DukeNukem
10-21-2009, 07:34 PM
BY Willie Bans ~ Odessa American http://varsity.oaoa.com/articles/se...bans-stays.html
Willie Bans says: Titus stays upbeat after season-ending neck injury
October 20, 2009 10:43 PM
BY WILLIE BANS
“I ran my hardest. I’m not saying I have next year because it’s not always promised. But you have to give it your best and if it doesn’t come out like you like, you’ve got to suck it up and go to the next thing. That’s life.”
—Monahans’ Quincy Titus at the Region I-3A Track Championships on May 23 in Lubbock, after missing a Class 3A state berth in the 110-meter hurdles by 12 tenths of a second.
In one second, on one hit Friday, Quincy Titus lost his season and the No. 5 Monahans Loboes their senior quarterback, but nothing ever steals his perspective.
It was still there Tuesday afternoon in a room at Medical Center Hospital, hours after surgeons fused together vertebrae on his broken neck, an injury that could have been much worse and was bad enough to allow any player in Titus’ situation sulk or huff, whatever makes him feel better.
Titus is out for the season, begun with state-title talk, backed up by dominant, undefeated results thus far.
He will not be with the senior group described as special since they were in junior high, the class of 2010 capable of the extraordinary.
From here on, Titus will wear a neck brace, not a helmet. He will roam the sideline, not the end zone.
But he is walking, not paralyzed. The season, even without Titus, continues.
It is an outlook good enough for him.
“It sucks,” Titus said. “But when I heard that I had a broken neck, I really didn’t care for it. I want them to go far, but I wanted my life to continue, too, so I really didn’t think about it.
“I know they can do whatever they want to do. It would be fun to do it with them, but I have no doubt in the world that they can do what they want to do.”
First and foremost, the Loboes would have wanted Titus to not endure the hit near the end of a run on a first-and-10 early in the third quarter against Andrews. The first tackler took out his legs, causing Titus to fall forward, and the second came in and hit him helmet-to-helmet, not a dirty hit, Monahans head coach Mickey Owens agreed.
Titus said his chin hit his chest. He was first examined for a concussion, but the pressing and prodding hurt too much. Wobbly legged, Titus was flanked by trainers and escorted off the field to the bench. His neck was swollen, but the ice applied to the area made him cry because of the pain.
A CAT scan hours later revealed the broken neck, and he was hospitalized.
All this on the same day the Monahans 1948 Class A state champion team convened in town for just the second time since winning the school’s only state football crown.
All this during a season in which the Loboes were as good a pick as any — and by many — to go all the way.
Owens was with him that night and has visited him every day since.
Yet there was no weaving of a sob story.
“We never even talked about the season or him being out,” Owens said. “I’m sure he’s talked to his parents about it, and that’s fine with me. But his health is the most important thing.”
Just below are the remaining three regular-season games and the preparation for whatever confronts them afterward.
To their credit, the Loboes truly do talk about district titles and playoffs and championships like they do their Wing-T offense. The chatter, Owens said, will not be permanently somber.
“By no means is this the end of the season,” Owens said. “That’s with whoever would have went down. We roll along. I told them Monday morning, ‘Our goals and expectations have not changed, not one bit.’ We still have goals to go deep in the playoffs, the same expectations.”
Titus, named District 3-3A’s co-offensive MVP last year, will be missed. The get-well-soon messages on a green sign in his hospital room could attest:
“Love You Q, Rex #5” … “We miss you — MHS is not the same without you here — Mrs. Linton.”
On the sign was a nickname used mostly by his friend, senior receiver Isaac Sotelo: Legend, because he looks like the actor Will Smith, who played the lead character in the film ‘I Am Legend.’
The Loboes’ ideal script: An undefeated season, a state championship led by Titus, the quarterback given the keys to the program since junior high, all by the same group of players who have been playing together since pee-wee football.
The time frame: 1948, then 2009. Two teams made legendary in the small town’s lore.
But on Tuesday afternoon Titus, with his mother sitting bedside, said there will still be a 2010 and a 2011 and a 2012 and so on.
For him and Monahans.
“The Lord blessed him,” said his mother, Cynthia Payton. “He blessed him real good when he wasn’t paralyzed. There’s something great up ahead for him. What it is, I don’t know.”
