Camp

The summer was coming to an end and it was alomst time for camp to start. My mentality coming into to camp was "I'm a freshman behind two upper-classman that are good, just try to get on the field somewhere." So I worked as hard as I could to prove to the coaches that I deserved to be on the field. For the first week of camp it's kind of like an introduction week. The freshman show up and have no idea what is going on, or what is going to happen. For me being there a semester eearly help me be "one-up" on the freshman that had just came into camp. Luckily camp wasn't bad as far as the weather. The weather was actually pretty bearable throughout camp. I think there was only like three days where it was 80 degrees or higher out of two weeks of camp. I was grateful that because the coaches pushed us to our limits so it helped that weather and mother nature was on our side. As camp went on and people were battling for positions on the field. I knew that I wasn't going to start, or anything, at cornerback but I tried to be the best corner I could so if an injury hhappened I would be prepared to fill in. As the days turned into weeks the first game was right around the corner, and I started to realize that my dream of playing college football was drawing closer to coming true.

Summer

Spring football was over and the school year and the school year ended. I went home for a month then went back to school to work and workout with team. (Well the people who stayed at school for the summer.) I stayed on campus so all I paid for was groceries. We worked out every Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday. Then we had 7 on 7 on Wednesdays. The workouts were tough because we would run first outside then lift. Some days it would be extremely hot during workouts but it was something you got used to. I worked outside doing grounds crew stuff like fixing up gardens, raking leaves, laying bricks around a walking path, etc. Me being outside all day really made me not want to go to lifting sometimes. At first I didn't want to go back to campus and stay for the summer, but in the long run I'm glad I did because I got better as a player and I bonded with my teammates.

Spring Ball Game

The day of the game I was excited. We went through, what would be, a normal routine of eating breakfast, walking to the grotto, then going to the locker room to get ready. The whole pregame routine i had some butterflies, but I was more anxious than anything. While I was getting ready in the locker room I was mentally going through my assignments and telling myself "Not to mess up." We went out to warm up and went through that routine. It was time for the game to start. The first two plays nothing much happened. Then on 3rd down I knew what was comming. All week in practice I had trouble covering the "GO" route. So on 3rd down I knew that was the route that I was going to have to guard on the play. The play started and I saw it in the receiver's eyes that he wanted to beat me deep. I turn and run with him, getting my body into him. Incomplete pass; I had finally figured out how to cover that route. At that point I had confidence and felt invincible. The rest of the game ended with the defense winning 17-13 and with me being satisfied with how I played.

Spring Ball

After CHAMPS we transitioned to the next faze of the offseason and that was spring football practices and game. We practiced three times a week and th egame was at the end. These practices were like normal, regular season practices. We were helmets, shoulder pads on certain days, and also went full pads some days. I was excited but nervous because I hadn't put on a pair of football cleats since my senior season in '04. I thought I was going to be rusty, and wasn't going to be able to perform well enough. I did alright though; there were some things that I didn't pick up on right away, but I eventually got it. It was kind of like I was thrown into the fire and had to learn on the run. I went in to spring ball wanting to learn. I wasn't worried taking someone spot because I had two All-American corners playing in front of me. I just wanted to learn the defensive scheme and actually learn the game of football. Practice went well for the four weeks we practiced. The last day of the fourth week we had a spring ball game which was a glorified scrimmage between the offense and the defense. Lucky for me the two corner ahead of me on the depth chart had to do something for class the day of the spring ball game so I got to start and play the whole game. The game was fun and exciting. I was happy with my performance not making too many mistakes. I would have liked to have played better but it was ok because the coaches were pleased with my performance.

Whole Other World

When I got to campus I was happy for a number of reasons. I was happy to finally be away from home and out on my own, I about to fulfill my dream of playing college football, and I was happy to be in new surroundings (new people, new school, etc.). The first week of school the football team had a meeting to explain what the next few weeks were going to be like. I was extremely excited. I couldn't believe that I was in my first college football meeting. The following week we started winter conditioning and lifting. I was nervous because I didn't know how in shape I was going to be in. I didn't know how much I could lift anymore. I didn't know how well my lifting apparatus was going to hold up since it was made out of moldable plastic. The first I surprised myself because I was able to keep up with everyone else, and I wasn't as weak as I thought I might have been. The only thing I was dissappointed about was that I couldn't do every lift because my apparatus could hold more than 5-10 lbs. I was just able to do pushing exercises. As the weeks went on it drew closer to this thing called CHAMPS. CHAMPS was early morning conditioning at 4:45 A.M. It was a lot of drills and footwork, then we would run 200 meter sprints afterward. Since I didn'y know what they were I didnt know about how bad they were going to suck. They were horrible, especially since I still considered myself out of shape. I got through them though, and a lot better than other players there.

Big Decision!!!

As the days went on my trips to the physical therapist started to decrease, and I had to make a major decision that would affect the rest of my life. I had to decide if I wanted to continue my dream of playing college football or give my dream up and go to a local college without a football program. I made the decision to follow my dream. I did not want to have regrets about not playing. When I left I wanted to make sure I was equipped with everything I needed to perform well on and off the field. My physical therapist made me a contraption that helped me lift weights. My prosthetic doctor teamed up with another arm specialist to make me a pad for my arm so I would not get hurt during practice.

Physical Therapy

All my physical therapy sessions were going well. My scares were all healing nicely. My physical therapist referred me to a doctor who specializes in prosthetics. I went and talked to him about possibly getting a prosthetic hand. He told me I had to wait for all the swelling to go down on my arm before I could get a prosthetic. He also explained to me what type of attachment I would get. This attachment looked like a hand, and base off the flexion of my forearm muscles the hand would open and close.

Transition Back Home

I flew back back home the following Sunday, and that was an interesting experience. Since I was still bandaged up and hadn't healed from surgery I had to have this big foam box looking thing that protected my arm from anything that hit it. I was happy to finally be home. It was good to finally see all my friends and family back home. Now I had to find a docter close to my house. A week after I returned home I had to find another upper extremities doctor. I had to find one close to home because the other one I had was my surgeon in Florida. I also had to find a place to do physical therapy. My mom found a place where the doctor’s office and physical therapy were all in the same building. I went on my first visit and I didn’t know what to expect. Everything went fine with my first visit at the doctor’s and physical therapy.

Out of the Hospital/Birthday

It was a bitter-sweet day when I was released from the hospital. Like I said I was released on Thursday, July 28th, which happened to be my birthday. The sweet part of the day was I got out of the hospital, it was my birthday, and my brother bought an ice cream cake for my birthday (if you can't tell, it's my favorite). (WARNING! THE NEXT PART MAY NOT BE FOR THE WEAK AT HEART, BUT MAY BE VERY FUNNY TO SOME) The bitter part of the day was this wasn't how I wanted to spend my birthday, and what happened when I got back to my brother's apartment. For those that don't know, or never been in the hospital for an extended period of time, when you're in the hospital for a number of days and are not able to use the bathroom on your own they give you a catheter, allowing you to use the bathroom without getting up. To make a long story short, I had built up stool because the docter slowed down my digestive system. So I had to take a laxative to get all of that nastiness out of me. WORST PART OF THE WHOLE EXPERIENCE. As soon as I take it, no more than 15 minutes later I was ready to go to the bathroom. The worst part is that my brother's apartment only had one bathroom, but it was upstairs. But my mom help me make it ok, did my business and had my mom help me get back downstairs. Five minutes later I had to go again. This time I almost didn't make it. That would have been a bad situation. After that I was pretty regular.