Naked as a JayBird #5

The Sophomore Summer Football Camp at McQueen went well for me; I was running well and wasn’t injured. My home life was a complete wreck (as usual) and I was emotionally twisted. My teachers and coaches were starting to notice and mention to me that I had a chip on my shoulder and was “unteachable/uncoachable.”

That sophomore year, I started out the season running well and gaining quite a bit of yardage. At about the mid-point of the season, I got a helmet facemask to my lower back and it caused a whiplash-like movement and I couldn’t get up after being tackled. I had extreme burning sensations running through my lower back, hips, and legs. The EMS guy rolled me onto a board, then I was carried off the field and taken to the emergency room.

My stay at the hospital was very unpleasant. They started my treatment by giving me 4 enemas the first day, so I could drink some stuff so they could look at my internal organs. When you’re 16 and having a 20-something nurse give you enemas, it is very awkward at best. They looked at my insides and told me that it looked like I had an ulcer and they thought I might have a nervous disorder. My back was x-rayed and they told me that my spine was curvy and had some discs pinching nerves along my spine.

A red-headed girl named, Ursula, came to the hospital to check on me and brought some flowers. She was a year older than me and was attracted to me. Up to this point, my parents didn’t allow me to see girls or even talk to girls. Whenever my parents caught wind of a girl liking me, they would punish me or invite the girl and her parents over to tell them of our “badness.” I liked Ursula and thought she was a cutie. I personally wanted to get to know her.

I spent about a week in the hospital and was sent home with pain meds and muscle relaxants. I was told that I needed to stop playing football for the season, see a chiropractor, and attempt to have more fun/peace. After healing at home for a few days, my dad and my coaches told me it was time to get back to football. I returned to practice on pain meds and muscle relaxants. My sciatic nerve was killing me, but I was told to push-through the pain and be a man. The team needed me and I needed to suck it up. There were days where I could run without too much pain. There were days when I could barely walk because my leg or legs basically had to be dragged. I would hobble back to the huddle, then put the pain somewhere else (I’d check-out mentally), then run the play as fast as I could. To avoid getting hit in my back, I started to run to the sidelines (out of self-preservation) to get out of bounds. My coaches, dad, and fellow players started yelling at me for always running out of bounds. I continued this bullshit for about 2 more weeks.

I continued to tell my mom, dad, teammates, and coaches that I was really hurt again. These words fell on deaf ears. They continued to feed me drugs to help with the pain. I felt so loved. I believed at this time: ”The important people in my life that are supposed to love, care, and protect me aren’t listening. This must mean that I’m not important to them and I must be a wimp. It also dawned on me that I was being used by people and was being conditionally accepted by what I performed for others.” In addition to my extreme back and leg pain, I started to get blisters all over my feet. I tried new cleats and orthotics, but they weren’t working.

My parents told me to tell Ursula to go away, “Tell her to stop calling and talking to you.” I remember the call like it was yesterday. I was sitting at my parents’ business desk and made the call. Like a robot and against my heart, I told her to go away. She cried and asked why I was telling her this. I said, “You’re a year older than me and my parents don’t allow that.” I felt crushed and very sad that I hurt her with my words and I was sad for me, too. I remember thinking to myself, “LORD, she’s a nice, pretty girl that I like to be around.”

I woke up one morning, my right leg was not working, and I was an emotional and physical wreck. I had had enough. I started having feelings of wanting to end my life. Drugs and dysfunction had destroyed my family, I was hurting in all ways, and I was flunking all my classes. I went downstairs and told my mom that I was done with football. She was sympathetic and hugged me. This was the only easy part of this process of communicating that I was done with football. I would have to tell my coaches and my dad—the very men that had used me for winning purposes and vicarious reasons.

During my weight-lifting class, I was hobbling around and building up the courage to tell my coaches. How would I say it? How would they respond? How will I “look” to them and the other players? What would they think of me? What would I do now? Who am I? What am I without football? These questions scared me.

To be continued….