by Ben Utecht
Even though my first season playing in the NFL didn’t go exactly like I had hoped, due to the rib injuries, I felt confident that I could contribute to the team and make an impact as an NFL player. I was anxious for the next season to start. I had a lot to prove to the team and to myself.
CHAPTER 12
A SUPER YEAR
WHEN I FIRST STARTED SERIOUSLY considering asking Karyn to marry me, I went to my father for advice. I asked him, “How do I know for certain that she is the one?” As I said before, I am a hopeless romantic. I also grew up in a home where my parents told me they started praying for my future wife from the day I was born. I knew I loved Karyn and I wanted to spend the rest of my life with her, but was that enough? Could I count on my feelings to know she was the one that God had ordained for me to marry?
“You know, Ben,” my dad said, “you’ve always been one who believes in the idea of love at first sight, right? That there’s only one soul mate for you, right?”
“Yes.”
“To be honest with you, in reality the idea that there’s only one right one out there for you is just not true. There are many women in this world that you’re compatible with, and if you met them at the right time and in the right situation, you could very well spend the rest of your life with any one of them.”
My father had just debunked every idea I had ever heard from all the movies I had watched in my life, going back to Disney movies and on up to all the romantic comedies I’d taken dates to see. “Really?” I said.
“Really. But to me, that’s what makes marriage so beautiful. The Lord brings two people together, but then you have to make a choice. You fall in love with this person but there’s always a choice. And that choice is that you choose this woman and she chooses you. For the rest of your life you choose every day to love her and to honor her in the covenant of marriage just like she chooses you. To me, that speaks so much more loudly than the idea that there’s someone out there meant just for you and the choice is outside of your control. If you marry Karyn, you don’t marry her because fate destined it but because you choose to love her and will choose to love her above all others every day for the rest of your life.”
I didn’t say anything for a while. Instead I let his words sink in.
“Does that help?” my dad asked.
“That’s exactly what I needed to know,” I said.
• • •
On July 15, 2006, Karyn and I were finally able to make that choice official and publicly commit ourselves to one another in marriage. We held the ceremony in the same church where my parents were married, as well as my aunt and uncle, and my grandma Joan, whom we affectionately call “Goldie Joan.” For Karyn and me, holding our ceremony in this church was a way to honor our family while also declaring that our new home was really built on the love and commitment of those who came before us. Just as my mom and dad chose to love one another, Karyn and I were choosing each other as well.
On my wedding day I realized one of the greatest benefits of being a preacher’s kid. When I walked out into the church and took my place at the front, my dad was right there with me. He wasn’t my best man. No. This was even better. My father officiated our wedding. I cannot tell you how special it was to have my dad lead Karyn and me through our vows and the exchange of the rings and every other part of the ceremony. The moment I saw him there I went back to every special moment in my life, beginning with my first tackle in the backyard. My dad was always there for all of them. He’s been my constant. More than that, he’s been my example. When I said “I do” to Karyn in front of my father, I knew how to make this commitment last because he’d shown me.
And wow, the moment I saw Karyn walk down the aisle I knew that the long wait through our two-year engagement had been worth it. I have this image in my head of her coming down the aisle in her dress, the veil slightly covering her face. Wow. To think that this vision, this memory is also at risk, I just can’t allow myself to go there. Karyn later told me that she wanted to run down the aisle. Both of us were very, very ready to start our life together.
The wedding itself wasn’t too large. We had maybe two hundred guests. Ben Hartsock had become a close friend, so he and his wife came. So did Bryan Fletcher and kickers Dave Rayner and Rhys Lloyd. A lot of my college teammates attended as well, including my best man, Rian Melander, one of the best left tackles I ever played with. All in all, it was a great day.
