by Ben Utecht
“Yeah, I’m here. I just . . . I can’t believe it.”
“Believe it because we won!” The two of us then burst out laughing. “We actually won! It only took three years when it was supposed to take three months, but we won.”
A check from the Cincinnati Bengals arrived in the mail soon after. The teller at my small Wells Fargo bank branch did a double take when I went in to deposit it. I should have told her I wanted to cash it, just to see her reaction.
• • •
My grievance settlement wasn’t quite the victory it at first seemed, at least according to my personal attorney, Scott Hillstrom. According to Scott, my case posed a simple question: Can a player who has been taken out of play due to concussions be forced to choose between returning to play or being fired by his team when return to play might aggravate his brain injury or result in more severe brain injury due to past concussions? In other types of injuries a player cannot be “cleared” to return to play if play might aggravate his existing injury or result in a more severe one. Most injuries, like orthopedic injuries, for example, can be judged based on objective symptoms; there is not much room for disagreement when CT scans tell the story. But the existence or severity of a concussion, or the risk of aggravating one, or having a more severe one, cannot be judged objectively. Diagnostic and predictive tools are not very useful because concussions cannot be as easily seen as joint injuries or broken bones.
With that as the main question, several times in the years that I waited for a decision Scott explained that the arbitrator could decide in my favor, that I could not be forced to return to play, and would therefore win the grievance. Like a player with a shredded knee, I would then be entitled to remain on the injured reserve list and collect the balance of my contract without ever playing again. In this case, concussions would be viewed like any other severe injury, even though the diagnosis depended on more subjective symptoms.
Or, the second option was that the arbitrator could rule against me. That is, the arbitrator might say that I could be forced to return to play even though I ran a risk of aggravating the existing brain injury or putting myself at risk for a more severe injury. This would set a precedent that even in the presence of these risks a player could be forced to choose either his brain or his pay.
However, when Scott read the actual decision he realized the arbitrator in my case did not choose either of these options. Instead the arbitrator ruled that the Bengals should not have cleared me to play when they did because I “had not been sufficiently tested” both in my aerobic and strength reconditioning program. Nor had I been tested in sports-specific activities, which, according to the arbitrator, would have been a more accurate means of determining whether the damage caused by the concussion had been cleared. Scott believed that the NFL didn’t want to get into the bigger and far more important question of whether a player susceptible to more concussions with even more severe consequences can be denied payment of his contract if he declines to take this risk.
Scott tried to make this final point clear when he drafted a joint statement for us to release with the NFLPA, announcing the settlement of our grievance. He included a line that said the arbitrator did not reach this ultimate question. That line did not appear in the final draft that was released to the press.
Less than a month after my case was settled, the NFL announced it had reached a settlement in the billion-dollar class action lawsuit thousands of former players had filed against the league regarding concussions. I wondered if the timing was just a coincidence.
• • •
With the grievance settled, and any doubts about my playing football again laid to rest, I turned my attention to going forward with life. New opportunities had opened up to me where I was able to speak out about brain injuries. Not long after the Jim Brickman holiday tour ended, a representative from the Minnesota Brain Injury Alliance called me. “Ben, we read the story about you in USA Today and we were touched by it. We’re a group that advocates for people with brain injuries. We want to raise awareness about them and enhance the quality of life for all people affected by brain injury.”
“I’m so glad you called. How can I help you?” I said.
“We would love it if you would consider becoming an ambassador for us, someone who can be a voice for others and help raise awareness of the seriousness of traumatic brain injury,” the representative said.
I didn’t even have to give the question a thought. “I’ll do whatever I can,” I said. That phone call started a relationship that lasted for the next two years. That fall I helped with their Walk for Thought, the organization’s biggest fund-raiser of the year. They also had me do some speaking. One of the things I really wanted to get across to people was that traumatic brain injuries can happen to anyone, not just football players. “I never thought I would be in this position,” I said in most of my speeches, “which is the exact same thing every person with a brain injury thinks.”
I also continued pursuing music. A year before my grievance was settled, music gave me a once-in-a-lifetime musical opportunity. While we lived in Nashville, Karyn and I got to know Bob S. Castellini, the son of the owner of the Cincinnati Reds. Bob invited me to Sanctuary on Camelback Mountain Spa & Resort, a golf resort he owned in Arizona, for a fund-raiser for the foundation Athletes for Hope. But this wasn’t just any fund-raiser. Sports legends were there, including Tony Hawk, Alonzo Mourning, Andre Agassi, and Johnny Bench. The highlight for me, though, was when they asked me to sing for Muhammad Ali for his sixtieth birthday celebration. I sang the song “What You’d Call a Dream.” I changed one verse and sang, “It’s the final round, just before the bell, when Frazier says no more. The champ is crowned and the crowd erupts with Ali as the roar. And he’s what you’d call a dream.”
Would you believe that what followed was a standing ovation started by none other than Andre Agassi? Are you kidding me right now? Is this happening to me? is all I could think. Then the champ raised his hand toward me, to show me how much he appreciated the song. I have to tell you that that memory is one I will treasure forever. There are a lot of ways to define a successful music career. This was it for me.
