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PrintInjured athletes prevail with attitudes of gratitude
What do you do when your life’s ambition is curtailed by a devastating injury?
It is one of the scariest sentences a young athlete will ever hear: “You may never play football (basketball, volleyball) again.”
Yet every season, somewhere in Tulsa, a young athlete sits in a doctor’s office and receives this devastating prognosis.
Various injuries bring them there — a fractured neck, an arthritic knee, a swollen brain, a torn ACL. They sustained some in competition, some in accidents off the playing field.
For many, the recovery is ongoing. For others, the recovery is complete. But what motivates their efforts? What keeps them striving to return to the game that caused their injury in the first place?
In many cases, it’s hope. Hope that they will someday return to the sport they love.
In the stories that follow, five young local athletes have faced these injuries and the challenges of coaxing a broken body back into working order. Some have returned to their sport; others never will. But what unites them is their youthful spirit and positive outlook — two factors that can make all the difference.
Emeka Nnaka
“My body does not just belong to me anymore.”
That’s how 21-year-old Emeka Nnaka sums up the radical transformation his life has undergone since he suffered a neck and spinal cord injury during an Oklahoma Thunder football game in Arkansas this past June.
“I have to share my body with everybody else,” he says. “They have to help me hold my arms and move my legs. I’ve always felt like a father figure. I’ve said that a lot — they call me ‘Daddy Emeka.’ But now I feel like a kid.”
Of Nigerian descent and originally from Georgia, Nnaka (whose first name means “God does great things”) is a junior at Oral Roberts University. With a football player’s build and a love of the game, Nnaka had played some football in high school and was working a campus job at ORU when a friend saw him and suggested he join the Thunder, part of the 17-team World Football League (see box on next page). Nnaka was in the midst of his second season as a defensive end for the Thunder when an attempted tackle during a kickoff return left the 6-foot-4-inch 240-pounder immobilized.
Team trainer Tracey Flemons was one of the first people to administer help.
“I’ve been in sports medicine for 15 years,” Flemons says, “and I had never seen an on-field injury of that magnitude.”
Tests in a Fayetteville, Ark., emergency room revealed a fractured vertebra and spinal swelling. To combat the situation, surgeons fused four of Nnaka’s vertebrae during a marathon nine-hour surgery. Even with the surgical intervention, Nnaka could move but not control his arms, and he had no feeling below his chest. Worse, doctors really couldn’t tell him if or when the situation would improve.
“With a spinal cord injury, there is no timeline,” Nnaka says. “That’s one thing I’ve learned. Because everyone reacts differently to spinal injuries, the doctors just really cannot tell you.”
One person who could easily empathize with the uncertainties Nnaka was facing was Tulsa’s own Dennis Byrd, the former New York Jet who suffered a vertebral injury in 1992. Byrd had to relearn how to walk and subsequently chronicled his experiences in a book titled “Rise & Walk: The Trial and Triumph of Dennis Byrd.” He heard about Nnaka’s injury and made a special trip to Arkansas to offer encouragement.
“From time to time, stories resonate with you,” Byrd says, “and that was the case for me with Emeka’s story. It touched my heart, and I wanted to help.”
But what advice can help someone who is, in all likelihood, facing years of rehabilitation and therapy?
“I told him that great leaders lead all the time, and that this injury would not end his story,” Byrd recalls. “I told him that he was going to be tested emotionally, physically and spiritually, and that I could tell he has the strength to rise up and lead in all of those areas.”
Nnaka says he appreciated the advice.
“He really did help me,” he says. “And so has his book. Reading his story reminds me that there’s someone who understands where I’m at. He went through then what I’m going through now.”
Buoyed by Byrd’s visit, Nnaka made the transition back to Tulsa for a three-week stay at Meadowbrook Specialty Hospital, then began inpatient treatment at the Kaiser Rehabilitation Center at Hillcrest Medical Center. He’s been in outpatient therapy since late September, typically completing three to four hours a day of movement and strengthening exercises through Unity Therapy Services.
“I held a 3-pound weight, but it felt like 30,” he says. “I could bench-press more than 300 pounds before this happened.”
Despite the slow pace of improvement, Nnaka refuses to give into doubts or lose his strong religious faith. But for someone used to helping others, accepting help has required a change in perspective.
“I’ve always taken it upon myself not to think negatively, but at certain points, life does try to beat down on you,” he says. “So, at times, I do think, I used to be the strong one in my group, and now the people who leaned on me, well, I need to lean on them.”
His Oklahoma Thunder teammates have been a big help in that regard, and Nnaka credits them with helping him heal.
“I derive my strength from the team,” he says. “My teammates definitely motivate me.”
He also derives strength from his faith.
“I’ve seen so much in life,” he says. “There’s always going to be a better day.”
