orange machine
10-21-2008, 11:06 PM
Since Celina running back Charley Waldrep was born, he and his father Kent have been watching each other do incredible things.
From a young age, Charley displayed a propensity for athletics. He was quick like his father, but he also possessed something Kent, also a former running back, freely admits he never had -- raw power. One look at Charley's arms and chest is evidence enough that he's no scatback, that plugging a gap might end up being a painful experience, and that trying to run him over at home plate would be something akin to walking into a brick wall. His unique blend of attributes netted him 1,775 rushing yards and 35 touchdowns last season, and it's his unabashed love for contact that has made him one of the most feared runners in 3A football.
"I never really liked the non-contact sports, even when I was little," Charley said. "I always knew I really liked football. I wanted to do it. I knew (Kent) did it in high school and college, and that always made me want to do it more. I always looked up to him, as well -- football has always been one of those things I was going to do and be good at it growing up."
Charley was the driving force behind last year's state championship football team. Charley has been a leader from the sideline as he's nursed a sprained ankle this season. Charley has excelled on the baseball diamond. Charley is good enough to play catcher at Alabama and to play football at a host of other schools. Yes sir, Charley has done an awful lot.
Then again, so has Kent.
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Back in 1974, TCU was just beginning to discover a young running back named Kent Waldrep.
Kent was a promising talent from Alvin high school, a somewhat underwhelming 4A squad that never even made the playoffs during his four-year tenure there and consistently struggled against tough in-district competition. Good enough as a prepster to merit mention in the 1971 edition of Dave Campbell's, Waldrep was recruited by the Frogs and, after two years on campus, even worked his way into the starting halfback job before the start of the 1974 season. At 5-foot-11, 180 pounds, the speedy Waldrep was a smart change of pace for bruising fullback Mike Luttrell. Through the first six games, he played the role to a "T".
But on October 26, TCU traveled to Alabama -- an odd point in the season to have a non-conference game, considering every other rival school besides Arkansas had already finished that part of its schedule -- for one last challenge before the SWC stretch run. Kent walked onto Legion Field as a purple-swathed collegiate athlete, and one tackle later, he was carried off of it with an irreparable bruised spinal cord and life-altering damage. Paralyzed from the neck down, Kent spent a month in a Birmingham hospital with an injury that, had it happened today, could've been treated and possibly reversed.
"We've got football players in the last ten years that have walked away from the same injury I had," Kent said. "And it's because the treatment we now have on the field when they're injured and then at the hospital is the difference between night and day from when I was hurt in 1974. We've come a long ways in treating the new injury, the acute injury, and minimizing the damage in most cases -- in some cases, completely reversing it."
Perhaps no one was more impacted by the injury than Alabama legend Bear Bryant. From that point onwards, Bryant, who had stood on the Alabama sideline just yards from the accident, and Waldrep would be forever intertwined -- be it via in person or over the phone, Bryant, arguably the most famous college coach to walk the face of the earth, would constantly check in on Kent, who, just days before, was another easily forgotten name on a two-deep.
The two ended up effecting each other's lasting legacies -- Waldrep, still confined to a wheelchair, spoke nine years later at Bryant's funeral, and Bryant, who already had an Alabama scholarship set up for children of his former players, made both Charley and his older brother, Trey, eligible for the prestigious award.
"After I was hurt, (Bryant) didn't have to do anything else," Kent said. "But it never stopped up until his death. He had people raise money to buy my first van, the University of Alabama paid for most of my hospitalization and rehab following the injury, and then, what's the most incredible gesture of all, is he made my boys eligible for the Bear Bryant Scholarship at Alabama."
Trey accepted the offer, and Charley -- who proudly sports an Alabama sticker on his truck's back windshield -- might eventually play baseball there. But even if he doesn't, the honor of even having the opportunity is profound enough.
"It was a pretty special thing," Charley said. "There's a select few that even get to have that, and the fact that he didn't even go to Alabama makes it even more special -- he just had the relationship with Coach Bryant after the injury."
Since those days, few Americans have done as much for rights for disabled Americans as Kent. He's traveled abroad in search of answers. He started the American Paralysis Foundation. He was appointed to the National Council on Disability. He was instrumental in the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act. He has spearheaded the nation's efforts to keep an oft-broken governmental system from continually sweeping more than 60 million disabled Americans under the rug. In other words, he's given young Charley something to stand in awe of, too.