The event in Arizona was only one weekend. And while it is something I hope to never forget, it wasn’t the kind of event that pushed my career closer to where I hoped it would go. From time to time Jim Brickman called and asked me to make appearances with him, which I happily accepted. Anne Cochran and I had worked well together on the holiday tour, so we tried to capitalize on our work by recording an album of love songs that was released in 2013. That album marked the official end of my pop-classical days. I had pretty much come to the realization that I was not going to create a demand for something the public clearly did not want.
Now that I had given up on pop-classical, I once again had to ask myself, Who am I as an artist? I had recorded a pop-worship album, and I had recorded a pop-classical Christmas album as well as a collection of love songs. Neither one really caught on. So who was I as an artist? I wasn’t just trying to figure myself out; I was also trying to find a niche that both worked for me and would actually sell some records, leading to a real career in music.
Early in 2013 I met a record producer in Minneapolis, Rick Barron, and the two of us became friends. I asked Rick one day, “Why can’t I seem to break out in music? What do I need to do to give myself the best chance to make it?”
He asked me, “So what genre of music do you fit into? You are a big, strong, athletic, churchgoing, God-fearing guy with a big voice. What genre of music embraces guys like you?”
“I have no idea,” I said.
“Pop-country,” Rick replied.
At this time I had never really gotten into any country music outside of maybe Garth Brooks back in the day. However, in my never-ending quest to find a way to break into music in a big way, I dropped the name Benjamin Utecht, grew my hair out, and started sporting a beard. I was now pop-country.
Rick and
I also went to work writing songs for a new album. A couple of other writers—Tommy Barbarella, Dave Barry, and Terry Foss—also came on board. I decided to make this a very personal album with songs that spoke of the struggles in which I found myself because of my brain injury. When people first hear the songs they may not know that’s what the songs are about, although the titles of a couple of them, “Collide” and “Oblivion,” should be strong hints.
I felt renewed with an album to work on. Rick and I put together a set of really good songs. However, something seemed to be missing from what we had written. “You’re holding back,” Rick said to me one day.
“What are you talking about?” I asked.
“You’ve put a lot of yourself into these songs, but you haven’t put in the most important thing,” he said.
“What are you talking about?” I asked.
“Have you ever really thought about what the future may hold in terms of you and your family?”
“Of course I have,” I said. I didn’t like where he was going with these questions. He was starting to make me mad.
“Have you ever considered telling them what you want them to know if the worst-case scenario takes place?” Rick asked. He was thinking about more than our album.
“I think they know,” I said.
“Do they?” Rick asked. “Have you written it out for them?”
“No.” I did not want to go there.
“Don’t you think you should?” Rick asked in a tone that totally disarmed me.
“Yeah,” I said.
“So what are you waiting for?”
CHAPTER 24
“YOU WILL ALWAYS BE MY GIRLS”
I DON’T RECOMMEND HAVING AN emotional conversation right before you board an airplane. Nor do I recommend sitting down on a plane and writing a letter that expresses everything you want your family to know about how you feel about them just in case a day comes when you can’t tell them yourself. But that’s what I did. Rick and I had the conversation about the fact that something that was missing from our collection of songs right before I boarded a Delta flight for home. “It would be really special for your family to have a song that told them exactly how you feel,” Rick said to me. I knew he was right. I’d thought about writing something like this, but I had not been able to force myself to do it. I knew the reason why. I did not know if I could confront that reason right now, but I also know that if I didn’t now, I might never do it. That’s why I chose such a public place to write such an intimate, personal letter. I had to do it. And I had to do it right now.
I settled into my seat and pulled out my iPad. Okay, what do I say? I stared at the screen for a few minutes. Across the aisle from me a man tried to sleep. A woman in the next row worked on her laptop. The flight attendants had not yet started handing out small plastic cups of Coca-Cola products. I typed, “My Love Letter.” I paused. The cursor blinked at me. I laid my fingers on the screen and paused. Could I really type out words that expressed my single greatest fear? Part of me knew that the moment I typed them on the page I would cross a barrier into a place from which I could not turn back. It’s funny. We can know things deep in the recesses of our soul, but we find ways to convince ourselves that they are not real, even when we know they are. But when they come out of that deep place within us and we put them down on paper, or in my case, on a Pages document on my iPad, then suddenly they become real.
I let out a long sigh, then typed, “I’m afraid to forget you, to wake up and open my eyes and not know you anymore, to be unable to recognize the greatest loves of my life by face or name.” I reread the sentence. Tears welled up in my eyes. I wiped them away and continued: “I fear being lost in an abyss without any of you. All alone, left with whatever remains of my former self. I don’t want to die inside, please God, don’t let it take me. . . . I want to stay home. I need to stay home.”
Tears now flowed. I pulled my ball cap down over my face, trying to hide from a planeful of people. I don’t know if anyone noticed me. Around me a couple of people slept while others read and one guy played video games on his phone.