That, Titus has said before, is life.
Willie Bans says: Titus stays upbeat after season-ending neck injury
October 20, 2009 10:43 PM
BY WILLIE BANS
“I ran my hardest. I’m not saying I have next year because it’s not always promised. But you have to give it your best and if it doesn’t come out like you like, you’ve got to suck it up and go to the next thing. That’s life.”
—Monahans’ Quincy Titus at the Region I-3A Track Championships on May 23 in Lubbock, after missing a Class 3A state berth in the 110-meter hurdles by 12 tenths of a second.
In one second, on one hit Friday, Quincy Titus lost his season and the No. 5 Monahans Loboes their senior quarterback, but nothing ever steals his perspective.
It was still there Tuesday afternoon in a room at Medical Center Hospital, hours after surgeons fused together vertebrae on his broken neck, an injury that could have been much worse and was bad enough to allow any player in Titus’ situation sulk or huff, whatever makes him feel better.
Titus is out for the season, begun with state-title talk, backed up by dominant, undefeated results thus far.
He will not be with the senior group described as special since they were in junior high, the class of 2010 capable of the extraordinary.
From here on, Titus will wear a neck brace, not a helmet. He will roam the sideline, not the end zone.
But he is walking, not paralyzed. The season, even without Titus, continues.
It is an outlook good enough for him.
“It sucks,” Titus said. “But when I heard that I had a broken neck, I really didn’t care for it. I want them to go far, but I wanted my life to continue, too, so I really didn’t think about it.
“I know they can do whatever they want to do. It would be fun to do it with them, but I have no doubt in the world that they can do what they want to do.”
First and foremost, the Loboes would have wanted Titus to not endure the hit near the end of a run on a first-and-10 early in the third quarter against Andrews. The first tackler took out his legs, causing Titus to fall forward, and the second came in and hit him helmet-to-helmet, not a dirty hit, Monahans head coach Mickey Owens agreed.
Titus said his chin hit his chest. He was first examined for a concussion, but the pressing and prodding hurt too much. Wobbly legged, Titus was flanked by trainers and escorted off the field to the bench. His neck was swollen, but the ice applied to the area made him cry because of the pain.
A CAT scan hours later revealed the broken neck, and he was hospitalized.
All this on the same day the Monahans 1948 Class A state champion team convened in town for just the second time since winning the school’s only state football crown.
All this during a season in which the Loboes were as good a pick as any — and by many — to go all the way.
Owens was with him that night and has visited him every day since.
Yet there was no weaving of a sob story.
“We never even talked about the season or him being out,” Owens said. “I’m sure he’s talked to his parents about it, and that’s fine with me. But his health is the most important thing.”
Just below are the remaining three regular-season games and the preparation for whatever confronts them afterward.
To their credit, the Loboes truly do talk about district titles and playoffs and championships like they do their Wing-T offense. The chatter, Owens said, will not be permanently somber.
“By no means is this the end of the season,” Owens said. “That’s with whoever would have went down. We roll along. I told them Monday morning, ‘Our goals and expectations have not changed, not one bit.’ We still have goals to go deep in the playoffs, the same expectations.”
Titus, named District 3-3A’s co-offensive MVP last year, will be missed. The get-well-soon messages on a green sign in his hospital room could attest:
“Love You Q, Rex #5” … “We miss you — MHS is not the same without you here — Mrs. Linton.”
On the sign was a nickname used mostly by his friend, senior receiver Isaac Sotelo: Legend, because he looks like the actor Will Smith, who played the lead character in the film ‘I Am Legend.’
The Loboes’ ideal script: An undefeated season, a state championship led by Titus, the quarterback given the keys to the program since junior high, all by the same group of players who have been playing together since pee-wee football.
The time frame: 1948, then 2009. Two teams made legendary in the small town’s lore.
But on Tuesday afternoon Titus, with his mother sitting bedside, said there will still be a 2010 and a 2011 and a 2012 and so on.
For him and Monahans.
“The Lord blessed him,” said his mother, Cynthia Payton. “He blessed him real good when he wasn’t paralyzed. There’s something great up ahead for him. What it is, I don’t know.”
That, Titus has said before, is life.