"I just looked at it growing up as that was his job and that's what he did," Charley said. "At the time, I didn't realize how special or what the significance of what he was doing really was. When I'm out on the field, I really try not to worry about it much, but I do realize how many people he does effect and how many people he can."
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What's fascinating about Charley is that the one thing he probably should fear -- the sort of contact that could leave him with a spinal injury like his father's -- is almost always the last thing on his mind. Instead of ducking away from tacklers and running out of bounds, Charley often seeks contact, delivering the punishment instead of receiving it. It sounds ironic, but Kent says that's one of the main reasons the younger Waldrep has stayed consistently healthy throughout his football career.
"Charley doesn't worry about breaking his neck playing football and I don't worry about Charley breaking his neck playing football," Kent said. "You have to separate what happened to me and how it happened, and the circumstances of his life. Certainly you want to play the game and play it the way to avoid catastrophic injury, and you do that by keeping your head up -- by delivering punishment to the tackler and not letting the tackler deliver punishment to you. That's the way he runs. 80 percent of the time, it's the tackler getting hurt, not Charley."
In a way, Kent has epitomized the same principle. After his accident, he could've accepted his condition, could've believed himself the victim. No one would have blamed him, and he likely would've faded away into the realms of yesteryear as just a footnote, another cautionary tale for mothers to tell young boys filled with the lust for tackle football. But just like Charley when he runs the football, he chose to be the aggressor, to make his own future instead of letting it be dictated by others.
"I was blessed after I was hurt to be able to make a difference with the disability movement in this country and to try and promote programs and policies at the federal level and at the state level that would give people a better quality of life," Kent said. "For too long we just wrote people off with severe disabilities and just said 'Stay at home and get $230 a month from the government and be happy.' Well, that's no kind of existence."
And so while Kent has spent the last 17 years watching young Charley weave in and out of tacklers, his son has watched his dad shape the way an entire generation looked at wheelchairs, canes and prosthetics. They've both faced challenges, and that's what makes them even more inextricably intertwined than just simple family ties. And even now, Kent can reflect upon his past and honestly say that, even if he knew how his future would play out, he would do it all again. He looks at Charley sitting to his side, and his reasoning is obvious.
"If I knew it would happen and then I was shown what I could do with my life afterwards, then no, I'm not going to change it," Kent said. "Because then he wouldn't be here."
From a young age, Charley displayed a propensity for athletics. He was quick like his father, but he also possessed something Kent, also a former running back, freely admits he never had -- raw power. One look at Charley's arms and chest is evidence enough that he's no scatback, that plugging a gap might end up being a painful experience, and that trying to run him over at home plate would be something akin to walking into a brick wall. His unique blend of attributes netted him 1,775 rushing yards and 35 touchdowns last season, and it's his unabashed love for contact that has made him one of the most feared runners in 3A football.
"I never really liked the non-contact sports, even when I was little," Charley said. "I always knew I really liked football. I wanted to do it. I knew (Kent) did it in high school and college, and that always made me want to do it more. I always looked up to him, as well -- football has always been one of those things I was going to do and be good at it growing up."
Charley was the driving force behind last year's state championship football team. Charley has been a leader from the sideline as he's nursed a sprained ankle this season. Charley has excelled on the baseball diamond. Charley is good enough to play catcher at Alabama and to play football at a host of other schools. Yes sir, Charley has done an awful lot.
Then again, so has Kent.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Back in 1974, TCU was just beginning to discover a young running back named Kent Waldrep.
Kent was a promising talent from Alvin high school, a somewhat underwhelming 4A squad that never even made the playoffs during his four-year tenure there and consistently struggled against tough in-district competition. Good enough as a prepster to merit mention in the 1971 edition of Dave Campbell's, Waldrep was recruited by the Frogs and, after two years on campus, even worked his way into the starting halfback job before the start of the 1974 season. At 5-foot-11, 180 pounds, the speedy Waldrep was a smart change of pace for bruising fullback Mike Luttrell. Through the first six games, he played the role to a "T".
But on October 26, TCU traveled to Alabama -- an odd point in the season to have a non-conference game, considering every other rival school besides Arkansas had already finished that part of its schedule -- for one last challenge before the SWC stretch run. Kent walked onto Legion Field as a purple-swathed collegiate athlete, and one tackle later, he was carried off of it with an irreparable bruised spinal cord and life-altering damage. Paralyzed from the neck down, Kent spent a month in a Birmingham hospital with an injury that, had it happened today, could've been treated and possibly reversed.