Karyn’s parents gave us a honeymoon trip to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. The place was beautiful, but, looking back, we might have been better off saving the trip for after the upcoming season. Puerto Vallarta in late February sounds great, especially compared to how cold it gets in Indianapolis in the winter. However, going there in the middle of the summer made it difficult to spend much time outside. The place was hot. Very, very hot. We had to down a lot of cold drinks just to survive. Cold drinks meant ice, and apparently there was something in the ice in one of my drinks, because I got really sick. Not to go into too much disgusting detail, but my digestive system was a mess the rest of the trip and for a while after we returned home. A bad stomach presented a real problem because two days after we got home from Mexico I reported to Terre Haute for the Colts’ training camp.
• • •
Going into my third camp with the Colts I still worried about making the club. I knew I could play in the league and I believed I had shown I belonged by how I produced when I got the chance. During our off-season OTAs and minicamps Peyton said more than once that the offense needed to find a way to get the ball to me more often. That made me feel pretty good. However, just as in college, injuries kept me off the field my first season. Images of Wally Pipp danced in my head every time the medical staff pulled me out of the lineup.
I arrived at camp still ailing from a messed-up digestive system. Throughout camp the team doctor gave me multiple IVs and had me tested for a parasite. Nothing showed up, and I eventually started to feel like myself again, but the first week or so was pretty rough. The heat and humidity of playing football in late July and early August is bad enough without already being dehydrated from never-ending bouts of diarrhea.
About the time I started to feel better from whatever bug I picked up in Mexico, I suffered another setback. During a routine scrimmage I caught a short pass, turned upfield, and had a massive collision with one of our linebackers. Today I cannot remember who it was but I do remember feeling my ribs pop and sharp pain shooting through my side. All I could think was, NO! Not again! It was the Jacksonville game from the year before, all over again. I kept on practicing but I could hardly breathe. Four weeks, I can’t miss four weeks of camp kept running through my head. I’d missed four weeks when I broke my ribs the year before, and I never really got back into the lineup afterward. Missing four weeks now would be disastrous. I might well be cut as a result. I didn’t tell anyone about my ribs. I had to try to play through this. There was only one place I could turn to.
That night I went back to my room and poured out my heart to God. I lay on my back because I could not roll to my side. I called out in pain, “Lord, I’m not going to accept this. I know You are a God Who heals and I call on Your Son’s name to heal me.” I had never prayed a prayer like this before, and I know better than to believe anyone can demand anything from God, but believe it or not, as soon as I prayed this prayer I felt a warm sensation spread from the top of my head down across my body. It felt like someone had put an electric blanket over me. Then I passed out asleep.
I’d forgotten all about the prayer and the rib injury when I woke up the next morning. For one thing, I slept like a baby all night, which is something I never did in training camp. I was always too nervous and keyed up to sleep well. Not that night. I passed out and woke up in the morning feeling better than I had in weeks. I sat up in bed and stretched, pushing my arms high up over my head. And that’s when it hit me: nothing hurt. I could hardly believe it. My ribs felt perfectly fine. I didn’t miss a day of practi
ce, much less four weeks. This was the first time I ever experienced a healing miracle, but it wouldn’t be the last.
By the time we broke camp I’d found my place in the offense. With Dallas Clark, Bryan Fletcher, and myself, we had a lethal tight end combination. (Ben Hartsock had signed with the Tennessee Titans during the off-season.) And we were only a small part of the arsenal of weapons at Peyton Manning’s disposal. At wide receiver we had two of the best in Marvin Harrison and Reggie Wayne, who were complemented by Brandon Stokley and Aaron Moorehead. Then in the backfield we had the dynamic rookie Joseph Addai along with the workhorse Dominic Rhodes. On paper, at least, we had a potential Super Bowl offense. The defense, which was led by Dwight Freeney, Robert Mathis, Bob Sanders, Cato June, and Gary Brackett, among others, looked strong as well. Everyone on the team believed this was going to be our year. Now we just had to go out on the field and prove it.