“To my sweet ones,” I continued, “I promise no matter how bad it gets, I will never give up my grip on you. I will fight desperately for you in my mind. The physical may take me apart, but my spirit will always battle for you. My heart will always remember your smiles, and the way you laughed. It will hold on to every moment I was with you, and every way I was in love with you. Nothing can take you away from my heart. Please know that if I ever lose you in this world, I will always have you in another. I will always be your daddy, and . . .” I punched both the italics and bold buttons before typing, “you will always be my girls.” I went back to normal text and kept typing: “No matter the circumstance please keep smiling knowing that deep inside my blank stare is a place where we are all together, living and loving. I will always meet you there in that place my sweet ones. I love you. . . .”
Oh God, I hope my girls never have to read this, I prayed. Then I thought, But if I am taken away from them, I want them to know. They have to know.
I stopped typing and looked out the window at the passing clouds. “Excuse me, sir. Would you like something to drink?” a flight attendant asked.
I looked up at her cart, with all the varieties of soft drinks. “Just some water,” I said. “Thanks.”
The letter isn’t finished, I told myself. It’s not just your little girls who need to know how you feel. I knew she knew, and will always know how I feel. I’ve never been shy about expressing my feelings to my wife. But I wasn’t writing this letter to say all the things I could never bring myself to say in person. No, this was to be a lasting voice, a message she could hold and read over and over if and when that day came when my voice fell silent.
I opened my iPad again and typed, “Oh to my beloved Karyn, how I ache to lose you. How I weep at the thought of missing your face. I’m so sorry if I leave you, if my mind lets you down. The last thing I ever wanted was this. To be trapped in a cave where you are outside but I don’t recognize your voice calling out . . . calling me home. My sweet love, how beautiful you are to me and forever will be. My love for you is stronger than the restriction of my body. Nothing can remove it from me. I assure you I will always be thinking of you, always longing for you. You are forever imprinted upon my soul. You are my shadow that can never escape my presence. My sweet babe, please smile when you see me, surely that will have the power to save me, to lift me out of the coffin of my mind. As I told our girls, find peace knowing that I will always find you in the special place where memory meets the heart, a place out of darkness’ reach. Oh my love, thank you for the greatest years of my life. Thank you for the privilege of your hand, and the gift of your heart. My lips will always remember yours and my hands your face as I long to touch it now. Every day when you close your eyes come meet me there where memory meets the heart and we will dance once again. I love you my sweetest one. . . . Ben.”
I read and reread the three paragraphs. I corrected a couple of grammatical errors I noticed and then I saved the document and put my iPad away. When I got home I printed it and sealed it in an envelope. At the time I never planned on anyone reading it until the time came, and I hoped that time never came.
The next time I talked to Rick I told him, “I wrote them a letter.”
“Can I read it?” he asked.
“No,” I said.
“How can we write a song that expresses how you feel to your family if I don’t read the letter?” he asked.
“Yeah . . . I guess you’re right,” I said.
Rick cried when he read the letter the first time. Once we pulled ourselves together emotionally, we sat down with Tommy Barbarella on the piano and wrote a very powerful song. We recorded it a short time later in Nashville, then went through all the production and postproduction steps that have to be done to a song to get the song just right. We knew we had written a special song when none of us could get through it without crying. I just don
’t think we knew how much it would impact people.
• • •
I didn’t know how Karyn would react the first time I played her the song. The two of us were in the car driving somewhere and I popped it in for her. She smiled when she heard the opening notes on a piano. Then as the words started and the rest of the instrumentation kicked in, she started bobbing her head. “Yeah, this is good,” she said. I liked the sound of that. But then the words began to sink in and tears began streaming out from behind her sunglasses. “Never mind,” she said, “I don’t think I’m going to like it.” All I could do was hold her hand.
She had an even stronger reaction the second time she heard the song. The two of us were in Chicago visiting my uncle Paul and aunt Beth for a long weekend getaway, just Karyn and me. The girls spent the weekend with Grandma and Grandpa. Paul and Beth and Karyn and I were in the car driving home from dinner when Uncle Paul asked, “What are you up to these days, Ben? Anything new?”
“I have some brand-new music I’m really excited about,” I said. “Do you want to hear it?”
“Sure. I’d love it,” Uncle Paul said. He and I were in the front seats of the car, while Karyn and Beth were in back. I put in the working copy of my new CD and played him a couple of songs. I think I played “Oblivion” and the title track, “Standing Strong.” “Here’s the song I’m really excited about,” I said. That’s when I switched it to “You Will Always Be My Girls.” The song started playing . . .
I’m in here counting the days
While my mind is slippin’ away
I’ll hold on as long as I can to you
I may not remember your name
Or the smell of the cool summer rain
Everything and nothing has changed, nothing has changed
And I will remember your smile and your laughter
Long ever after this moment is gone.
About the time the chorus started for the first time I heard sobbing in the backseat. I turned and saw tears pouring down Karyn’s face. I could tell she was embarrassed, because she doesn’t like to show a lot of emotion in front of people, but she couldn’t help herself. The longer the song played, the harder she sobbed. Later she told me that the moment the song started playing she found herself wondering what it was going to be like for her twenty years from now when she listens to these words.