"We've got football players in the last ten years that have walked away from the same injury I had," Kent said. "And it's because the treatment we now have on the field when they're injured and then at the hospital is the difference between night and day from when I was hurt in 1974. We've come a long ways in treating the new injury, the acute injury, and minimizing the damage in most cases -- in some cases, completely reversing it."
Perhaps no one was more impacted by the injury than Alabama legend Bear Bryant. From that point onwards, Bryant, who had stood on the Alabama sideline just yards from the accident, and Waldrep would be forever intertwined -- be it via in person or over the phone, Bryant, arguably the most famous college coach to walk the face of the earth, would constantly check in on Kent, who, just days before, was another easily forgotten name on a two-deep.
The two ended up effecting each other's lasting legacies -- Waldrep, still confined to a wheelchair, spoke nine years later at Bryant's funeral, and Bryant, who already had an Alabama scholarship set up for children of his former players, made both Charley and his older brother, Trey, eligible for the prestigious award.
"After I was hurt, (Bryant) didn't have to do anything else," Kent said. "But it never stopped up until his death. He had people raise money to buy my first van, the University of Alabama paid for most of my hospitalization and rehab following the injury, and then, what's the most incredible gesture of all, is he made my boys eligible for the Bear Bryant Scholarship at Alabama."
Trey accepted the offer, and Charley -- who proudly sports an Alabama sticker on his truck's back windshield -- might eventually play baseball there. But even if he doesn't, the honor of even having the opportunity is profound enough.
"It was a pretty special thing," Charley said. "There's a select few that even get to have that, and the fact that he didn't even go to Alabama makes it even more special -- he just had the relationship with Coach Bryant after the injury."
Since those days, few Americans have done as much for rights for disabled Americans as Kent. He's traveled abroad in search of answers. He started the American Paralysis Foundation. He was appointed to the National Council on Disability. He was instrumental in the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act. He has spearheaded the nation's efforts to keep an oft-broken governmental system from continually sweeping more than 60 million disabled Americans under the rug. In other words, he's given young Charley something to stand in awe of, too.
"I just looked at it growing up as that was his job and that's what he did," Charley said. "At the time, I didn't realize how special or what the significance of what he was doing really was. When I'm out on the field, I really try not to worry about it much, but I do realize how many people he does effect and how many people he can."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
What's fascinating about Charley is that the one thing he probably should fear -- the sort of contact that could leave him with a spinal injury like his father's -- is almost always the last thing on his mind. Instead of ducking away from tacklers and running out of bounds, Charley often seeks contact, delivering the punishment instead of receiving it. It sounds ironic, but Kent says that's one of the main reasons the younger Waldrep has stayed consistently healthy throughout his football career.
"Charley doesn't worry about breaking his neck playing football and I don't worry about Charley breaking his neck playing football," Kent said. "You have to separate what happened to me and how it happened, and the circumstances of his life. Certainly you want to play the game and play it the way to avoid catastrophic injury, and you do that by keeping your head up -- by delivering punishment to the tackler and not letting the tackler deliver punishment to you. That's the way he runs. 80 percent of the time, it's the tackler getting hurt, not Charley."
In a way, Kent has epitomized the same principle. After his accident, he could've accepted his condition, could've believed himself the victim. No one would have blamed him, and he likely would've faded away into the realms of yesteryear as just a footnote, another cautionary tale for mothers to tell young boys filled with the lust for tackle football. But just like Charley when he runs the football, he chose to be the aggressor, to make his own future instead of letting it be dictated by others.
"I was blessed after I was hurt to be able to make a difference with the disability movement in this country and to try and promote programs and policies at the federal level and at the state level that would give people a better quality of life," Kent said. "For too long we just wrote people off with severe disabilities and just said 'Stay at home and get $230 a month from the government and be happy.' Well, that's no kind of existence."
And so while Kent has spent the last 17 years watching young Charley weave in and out of tacklers, his son has watched his dad shape the way an entire generation looked at wheelchairs, canes and prosthetics. They've both faced challenges, and that's what makes them even more inextricably intertwined than just simple family ties. And even now, Kent can reflect upon his past and honestly say that, even if he knew how his future would play out, he would do it all again. He looks at Charley sitting to his side, and his reasoning is obvious.
"If I knew it would happen and then I was shown what I could do with my life afterwards, then no, I'm not going to change it," Kent said. "Because then he wouldn't be here."