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Counting the Days While My Mind Slips Away: A Story of Perseverance and Hope - Softcover

Utecht, Ben

 
9781501137747: Counting the Days While My Mind Slips Away: A Story of Perseverance and Hope
Softcover
ISBN 10: 1501137743 ISBN 13: 9781501137747
Verlag: Howard Books, 2017

Inhaltsangabe

After five major concussions, NFL tight-end Ben Utecht of the Indianapolis Colts and Cincinnati Bengals is losing his memories. This is his powerful and emotional love letter to his wife and daughters—whom he someday may not recognize—and an inspiring message for all to live every moment fully.

Ben Utecht has accumulated a vast treasure of memories: tossing a football in the yard with his father, meeting his wife, with whom he’d build a loving partnership and bring four beautiful daughters into the world, writing and performing music, catching touchdown passes from quarterback Peyton Manning, and playing a Super Bowl Championship watched by ninety-three million people.

But the game he has built his living on, the game he fell in love with as a child, is taking its toll in a devastating way. After at least five major concussions—and an untold number of micro-concussions—Ben suffered multiple mild traumatic brain injuries that have erased important memories. Knowing that his wife and daughters could someday be beyond his reach and desperate for them to understand how much he loves them, he recorded his memories for them to hold on to after his essential self is gone.

Counting the Days While My Mind Slips Away chronicles his remarkable journey from his early days throwing a football back and forth with his father to speaking about the long-term effects of concussions before Congress, and how his faith keeps him strong and grounded as he looks toward an uncertain future. Ben recounts the experiences that have shaped his life and imparts the lessons he’s learned along the way. Emotionally powerful, inspiring, and uplifting, Ben’s story will captivate and encourage you to make the most of every day and treasure all of your memories.

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Über die Autorinnen und Autoren

Ben Utecht is a previous tight end for the Indianapolis Colts and Cincinnati Bengals. As a national speaker, author, and advocate for brain health, Utecht has worked diligently to spread education and awareness regarding concussions, and recently accepted the Ambassador Award presented by the Minnesota Brain Injury Alliance. He was the national spokesperson on concussion for the American Academy of Neurology and sits on the board for the American Brain Foundation. The AAN awarded him the 2014 Public Leadership In Neurology Award, which is their most prestigious award.

Mark Tabb has authored and co-authored over twenty books, including Living with Less, the Upside of Downsizing Your Life (B&H), and the 2004 Gold Medallion finalist, Out of the Whirlwind (B&H). He also collaborated with Stephen Baldwin on the New York Times bestseller, The Unusual Suspect (FaithWords). Mark is currently working with Alec Baldwin on his book, A Promise to Ourselves (St. Martin’s Press).

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Counting the Days While My Mind Slips Away CHAPTER 1 WHERE IT ALL BEGAN
MY HEART POUNDED IN MY ears. Adrenaline pumped, mixing with excitement and nerves. I jumped up and down in place trying to shake the butterflies out of my stomach. It didn’t work. I could hear my teammate Adam Vinatieri’s advice from the week before ringing in my ears. “Keep calm. Focus. And don’t you dare blink at kickoff.” The guy already had three championship rings and kicked the Super Bowl–winning field goal as time expired not once but twice, so I knew I needed to listen to him. But no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t help but get caught up in the moment as I stood in the tunnel leading out onto the field, waiting to run out for Super Bowl XLI, the ultimate game I’d dreamed about my entire life.

The week leading up to the game felt surreal. The team flew down to Miami for the game the previous Sunday. On Monday we spent a couple of hours out on the Sun Life Stadium field for media day, which is more like a media circus. I remember standing out there, talking to my buddy Bryan Fletcher, when all of the sudden a horn sounded and people came pouring out of the stadium gates like ants and descended on us. Besides reporters from the usual media outlets like ESPN and Sports Illustrated, there were people there from every publication and website on earth, most of which had nothing to do with football or sports. Some of the “reporters” came dressed in outrageous costumes. It was nuts.

And then the real craziness began.

During Super Bowl week we practiced at the Miami Dolphins’ training facility. Whenever we traveled from the team hotel to the practice facility, Florida state troopers shut down the highway for our team buses. Cars had to pull over on the shoulder while police cars also blocked entrance ramps. Our buses drove down the middle of the five-lane highway like we owned the road. We weren’t a football team. We were royalty. The royal treatment carried over to the practice field. Celebrities crowded around the field to watch us. Sometimes it was hard to concentrate on what we were there for, especially when Hall of Fame tight end Shannon Sharpe watched whether or not I caught the pass just thrown to me. He was the gold standard for tight ends, which is what I played on offense.