• • •
The opening game had a different feel to it than most regular-season games. We headed to New York to play the Giants at the New Jersey Meadowlands. But we weren’t just playing the Giants. Their quarterback was Peyton’s little brother, Eli. And Peyton wasn’t going to lose to his brother.
The night before the game all of the offensive linemen, along with the tight ends and quarterbacks, went out to eat together at a really nice steak place in New York. We told the chef, “Give us your best. And keep it coming.” The chef did not disappoint. Waiters brought out platters the size of a desk. One was filled with appetizers, including crab cakes and pasta and salads. Then came one covered with every kind of steak, from fillets and rib eyes to strips, along with racks of lamb and ribs and any other meat you can imagine. I’d never seen so much food, but it didn’t go to waste. You have to keep in mind that I was one of the smaller guys at the table and I’m six-seven, 250 pounds.
At the end of the meal, someone pulled out a hat and everyone threw their credit cards into it. One of the guys then pulled out the cards, one at a time, and the last card left had to pick up the check for the entire meal. At the table were veterans who had been in the league for a while and were making millions per season. But none of them had to pay the bill. The last card in the hat that night was mine. When I saw it I felt sick. Karyn and I had just bought a house and I was making minimum league salary, which was good compared to what most people make two years removed from college, but it wasn’t the kind of salary where you go out and drop a couple of thousand dollars on a single meal. A couple of the guys helped me with the bill, but I was still nervous when I called Karyn and told her about it. “Look, I understand,” she said. “This is just part of being a team. I get it.”
After the huge meal we went back to the team hotel and all the linemen and Peyton got on an elevator to go up to our rooms. We’re all big guys and we were wedged into the elevator like sardines. I noticed Peyton was more quiet that night than usual. He’s always an intense competitor, but on this night he took it to a whole new level with the game against his brother looming the next day. The rest of us laughed and made jokes when all of a sudden, about halfway up to our floor, the elevator just stopped. We were stuck. That brought out even more jokes, and guys started kidding around. Our quarterback was not amused. Finally the elevator started and we got to our rooms. The next night we went out and beat the Giants 26–21. Dallas Clark and I both had three catches apiece. I have to say, the mood on the plane ride home was a lot lighter than it was in the elevator the night before the game. Winning makes everyone feel better.
• • •
Of all the things that happened to me during the 2006 season, I never imagined that one hit I took in the second game of the year, against the Houston Texans, would have the greatest long-term impact on my life. I would not understand this fact for several more years.
The play came about halfway through the first quarter on our second drive of the game. We were up 7–0 and had the ball with a first down on the Texans’ forty-nine-yard line. I went deep down the middle right in between the two safeties. Peyton arced a beautiful spiral to me, which I caught in stride for a twenty-six-yard gain. As I caught the ball, one of the safeties came in and hit me on my side right above my hip. It was a clean tackle. I held on to the ball and went to the ground. Just before my body landed on the turf, from out of nowhere the other safety came flying in on my left side and targeted my head, spearing me in the helmet with his helmet. My head violently snapped to the side as my helmet flew off. I thought I had broken my neck. A curtain slowly drew down into my field of vision in a circle like the end of an old movie. I blacked out.
But then, out in the fog in which I found myself, I heard the guy who speared me taunting me. I opened my eyes and saw him standing over me like Muhammad Ali standing over Sonny Liston after knocking him out in 1965. My mind was reeling, and my thoughts disoriented, but seeing this guy and hearing him taunting me made me so angry that my head cleared enough for me to jump to my feet and make the first-down sign right in the guy’s face. The crowd in the RCA Dome went nuts.
