07: It’s in Your Head

I Wasn’t Free

Going into my sophomore year, everything was lining up.

I was up for the Ray Guy Award.

I was one of the top punters in the country.

And I was ready to prove that freshman year hadn’t been a fluke.

Then, during offseason workouts—something popped.

A tendon ripped off my pelvic bone in my groin area.

I felt it.

Sharp. Sudden. Wrong.

The trainers told me it wasn’t a big deal.

No surgery required.

Just rest. Physical therapy. Maybe some rehab exercises.

I was relentless. I did everything they told me.

I had one goal:

Get back on the field.

And I did.

But something wasn’t right.

There’s a big difference between punting and kicking.

Punting is more of a vertical motion—drop the ball and strike upward.

Kicking, on the other hand, is a swinging motion.

You have to open up your hips completely.

It requires full rotation and follow-through.

And I couldn’t do it.

Every time I tried, my leg would get caught mid-swing.

Like it was stuck. Like my hip was locking itself in place.

And when it caught, it hurt.

It didn’t make sense.

I went back to the doctors.

Told them something was wrong.

They told me to stretch.

It was a mobility issue.

So I stretched.

And stretched.

And stretched.

Nothing changed.

Then they told me it was in my head.

“You’re a head case.”

That one stuck with me.

Because now I wasn’t just in pain—I was crazy.

Every time I stepped on the field, I didn’t know what was going to happen.

Would my leg lock up mid-swing?

Would it be fine?

There was no pattern.

No predictability.

And so my performance became just like my injury—unpredictable.

My sophomore season was up and down.

I started strong.

Then struggled.

Then got benched.

By spring, my coach called me into his office.

Sat me down.

Looked me in the eye.

And told me he was taking me off scholarship.

I was devastated.

Not just because I lost my spot.

But because I knew something was wrong—and no one believed me.

And in a world that only values results?

That makes you feel like you’re the problem.

This wasn’t just an injury.

It was the start of a new kind of spiral.

One slower.

More subtle.

Harder to name.

But just as dark.