This faith is not only a priority for Nnaka but also for his family, including mom Susana, sisters Ngozi and Nwanneka and dad Phillip, who moved to Tulsa to help care for his son. Phillip Nnaka says he was in Georgia when he received the phone call about his son’s injury, and he immediately began to pray. His wife was at a Christian conference in Texas at the time, but when her husband called her to share the news, she merely replied, “God is in control.”
“When you have something you can’t control, that’s where we bring in the faith we have in God,” Phillip Nnaka says, adding, “He’s (Emeka) been doing great. … His attitude encourages everybody.
“When you believe in God, when you follow that, it brings out a positive attitude. You don’t have to cry. You don’t stay depressed. You don’t have to do that.”
Emeka Nnaka plans to return to classes at ORU in January, and, as a result of his experiences, he’s considering a shift from his original focus on business to a field such as physical therapy.
“Before, school was just school,” he says. “After something like this, you realize what’s important and what’s not. Your priorities get straightened out.”
Although he’ll likely never play football competitively again, Nnaka also wants to stay connected to the sport he loves through coaching, much as Dennis Byrd has. No matter what his future holds, Nnaka plans to appreciate every moment.
“I have too much to be happy about to ever be depressed,” he says with a grin. “Life is a gift and something that a lot of people take for granted. I know I did. But now I’m in another category of people — a person with a disability. I had never thought about that for myself. It’s like this: I can’t use my legs, and I can’t use my hands, but I can use my head.
“God hasn’t given me a spirit of fear but a spirit of strength and love, and a sound mind. That’s what I’ve been given, and that’s what I’m going to use.”
Visit www.oklahomathunderfootball.com to donate to Emeka Nnaka’s rehabilitation fund.
Sterling Willis
Do you see that young man in the ball cap, the one with the megawatt smile? His head isn’t real.
Or, to be more accurate, the left half of his skull is a permanent prosthetic, the lifelong souvenir of a traumatic brain injury suffered Oct. 24, 2008, during a football game.
His name is Sterling Willis, and he was a senior linebacker for Victory Christian School. As a result of the injury, he spent 21 days in the hospital, 10 of those in the ICU, a week of which he remained in an induced coma to give his swollen, bruised brain a chance to stabilize. Doctors removed a section of his skull to reduce the chances for brain damage, but there were no guarantees.
“They thought I might not be able to read or talk,” Willis says. “They didn’t know if I’d ever do any of that again, or if I’d have to relearn it all.”
Willis outflanked the experts at every turn. Not only were his cognitive and motor skills unaffected, but he proved to be a fast healer as well. He also adjusted quickly to the six titanium plates, 22 screws and 66 staples used a month and a half later to replace the missing piece of skull. He adapted less readily to the news that he could no longer play football.
“It hurt really badly at first,” Willis says. “When he told me I couldn’t play, I could not look the doctor in the face. I had so much anger toward everybody for about a month. I was worried that I was going to be one of those kids who doesn’t do anything with life, but I realized there is so much more to do out there than just play sports.”
This past August, he went back into surgery when his body began rejecting the section of his skull that had been removed and replaced. A plastic prosthetic now fills the gap.
And while his injury may have sacked his hopes for a football scholarship, Willis refuses to let it permanently sideline his dreams. Now completely pain-free, he’s attending classes at Tulsa Community College. He wants to study international business, and beyond that, his game plan includes law school and a career as a sports agent.
“I don’t want to be upset anymore,” he says. “I’m tired of tears, of seeing people cry, of seeing my family cry, and I don’t want to do that anymore. I want to be this happy kid who is ready to live life.”
Sara Pope
“It’s the worst phone call you can ever get as a parent.”
That’s how Shari Pope describes receiving word in late October 2008 that her daughter, Sara, had been involved in a serious car accident not far from their home in Jenks.
An overturned vehicle left Sara — then a sophomore standout for the Lady Trojans volleyball team — with multiple injuries, including a ruptured spleen, broken arm and torn ear.
“When I came into the emergency room,” Shari Pope recalls, “Sara was crying and upset, and the first thing she said to me was, ‘I was so scared!’ The second thing was, ‘I can’t play volleyball tonight.’”
To those who know Sara, that second reaction is not surprising. She has played competitive volleyball since she was in the eighth grade, and she comes from an athletic family. Her father, Derrick Pope, played professional basketball in Europe, and brother Bryson was the 2009 All-State Player of the Year in basketball at Jenks before starting as a player at TU this fall.
For 6-foot-tall Sara, not returning to the net was not an option.
“It never crossed my mind,” she says. “I had to play again. I cannot live without it. I was determined that I would get back in there.”
She credits her teammates with lifting her spirits during a weeklong hospital stay.
“They came and visited me every single day,” she says. “They even threw me a Halloween party in my room!”
Her doctors warned her that six months would probably pass before she could play again, but Sara was back on the court in a little over two. Ironically, she feels that her game is better now than before the accident.
