Counting the Days While My Mind Slips Away

by Ben Utecht

  After the hit I had trouble getting up. The trainer ran out onto the field to help me up. I knew what had happened. I’d cracked another rib. However, I wasn’t coming out of the game. I popped some painkillers, either Vicodin or Percocet, on the sideline and continued to play.

  That drive ended with a field goal, but the Bears only managed three more points the rest of the game and we went on to win 29–17. Hoisting the trophy hurt my ribs, but it was worth it. The pain is always worth it when you win, and we hadn’t just won a game, we were Super Bowl champions. It was something I would carry with me for the rest of my life.

  * * *

  I. Colossians 3:23 (NIV).

  CHAPTER 14

  NOT THE SAME

  THE TEMPERATURE IN INDIANAPOLIS HOVERED around minus 2 degrees when our team plane landed the day after our Super Bowl win. You wouldn’t have known it from the reception we received. The city held a victory parade downtown, with huge crowds all around. All of us on the team rode on floats that did a short loop downtown, then headed into the RCA Dome, where another huge crowd waited for us. The place was electric. It felt like a game day. No one wanted the party to end.

  And it didn’t end, not really, at least not until the next season started. Everywhere Karyn and I went in the city for the next several months, people came over to congratulate me on the huge win. I don’t think we paid for any meals in restaurants the entire off-season. It felt like we didn’t just win the title for the team, but for the entire state of Indiana. For me that feeling even extended back to the Twin Cities. When Karyn and I went back home to Minnesota I was greeted like a hometown hero. I sang the national anthem for several Minneapolis teams, including the National Hockey League’s Minnesota Wild, who gave me a jersey with my name on the back. That meant a lot to me, because my grandfather Bob Utecht was the longtime public address announcer for the Minnesota North Stars before the team moved to Dallas. Because of the family connection, singing for the Wild and receiving the jersey were two of the biggest honors I was given after becoming a Super Bowl champion.

  Six weeks before the start of training camp, the team came together at the Indiana Roof Ballroom to receive our championship rings. Jim Irsay, the team owner, created an incredible event. The night felt like a Cirque du Soleil show. Literally. The room was filled with music, with dancers, and acrobats hanging from ropes from the ceiling. The Lombardi Trophy was front and center, stealing the show. The comic Sinbad made an appearance. A gospel choir came out and sang an incredible song about it being a time to praise the Lord. When the ring was presented to me, it came in a dark wooden box. I opened it to find what players play for their entire careers. In the center of the white gold ring was a blue horseshoe made of synthetic blue sapphires surrounded by more than fifty diamonds—fifty-seven, to be exact. “Faith” was engraved on one side of the ring, the only time that has been done on any team’s championship ring. Including that word was a nod to Coach Dungy’s leadership as well as, in Mr. Irsay’s words, the faith that “gives you the strength to have the perseverance to move forward even after many disappointments.” On the opposite were the words “Our Time,” over a small horseshoe. On the players’ rings on one of the horseshoe rivets there was a small red ruby that symbolized a drop of blood that came from us leaving it all on the field. The game score was carved on the side, as was my name.

  I pulled the ring out of the box and put it on. Believe it or not, it was actually one size too small, but I was still able to get it on and later had it resized. The sad part for me in sharing this story with you is that I had to ask my wife for most of the details. I have little memory of Sinbad or even what my reaction was when I got the ring. To be honest, I hardly remember how the rings where distributed. I do remember each player had his picture taken holding the Lombardi Trophy. I know I had a turn with it. Actually taking the trophy in my hands, holding it, feeling its weight, this was the ultimate dream for every kid who ever put on a pair of cleats and played a down of football. This was the prize everyone hopes to hold but very few ever do. Only one team each season gets this honor. The other thirty-one end the season disappointed and dreaming of next year. For one season at least, our next year was now.

  I just wish I could remember the night when we celebrated our victory.

