March 2, 2015, during which Isaac labored through a statement about not being able to hold his children without someone watching him, and Molly also spoke. "Philip Nelson made decisions that night that left me with permanent brain damage," Isaac said.

They had hoped Nelson would get 90 days in jail, the maximum sentence, but Walker gave him 100 hours of community service, a $300 fine and two days in jail—time already served.

One of the methods James Fleming, Nelson's lawyer, used in his effort to get his client a lighter sentence was to submit to Judge Walker letters of support from people who knew Nelson. Among those who wrote on Nelson's behalf were his former Mankato West football coach, an academic adviser at Rutgers, parents of his high school friends, his pastor, even residents from the assisted-living facility where Nelson worked almost daily during his year away from football.

The tone and content of those letters are largely the same. They state that Nelson is a good, humble and hardworking person. They tell of moments he helped the injured and the elderly, when he excelled on the football field, in the classroom and in the community. They make clear that Nelson is not an egotistical, "pretty boy" quarterback, that he is not a bully.

That composite portrait rings true. That is how teammates and coaches described Nelson long before the events of May 11, 2014. He is a young man who made a singular mistake, and it is also true that he has suffered for that mistake.

Any discussion of what has happened to Nelson since the fight inevitably draws a comparison to Kolstad's anguish, for which there is no comparison. But Nelson's life was altered that night, too, one of the stones that sunk to the bottom.

"You have no idea how difficult this has been for him emotionally," said Pat Nelson, Philip's father. "And he was physically hurt in this, too, which many people don't know. He was treated for a severe concussion."

Philip Nelson could have been Rutgers' starting quarterback this coming year. He transferred there in January 2014 after playing two seasons at Minnesota, where he started 16 games.

Before that came a decorated high school career. One scouting service ranked him the No. 2 pro-style QB and 40th-best prospect in the country. At 6'2", Nelson has the size and arm to play in the NFL, something his father will tell you. Pat Nelson played football at Wisconsin in the 1970s and is a dedicated steward of his son's football career.

Ask Pat Nelson who was to blame for starting the fight, and he will say it was Isaac. "Had he not thrown that first punch, none of this would have happened," he said.

Fleming made the same point during his oral argument at the sentencing hearing. It is true the fight likely wouldn't have happened if Isaac hadn't hit Philip, but it also would not have happened if Philip hadn't been drinking underage, hadn't gotten his hair up over a kiss on a hand, hadn't mistaken Isaac for someone else and if he hadn't pushed Isaac.

Philip's family and lawyer have gone so far as to express incredulousness that Kolstad hasn't been charged with a crime. But at the sentencing hearing, Philip did stand in court and say, "I'm sorry to Isaac and the Kolstads. I'm sorry to my friends and family for letting them down."

Most people in the community who know both the Nelson and Kolstad families have declined to discuss the fight with the media—or even amongst themselves—so as to not appear to be taking sides. There is also some sticky context people would rather avoid. Kolstad went to Mankato East High, Nelson to Mankato West, and the rivalry between those schools is fierce.

East is the ugly, blue-collar school; the joke is that its windowless buildings were once used as a jail. It is also more diverse because of African immigrants who live within its boundaries. West is considered a prettier school, better academically, safer, whiter. Kolstad is a mixed-race man in a mixed-raced marriage from East. Nelson is the white quarterback with the white girlfriend from West.

"Those are not things people around here are going to willingly talk about," said White, the Kolstads' attorney.

Pat Nelson would love to talk about his son's "redemption story," how Philip has "overcame adversity." He wanted that story written in January, when he was trying to get Philip enrolled at Ole Miss. After Philip avoided jail time, he wanted that story told again, because having it written might help get the attention of other schools. He initially agreed to make his son available for an interview but then backed out days before the scheduled interview.

Why?

"If you are going to be talking to the Kolstads, I don't think we can be a part of that. You have to understand, they are just so negative," he said. "The stuff they were saying in court, it was just—we don't want to be associated with something that includes these people who are just so focused on the negative."

"I don't know how I am going to feel," Molly says. She is talking about the coming one-year anniversary of the fight. She and Isaac have considered organizing a 5K run, but that would be for the weekend before May 11, which falls on a Monday. "I guess when the day comes, I will just have to see how I feel."

Molly wrote on her blog that she is hoping 2015 is a "gentle" year, and that is a perfect word choice. But there will be some harsh days.

Trevor Shelley's case is still pending—he has pleaded not guilty to two felonies. White, Kolstad's lawyer, said he is considering filing a civil suit against one or more of the bars that served Nelson alcohol.

There is also the possibility of a civil case against Philip, White added, but perhaps only if he makes it as a pro quarterback. Without football success, he would be just another young man with few financial assets starting out in the world, much like Isaac last May.

As for Philip's planned return to college football this fall, the Kolstads aren't sure how they will feel reading about him in The Mankato Free Press or seeing him in highlights on the local news.

"At the end of the day, I am coming home with Isaac Kolstad, not Philip Nelson," Molly said. "I am more concerned with what we are doing as a family than anything he does."

Isaac leaned forward in his seat and in firm tone he added, "I don't care what he does." Then came a long pause as he worked to get the words out. "I am only worried about my family and getting better."

George Dohrmann is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and the author of Play Their Hearts Out, which in 2011 received the PEN/ESPN Award for Literary Sports Writing. He is a contributing writer at Sports Illustrated, where he worked for 14 years, and previously was on staff at the Los Angeles Times and the St. Paul Pioneer Press. He teaches journalism at Southern Oregon University.