Post by exterminator on Jul 4, 2007 12:57:01 GMT -5
What Brandon Ringgold remembers most about March 31 is the great tackle he made in North Carolina A&T's spring football game.
"It was a perfect hit," he says. "I just came down fast and aggressive."
But the fans remember how he lay motionless on the field for minutes after the tackle. His teammates remember seeing him lifted onto a stretcher and transported to Moses Cone Memorial Hospital. His mother remembers getting a phone call informing her that Ringgold had broken his neck and may never walk again.
Within weeks Ringgold was walking and was released to his home in Aberdeen where he has since made a near-full recovery. The former Pinecrest standout defied the odds and baffled doctors, but those who know him best expected nothing less.
"Anyone who knows
Brandon, knows he is not going to quit," says Steve Craven, Ringgold's strength training coach at Pinecrest.
For Ringgold--who, like most college athletes, had ambitions of going pro--the issue was never walking, but playing football again. After surgery to repair his C5 vertebra he has accepted the fact that a career in the NFL is not likely. The injury was a devastating end to a lifelong goal.
At just nine years old, Ringgold played on his first organized football team in Baltimore, Md. His sister, Crystal Sykes, recalls the time he was not eligible to play because he was underweight.
"He would run around the block and eat potatoes, telling people he had to gain weight for football," says Sykes. "From that point I knew he had the determination to make it."
When the family relocated to North Carolina, Ringgold continued to work and became a starter on the varsity football team at Pinecrest as a sophomore. He played at different positions, including quarterback, but his intensity and aggressiveness made him a natural to dominate on the defensive side.
He was named the most valuable defensive back his junior year and the most valuable player his senior year. When colleges came knocking, his decision was not a difficult one. His older brother, Lammon Ringgold, was recruited to A&T just two years earlier as a middle linebacker.
"I knew the team and I was comfortable with the coaches and their style of play," says Ringgold. But perhaps the most important factor: "They had a good history of sending players to the NFL."
He immediately translated his success in high school to his college game. The A&T football team was fresh off of a 2004 MEAC conference championship win and Ringgold was eager to contribute to its next title.
"It's a chess match," he says of the more complex college level of play. "In high school, you play off of your athletic ability. In college, you have to be athletic and smart."
After just one year at free safety for the Aggies, Ringgold had played in 11 games and amassed 26 tackles, 13 unassisted. After changing his major, he was not able to participate during his sophomore year because he lacked the credit requirements. He worked his way back into the rotation in time for the 2007 blue and gold game, but did not expect to play because of a hamstring injury.
Coach Lee Fobbs decided to send Ringgold in as part of a fired-up defense that had stopped the offense for two consecutive series. Ringgold made the tackle on the line of scrimmage on his first play. The second, a draw play, found running back Chaz Truesdale with the ball.
"I kind of knew what the play was going to be because of the formation and the personnel that came into the game," says Ringgold. He came down hard for the tackle, striking Truesdale square in the chest. That is when he says everything went numb.
"I didn't black out, but I couldn't move," says Ringgold. "I was just thinking, 'Lord, don't let me be paralyzed; let it come back.' I knew something was wrong."
He had lost all feeling below his neck and was having difficulty breathing, but he wanted the game to continue without him. After determining he might not walk again, doctors then offered a more optimistic prognosis that he would be walking in about 18 months.
They did not know Ringgold had played many games with a dislocated shoulder before having it surgically set in place; that when he got his tooth kicked out playing Karate as a child, he did not cry; or that when he got the word "warrior" tattooed on his right forearm, it was more than a statement. It was a way of life.
Which is why less than three months later, he is not only walking but also doing light workouts to rebuild his strength. He does not remotely resemble a person who was supposed to be confined to a wheelchair as he goes about his normal routine of helping around the house and playing with his younger sisters, Darian, Karin and Lyric.
He plans to return to A&T in the fall where he will help out as a student coach and finish his senior year with a degree in liberal studies. Fobbs, who was planning to start Ringgold at free safety this year, describes him as "a terrific individual who was determined to be as good as he could be. He had a tremendous work ethic."
And though a future in the NFL may no longer be viable, Ringgold's loved ones are certain this is not the end for him. "Maybe it is meant for him to pass his legacy on to other kids and get them where they need to be as far as loving the game of football," says Sykes.
His mother, Latonia McCul-lough, anticipates the experience helping him move forward. "I hope he will gain a deeper understanding of the scripture, 'I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me,'" she says. "With his determination his name will still be in lights."
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