  •  •  •

  We opened the 2007 season on a Thursday night prime-time game against the New Orleans Saints. The defending Super Bowl champion always gets the honor of opening the season with a spotlight game. The evening began with the unfurling of our world championship banner from high above the RCA Dome. There was no way we were going to lose after that. In the game itself I had one catch over the middle for a nineteen-yard gain early in the third quarter as part of a long drive to go up 24–10. I paid the price for the catch, as Nick Harper, a former Colt, absolutely drilled me. I held on to the ball, however. We ended up winning the game 41–10, but I felt that hit for days. Even with the pain, winning decisively set the tone we hoped to maintain throughout the season. After winning one Super Bowl, we were hungry for another.

  Our next two games were on the road against division opponents. We beat a good Tennessee Titans team 22–20 in Nashville, then went down to Houston and defeated the Texans 30–24. I had a big game against the Titans, but my memories of the game are hazy. I also do not have a clear recollection of the Houston game. To be honest, the entire season is a little shaky in my mind because of a play in the first quarter of our next game, a week four showdown against the Denver Broncos.

  •  •  •

  After playing two road games in a row, it was nice being home in our dome for our game with the Broncos. We kicked off to start the game. Denver put together an eight-play drive and went from their own thirty-six down to our seventeen-yard line before the drive stalled out and they had to kick a field goal.

  Our initial drive of the game started on our own thirty-yard line. On the first play Peyton hit Dallas Clark on a short pass to the right side that Dallas turned into a seventeen-yard gain. Peyton then called a running play where Joseph Addai took the ball over the left side, my side. At the snap of the ball I went to block the defensive end on what is known as a zone scheme. I lunged a bit and started falling toward the ground. All around me the other linemen were throwing blocks while the defense fought them off. In the mass of bodies you cannot see who has the ball or where the action is going as clearly as you can on television. In plays like this, the moment the defense catches a glimpse of who has the ball, they all fly at him. As this chaos unfolded around me, I lost my footing and fell. As I did, a defensive back leaped over me as he ran toward Addai. When he jumped, his foot clipped the back of my helmet. It was not a hard hit, not in comparison to the violent blow I took in the Texans’ game the previous season. However, the foot hit me in just the right spot.

  I crumpled to the ground. Everything went black as I lost all consciousness for about a count of ten. Then, just as quickly as the hit happened, I came back to life. My head cleared and I jumped up off the ground. I talked with some teammates, then sprinted to the sidelines.

  One of the team doctors came over to me and asked series of questions. He might have asked what day it was, or who the president was. He could have asked me my name. I don’t know what he said, but I gave the wrong answer because he pulled me from the game and didn’t let me return.

  My first memory of the game comes toward the end of halftime. I don’t really recall being in the locker room. One of my teammates, it might have been Bryan Fletcher, I’m not sure, came up to me and said, “Man, you were messed up!”

  “I was?” I asked.

  “Oh man,” he said with a laugh, “you had no idea where you were or what had happened. You kept asking me, ‘What happened? What happened?’ ” He shook his head. “Wow. You really got hit.”

  I remember feeling really confused during the conversation. I had no idea what he was talking about. I just laughed it off. “Yeah, man, I guess I did,” was all I could
say in response.

  I’d never experienced amnesia before. My only experience with it came from watching old sitcoms where someone gets hit on the head and forgets who they are. Later they take another blow on the head and all their memories come back. On television the whole thing is a big joke. That attitude is pretty much the way everyone thought of concussions and head injuries not long ago. Many still do.

  I didn’t understand the severity of the hit I had taken. Even after having several hours of my life cut out of my mind, I didn’t really think this was going to be any kind of big deal. I’d had concussions before. This was my fourth. I’d always bounced right back. I thought I would this time as well.