I had to leave the field because my helmet had come off, but one play later I was back in the game. Two plays later Peyton found Joseph Addai over the middle for a twenty-one-yard touchdown pass, giving us a 14–0 lead. That was my last play of the day. Trainers kept coming over to me asking if I was all right. Of course I said I was, even though my head really hurt. Nor did I tell them that when I looked up toward the lights above the field I saw halos and the light pierced my eyes. I felt like a fog had descended onto the field even though we were inside a domed stadium. One of my teammates came over to me and started talking. I don’t remember what he said, or what I said, but I remember him laughing and saying, “You’re talking crazy, ’techt. That guy really rung your bell.” The trainers noticed my crazy talk and took my helmet. My game was over. I had a very obvious concussion, my third documented concussion and my first as a pro. It was my first in three or four years. We also won the game, 43–24.
I don’t remember much about that next week, but I know I made it back on the practice field in a day or two after passing some tests. I still had a headache and my eyes were still sensitive to light, but I didn’t even think of missing practice or not playing in the next game. I’d been lit up, had my bell rung, that was all. If I knew then what I know now, I don’t think I would have played again for weeks. That’s easy for me to say six years after my career ended. If I am completely honest, I have to admit that I probably wouldn’t do anything any differently. I’d been Wally Pipped the year before. That wasn’t going to happen to me again.
• • •
Two weeks after the Texans game I suffered another injury that could well have cost me the rest of my season. We were back at the New Jersey Meadowlands, only this time we played the New York Jets. Late in the third quarter I caught a pass right next to the sidelines. The Jets defender hit me with his face mask right in the lower part of my back, knocking me out of bounds. Tremendous pain radiated through my back and shot down my legs. I could barely walk. The trainers took me off the field and took me to an X-ray room inside the stadium. “It looks like you broke three transverse process bones in your back, Ben,” I was told. “You might be out for a while. Normally an injury like this takes at least six weeks to heal.”
Visions of Wally Pipp danced in my head as I missed the next game. Our bye came the following week, which kept me from missing another game.
During the bye week Karyn and I had our dear friends Jeremy and Adie Camp over to visit. I could hardly enjoy their visit because I was so worried about missing time from the team. Missing four weeks the season before had relegated me to a minor role in the offense. I hated to think what six weeks might do. Jeremy approached the problem like he does most problems. “Let’s pray over it,” he said.
That’s what we did. Jeremy, Adie, and Karyn gathered around me and started praying for my back. Moments later the doorbell rang. Jeremy and Karyn answered the door. There were two men from a l
ocal church standing outside. Jeremy asked, “Can I help you?”
What happened next is miraculous. Both men said they were at their church praying together when all of a sudden at the same time they felt prompted to come to our house and pray for me. Jeremy and Karyn were stunned, and invited them in. Together the six of us asked God once again to provide restoration. I think back on this event wondering how these two men whom none of us had ever met could’ve known that I was in need of prayer at that exact time. I cannot believe this was all just a coincidence.
The next day I went to the team facility and started walking on a treadmill. That’s all the trainers would let me do at that point in my recovery. I was just supposed to walk. A funny thing happened as I walked on that treadmill. I felt a voice inside say, “Faster,” so I started walking faster. “Faster,” I felt inside, so I started going faster. “Faster,” again came to me so I started running. Before I knew it I was running full speed without a trace of pain. In fact, the faster I ran, the better I felt. The trainers came over and examined me. They sent me to see the team doctor. Long story short: I was healing much faster than expected and I didn’t miss another game. I was back in the lineup two weeks after fracturing three bones in my lower back, not six weeks.
• • •
We won our first seven games of the season. In week eight we went on the road to Foxborough to play the Patriots in prime time on the Sunday night game. Every game against the Patriots, at our place or theirs, was huge. We hadn’t had a lot of success against them until the 2005 season, when we finally beat them in Foxborough. Coming into week eight in 2006 the two of us were once again the top two teams in the AFC. We were undefeated and they were 6-1. This game was also special to me because it was the first time for me to play against one of the greats of the game, a guy I grew up idolizing, Junior Seau. For years Seau played for the San Diego Chargers, where he put together a Hall of Fame résumé. I felt honored just to be on the same field with him.