Jeremy Brown is thankful every day he laces up his cleats for football practice.
That’s because at one time, just putting his socks on was almost impossible.
A back injury suffered during a weightlifting session kept Brown out of action for nearly two full years, causing him to consider quitting the sport altogether.
But after a recovery fraught with a deluge of doctor visits and plenty of pain, the redshirt sophomore is battling for a starting spot at cornerback this season, and he’s hoping to reach the potential he flashed in his first semester on campus.
“Right now, I’m the healthiest I’ve been since I’ve been here,” Brown said.
DERAILED
Brown enrolled early for the spring semester of 2008, and it didn’t take long for the Orlando native to impress coaches.
His performance in spring practice had him ahead of classmate Janoris Jenkins, who started as a freshman and is expected to be one of the nation’s top corners this season. But Brown never got a chance to shine like Jenkins did.
During a summer weightlifting session shortly before two-a-days, Brown was hoping to leave the gym with a new personal best in the leg press. Instead, he hobbled out with a serious injury.
While lifting, his back came off the seat and gave out. He said it was the worst pain he’d ever felt, and with good reason.
The damage: two ruptured discs, inflamed facet joints and nerve damage.
The injury set off a tour of back specialists around Gainesville, so many that Brown couldn’t even give an estimate.
To relieve some of the pain, doctors burned nerves in his back to kill them off — a procedure called a rhizotomy — but that was far from a solution.
At times, Brown had trouble walking, sleeping, dressing himself and even leaning over to wash his face.
“I just thought, ‘I’m done,’” Brown said. “I didn’t think I’d be able to recover fully and just get back to myself. I felt like I was always going to have a (mental) block with my back and it was always going to be an issue.”
ROCK BOTTOM
As the doctor visits mounted, Brown didn’t see much improvement with his back. If everyday tasks were a chore, how could he hope to play football again?
He said he thought about giving up the sport, largely because he wanted to be able to support his 3-year-old son, Jaden.
“His life is more precious than football,” Brown said. “Football is not who I am, it’s just what I do. At the end of the day, I have to think about my future. Am I going to be able to walk again? Am I going to be able to interact? If we couldn’t get this fixed, you always think about just hanging it up.”
In his darkest period, Brown turned to running back Emmanuel Moody, one of the team’s most devout Christians and a player with plenty of experience when it comes to injuries.
Since transferring from Southern Cal, Moody has battled nagging ankle injuries, and he counseled Brown on his faith and how to deal with being dinged up.
“When it first happened, he hit rock bottom,” Moody said. “Injuries are humbling because people put you on a pedestal when you play for the Gators, and when you get an injury, you’re that forgotten guy.
“It was a humbling experience for him, and he’s healed from his back, and it looks like he’s having a great year this year.”
BOUNCING BACK
After the Sugar Bowl in January, Brown said he finally started to see improvement with his back.
He went through spring practice and is battling Moses Jenkins for the starting spot opposite Janoris Jenkins, and while he says he’s fully healthy for the first time since the spring of 2008, every play can be a challenge.
The physical pain is mostly gone. He still feels tightness in his back from time to time, but that’s something he says he just has to tough out.
Besides, that’s much better than the sharp, stinging pain that plagued him before.
The bigger issue is one faced by many athletes recovering from serious injury: playing without fear of another ailment.
“It’s still tough,” Brown said. “I’d be lying if I said, ‘Mentally, I’m just ready to go.’ There are certain things I second-guess, like should I really just go up and throw myself in there? In the back of my head I’m just thinking, ‘Man, this might be my back again.’”
With his recovery complete, the mental hurdle is the final one for Brown to clear.
One of his close friends, safety Will Hill, said he sees Brown hitting his stride, but he’s still waiting for him to regain his confidence and hit his full potential.
“I [told Brown], ‘By you being 100 percent, by you being on the field, it makes me a better safety,’” Hill said. “I know what type of player he is and the things we expect out of him. I know what he can do and what he could become.”