  By the time the game ended I didn’t feel well at all. My head was pounding, but more than that, I just didn’t feel right. My head, my stomach, everything just felt off. I just needed to go lie down. Unfortunately, that was easier said than done. The team medical staff would not allow me to drive home after the game. One of the doctors said, “I don’t want you driving today, Ben. And I don’t want you alone. You’re married, right?”

  “Yes, but my wife’s out of the country right now,” I said. Karyn had gone to Australia for a once-in-a-lifetime trip for the Golf Channel’s Golf with Style television show. She had won a preliminary competition on the golf reality show and now she was headed “down under” to compete for the championship.

  “I think you’d better spend the night with one of your teammates tonight, just in case,” he said.

  This should have been my warning that this little bell ringing might be more serious than I had first thought, but I didn’t pick up on it. Again, I expected the symptoms to go away quickly. “Okay,” I said. “I’m sure someone will let me bunk with them tonight.”

  I ended up going home with one of the offensive linemen, my good friend Dylan Gandy. Dylan and his wife, Melody, let me sleep in their guest room. It was one of the worst nights of my life up to that point. My head pounded, making sleep hard to find. All through the night the pounding just kept getting worse and worse. When I did manage to drift off to sleep I broke out in night sweats so severe I soaked the sheets. When I woke up, I was drenched. I’d never had a concussion do this to me before.

  Even so, I thought my symptoms would clear within a day or two. The Colts, like every team in the NFL, had a concussion procedure that players had to go through before they were cleared to play. Also they had a neurosurgeon, Dr. Henry Feuer, on the team medical staff. I remember meeting with Dr. Feuer after the concussions I sustained with the Colts. Before the season started I and every other player took a cognitive assessment test that set a baseline for our brain function. All of this is part of the ImPACT process, which stands for Immediate Post-Concussion Assessment and Cognitive Testing. After being diagnosed with a concussion, I had to retake the test on a computer. Once I was able to hit my baseline scores, I would be cleared to return to play. I do not remember undergoing any other testing. Basically, all I had to do to get back to work was pass the ImPACT.

  A couple of days after the Bronco game I went to the Colts’ training facility to try to pass the test. I still had headaches and my eyes were still sensitive to light. I’d also noticed I had trouble pulling words out of my head during conversations. It was like I knew what I wanted to say but the words just wouldn’t come. Once or twice I also noticed my speech was slurred. It worried me, but I figured it would clear right up. I don’t think I shared any of this with the team medical staff when I went in to take my ImPACT.

  My first attempt at the test was, in short, a disaster. I sat down at the computer and stared at the screen and nothing made sense. My brain felt sludgy, like I was trying to swim through quicksand. Questions popped up on the screen and nothing clicked in my brain. I had trouble even focusing my eyes. More questions popped up. I broke out in a sweat. Just like the night of the concussion, the sweat just poured off me. I felt lost and confused. I’d never experienced anything like it before in my life.

  The trainer administering the test took one look at my score and said something like, “Looks like you’re going to sit out this week, Ben. Don’t worry. You’ll be back sooner rather than later.”

  I thanked him and left the facility to return home. If I was not cleared to play, I could not participate in practice or drills. I tried sitting in on team meetings that week, but the fog in my head made it hard to concentrate. Working out was also difficult. Running hard enough to break a sweat made my head hurt. The team doctor told me to take it easy and get well. I followed his advice.

  Looking back, in addition to Dr. Feuer I wished I would have consulted a sports neurologist, an expert in concussions. I also could have consulted a neuropsychologist and perhaps sought out the opinion of one of the experts in the growing field of research into football and concussions, a man like Dr. Robert Cantu or Dr. Jeff Kutcher. But I didn’t. I did not think such steps were necessary. The team medical staff seemed to think I would be back as good as new in a short time. I had no reason to doubt them. Nor did my coaches seem overly concerned. A football team is a lot like family, and the coaches fill a fatherly role for most players. They did for me. I believed the team had my best interests at heart. I gave my all for the team, and I believed the relationship was reciprocal.

