Dreamstripped

Chapter 3 — “Did you hear those gun shots? What WAS that?…

And then the rest of the defense caught up with me…

I was about 4 feet from the sideline. The Carter kid was wrapped around my right ankle. I used all my remaining strength to lunge for the white line that marked the out-of-bounds. That’s when the next defender jumped on my back.

Then the next.

And then an avalanche of defenders.

As the weight piled on, my dehydrated body gave way. I did the splits, with my right leg trapped behind me and my left leg shooting out directly in front. My torso bent forward, and my head slammed down violently, smashing into my left kneecap.

Everything went silent. Time slowed down to nothing…

You know how they say that the very moment before you die your life flashes before your eyes?

A part of me died that day.

And there is a 30 second video that my mind captured. When I get depressed, it plays on a loop, reminding me how fragile my body is. It has flashed in my head for 40 years. It’s as vivid today as it was on that hot September evening in 1980, just a couple of weeks after my 17th birthday.

As my head crashed down in slow motion, the world was noiseless for a few seconds, save for 4 loud pops that sounded like gunshots.

Pop…Pop Pop….POP.

All four ligaments that held my left knee together reached their physical limits, then stretched beyond capacity. All four ruptured, rolling either up into my thigh and down into my calf. My meniscus (the little pad under my kneecap) tore open. The tendon below my kneecap started to shred. I felt a rush of nausea.

An indescribable amount of pain was pulsing and exploding through me. It felt like someone had injected molten lead into my knee. The burning crept up my body, boiling me from the inside out. With six men on top of me, I couldn’t move. I was able to cock my head and glance at my lower leg. It was bent at a sickening angle.

Then the world sped back up to normal. I could hear everything around me again.

I came up 2 feet short of the opposing team’s sideline. The stadium was full to capacity, and there were at least 800 fans congregating on the Hobart sideline. They were all booing me, convinced I was faking my injury to stop the clock. The opposing players and coaches gathered round, cursing me and trying to pick me up, to force me to stand, so the clock would restart. The head coach was screaming at me inches away from the earhole in my helmet.

The referees calmed things down and started shooing everyone away. Before they could set me back down, my tormentors could see my lower leg dangling, swaying in an oval motion, like a pendulum on a string. After I came to rest, my leg was twisted in a way that was not right. It was offset and bent 30° to the left.

All the cursing and booing died, and it became spooky silent. I could hear myself moaning softly. A stretcher was brought to carry me away. They hauled me up to the Tornado Dome. Despite the almost unbearable pain, I told them to prop me against the brick wall so I could watch the end of the game.

The teams lined up, and the referee blew the whistle. The ball was hiked, A R caught and placed the ball, and Jerry kicked it. It was right-on-line, perfectly spaced between the two uprights.

It fell short by 3 feet.

I lowered my head and closed my eyes.

“Forgive me, Father, for I have failed.

“I guess my dreams were selfish and wrong…”

(Next up: Chapter 4 — Will I ever finish the backstory of “It gets very cold in Rhode Island, and I don’t just mean the weather…?)

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