No Excuses by Derrick Coleman Jr. & Marcus Brotherton

Author:Derrick Coleman, Jr. & Marcus Brotherton
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Jeter Publishing

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My football career at UCLA started out rocky.

The coaches at UCLA, including the newly hired head coach, Rick Neuheisel, were already filled in about my hearing condition and how to best handle that, so that was no problem. They just told me to explain to the other teammates how I heard the quarterback on the snap and in the huddle and the whole situation. So I did. After about five minutes of playing, they were like, “Fine with us, no problems with Coleman.” Prior to that, whenever I played, I always had an additional talk with the quarterback to tell him to make sure he was looking in my direction in the huddle and not to be alarmed if I came and grabbed him and asked to know what he said. So I did that too at UCLA.

What made things rocky was that on the second or third day of training camp, I started to feel a little throb in my right knee. We weren’t even practicing with pads on yet, just helmets, so the hard hitting wasn’t a factor. I got an MRI and it turned out I had a torn meniscus. It’s a pretty common knee injury that happens by twisting or turning too quickly. This was the first time I’d ever been hurt in all the years I’d played football. I’d had bruises before, but nothing like this.

They needed to scope it out. A few days later I went in for surgery in the morning. They pumped me up with anesthesia and I tried to stay awake as long as I could. I remember yelling just before I passed out, “It’s the right leg! My right leg!” For some reason, I thought they were going for the wrong leg. Fortunately, they had it correct.

In the afternoon when that surgery is over, normally a guy with a newly repaired meniscus will head home to rest up. But not me. That same afternoon I went straight to the training facility just across the street from the hospital and started working on rehabilitation, icing my knee, trying to get the swelling down, doing thigh exercises to keep the muscles strong. I didn’t use any of the painkillers they gave me. Normally, a guy will spend three days on crutches, but I spent only one. Most meniscus tears take about a month and a half to two months to heal fully, but I came back in three and a half weeks. I knew with this knee surgery I’d be buried near the bottom of the tailback depth chart, but I was highly determined to keep earning my spot on the team. I refused to relent.

Our first game, against Tennessee, was a home game, and things went crazy from the start. Our quarterback threw four interceptions, the game went into overtime, and in the last seconds we ended up winning 27–24 on a 42-yard field goal. I hadn’t played. When it was all over, a couple of our running backs were hurt, including starting tailback Kahlil Bell with an ankle injury.

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