  When Karyn got home I told her what had happened, including experiencing a diagnosis of amnesia due to a concussion. I didn’t make a big deal of it because, frankly, I didn’t think it was a big deal. If I had given it more thought, or if I had done some research, I would have realized that the concussion I suffered in the Texans game the previous season made me more susceptible to a more severe concussion now, just as the two I suffered in college made me more susceptible to any kind of concussion both now and in the future. I still believed the M in MTBI, the official designation for a concussion, stood for mild. This fourth concussion was anything but mild, even though I was oblivious to that fact.

  Another eerie experience regarding this concussion was watching it on film. The day after the game I found my way into the tight ends meeting room, where I could access the film by myself. I went right to the play when my concussion occurred. Sitting there by myself in a dark film room, I watched as my body went completely limp from what appeared to be a minor kick to my helmet. What happened next is hard to explain to anyone. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. I regained consciousness and got up talking to teammates, then sprinted to the sidelines, where I talked with many people. I stopped the tape, staring at a blank screen, wondering how in the world was I functioning yet having no memory of that experience.

  A week after my concussion I still experienced headaches and sensitivity to light. My mood also changed, but I chalked it up to the frustration of trying to get back on the field. I feared this latest injury was going to give me the label of an injury-prone player. That’s kryptonite for an NFL player. My contract was up at the end of this season and I hoped to sign a long-term deal that would provide financial security for Karyn and me. Teams don’t make big, long-term investments in injury-prone players. I needed to get back out on the field as soon as possible. I had to sit out our week five game against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. We had our bye the week after that. I was determined to be back on the field before we played our division rivals the Jacksonville Jaguars in Florida in week seven.

  I finally passed the ImPACT in time to practice for the Jaguars game. In my mind, and in the eyes of the team medical staff, passing the test meant I was over the concussion, that I was back to my old self. I wasn’t. The sludge in my brain kept sloshing around. As part of writing this chapter my coauthor asked me when I finally felt normal again. Honestly, looking back now, I don’t think I ever did. I have never been the same since the first quarter of the fourth game of my fourth NFL season. Nine years later and counting, I now realize the person I was before is never coming back.

  •  •  •

  I don’t think my play suffered on the field when I returned to the lineup. I did not miss anothe
r game the rest of the season. We went on the road and beat the Jaguars and followed that up with a road win the next week against the Carolina Panthers in Charlotte. I had a really good day against the Panthers, with a couple of catches, including one for thirty yards. We lost our first game of the season the following week at home against the Patriots. The game was close, and we even held a lead late in the fourth quarter, but the Patriots scored a touchdown with three minutes to go in the game to take the lead. We tried to answer, but the Patriots forced a fumble when they sacked Peyton at midfield. The Patriots beat us 24–20. They did not lose a game that season—that is, until the Super Bowl.

  My memories of the first three games I played right after my concussion are cloudy. The fourth game, a road game against the Chargers in San Diego, is clearer in my mind. As a team, we looked awful in that game. We fell behind 23–0 before the second quarter was even half over. Our defense didn’t give up another score, and we clawed our way back to within two points at 23–21. We had a chance to win late in the fourth quarter when we mounted a ninety-yard drive from our own two-yard line. But Adam Vinatieri missed a short field goal, and we went home with a loss. I had three catches in that game, but I also had a false-start penalty that pushed the failed field goal attempt back five yards. You never forget those kinds of mistakes, even when you want to.

  The thing I remember most about that game is that it was the first time I ever saw Coach Dungy raise his voice at the team. He came in at halftime and just unloaded on us. His behavior was the exact opposite of how he normally addressed the team. To me, it was like watching Jesus flip the tables of the money changers over in the temple. We didn’t quite complete the comeback against the Chargers, but coach lit a fire under us. That was our last loss of the regular season until the final game, when we rested most of the starters in a game that didn’t matter in terms of the playoffs and our seeding.