“It’s mental more than physical,” she says. “I thought that I wouldn’t play as well, so I had to push that thought out of my mind.”
Now a junior, Sara hopes her senior year will yield a scholarship to a Division I school with a strong volleyball program. She plans to major in business and hopes someday to own an eatery.
“I was born in France and lived there for seven years,” she says. “I always liked the food, and I’ve wanted to open a French restaurant ever since I was little.”
McKenzie Garcia
Sometimes history truly does repeat itself, especially when it comes to knee injuries.
Just ask McKenzie Garcia, a Union High School senior, who suffered her first torn anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) at age 11, her second at 15 and a meniscus tear at 17 earlier this year. All three required surgical repair. Garcia, who has played competitive basketball since the fourth grade, remembers quite vividly the feeling of that first injury.
“It wasn’t so much that it hurt,” she says. “It was being scared, because I had never had anything drastic like this, and I didn’t know what was going to happen or if I was ever going to be able to play again.”
But play again she did. She and her teammates even turned the experience into a learning opportunity by studying why females tend to be more susceptible to ACL injuries than males. They also found out that many athletes who tear one ACL often tear the other, and sure enough, Garcia did just that four years later.
Her father, Rudy Garcia, is the coach of the boys’ basketball team at Union, and he was watching from the wings when that second injury occurred in January 2008.
“It was an emotional time because I knew what we had gone through before, and it’s not an easy road for anybody, especially at 11 years old, to rehab and come back, and then four years later you tear the other one and know you have to go through it all again,” he says. “But she knew what was ahead of her, and she’s always been strong-willed and willing to put in the time and work, so she was able to get back again.”
Garcia’s teammates went on to win the state title that year, and though she missed being an active participant in that victory, she was back on the court by summer’s end. Unbeknownst to her, more challenges awaited.
What was originally diagnosed earlier this year as a hamstring injury was found in May to be a meniscus tear. To further complicate matters, Garcia has also developed early-onset arthritis in her right knee as a delayed result of the earlier ACL tear. She plans to play her senior year but has been told by doctors that college ball is not a good idea.
“I still don’t comprehend the arthritis aspect,” she confesses. “All I know is, every morning when I wake up, I have aches and pains getting out of bed, and going to practice every day is difficult. And I don’t know the long-term effects.”
For now, Garcia, who is also a senior class officer, likes her team’s chances to win it all in this, her farewell season.
“I think we have a good chance,” she says. “We have a lot of chemistry, and we’re all really close, so I think that will lead us to a lot of victories.”
Jermaine Landrum
Superman doesn’t brag about being able to leap tall buildings. Neither does Jermaine Landrum.
“To me, that was just another play,” he says of his 2003 pass reception and end zone dive that propelled The University of Tulsa (TU) Golden Hurricane past Rice and into a bowl game. It has since become known as the Landrum Leap.
“I’m not being cocky, but that’s the type of player I’ve always felt I could be,” he says. “But what I like to talk about are the plays that led up to that, the ones my teammates made to allow that play to happen.”
Humility and durability seem to be a big part of Landrum’s DNA. He had a minor knee injury during his senior year at Vinita High School, but he was never injured and never missed a game during four years of football at TU.
“Coming out of college, I thought I might get a couple of looks from some NFL teams as a return specialist, but that wasn’t in the books, so I took a different route,” he says.
A hamstring injury hampered his initial attempts to play football professionally in Canada, but he made the Tulsa Talons arena football squad as a receiver in 2006. Then kryptonite arrived disguised as a torn ACL. It kept Landrum off the field for a full year, but it also gave him a chance to do some soul-searching.
“I did a lot of research on how to focus and train, and my mind-set was that 95 percent of it was in my head,” he says. “There was no reason physically that I could not come back. The mental part is the tough thing to get over. I had to prove all over again that I am durable and that I could go out there and play.”
And indeed he did, becoming an integral part of the Talons over the past several years, including the team’s 2007 championship season. He’s not sure what the future holds, but no matter what, Landrum says he feels good about his accomplishments and what he has gained under the helmet.
“Being a football player, you learn how to work hard and persevere, how to be patient, how to manage time and how to deal with people,” he says. “I definitely would not be the person I am without the game, but there are so many other things than just myself and football. It’s just part of my life.”
The Oklahoma Thunder
A few facts about Oklahoma’s World Football League team.
Oklahoma Thunder Football is Oklahoma’s only outdoor minor league football team.
The team’s home stadium is the Hap Dunlap Field in Skiatook.
The Oklahoma Thunder football team is also known as the Thunder Cats.
The team is the 2008 and 2009 World Bowl Champion and went undefeated in its 2009 season.
The head coach is Bruce Madden.
The Oklahoma Thunder holds tryouts every year for those interested in competing.