After another royal ride down the freeway we returned to our hotel rooms, where we all found gift bags with the Super Bowl logo on the outside, bags loaded down with new iPods and clothes and hats and all sorts of cool memorabilia. The week felt more like a really nice vacation instead of the buildup to a championship game.

In spite of the distractions, we had a great week of practice. The team felt really confident going into the game against the Chicago Bears. Just to get to the Super Bowl we had to beat the team that had won three of the previous five championships, and to do that we put together the biggest comeback in AFC Championship history. Every Colts player knew that if we played in the Super Bowl like we did in the second half of the AFC Championship, we had a good chance of becoming world champions.

I, too, felt confident when Super Bowl Sunday finally rolled around. I’d had a couple of nagging injuries I had to deal with toward the end of the season, but having two weeks between the AFC Championship Game and the Super Bowl gave me time to heal.

On the day of the game I woke up early, since I couldn’t really sleep anyway, and looked out the window to see a dark, overcast sky. It rained off and on most of the day. Never before had weather affected the Super Bowl, but the forecast said this was going to be the first. I didn’t really care. We’d played in worse conditions and won. I went downstairs for breakfast and sat through one meeting with the tight ends and another with the offensive linemen. After that I had nothing to do but sit around and watch movies and stare at the clock. Finally, around 2:00 p.m. I climbed on the team bus for the ride to the stadium. Of course, we had another police escort down a blocked-off freeway.

I thought I was keyed up as I got dressed in the locker room, but nothing compared to what I felt standing in the tunnel waiting to go out onto the field for the first time. The game wasn’t due to start for at least an hour, but the stadium was already starting to fill. Music blared in the stadium and blasted through the tunnel where I stood with our punter, Hunter Smith; kicker Adam Vinatieri; and our starting long snapper, Justin Snow. I backed up Justin. The four of us were going to go out on the field to warm up. Justin and I just looked at each other with smiles filled with joy and anxiousness. “Can you believe we’re here?” I asked.

“I know, it’s crazy,” Justin replied.

Finally a stadium attendant looked up from a clipboard and said, “Okay, you’re set. Go.” Hunter, Adam, Justin, and I all huddled close, gave the traditional embrace, then turned to go.

I trotted down the tunnel toward the field. The sound of cleats on the concrete ramp echoed all around me. I had just cleared the tunnel and put one foot on the turf when I heard one voice ring out over all the rest of the stadium noise. “Ben! Ben!”

I looked back over my shoulder and spotted my dad in his Colts rain jacket and ball cap leaning onto the railing just above the tunnel. He had a big smile on his face. “Benjamin!” he yelled again, waving his hand down toward me. I didn’t know how he was able to work his way through the crowd over to this spot. He and my mom and the rest of our family had seats on the other side of the field. “Ben, up here!” he said again.

I raised my hand to acknowledge I’d heard him, and to get him to stop calling my name. Then I sort of flicked my hand with a dismissive wave like I was trying to shoo off a pesky fly. All I could think was, Not now, Dad. Don’t you see I’m working? Don’t you understand I am about to go out on the field for the biggest game of my life on the biggest stage in the world?! After waving my dad off, I turned back toward the field and started to run out onto the turf.

But a voice in my head stopped me in my tracks. From deep inside I heard my father calling to me, not in the stadium, but in my backyard.

•  •  •

My mind took me back to a day when I felt the same mix of adrenaline, nerves, and excitement as I walked out on the freshly cut grass, my brand-new cleats laced up tight. “Ready, Ben?” my dad asked then. I nodded my head, bent over, and planted my hand in the turf as I got in a three-point stance. Tiny beads of sweat gathered on my brow; my legs shook in anticipation. I was like a spring, wound up tight, just waiting to go off. Suddenly the football moved. “Now,” my dad said. I took off like a bullet. Legs churning, head down, I lowered my shoulders, closed my eyes, and lunged with all my might into the man with the football. I landed right in the middle of my dad’s chest. He fell backward from his knees and wrapped his arms around my four-year-old body. “Good job, Ben,” he said as he lifted me up, a huge grin on his face. “Want to try it again?”

I didn’t even answer. I just raced back over to where I started and got back down in a three-point stance, ready to go.

From the back porch I heard my mom clapping like I’d just made the game-winning tackle in the Super Bowl. “Way to go, Beno-Button,” she called out. “And be careful,” she had to add because she’s my mom. Then she called over to my dad, “Jeff, you take it easy on him.”
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Verlag
Howard Books
Erscheinungsdatum
2017
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
1501137743
ISBN 13 
9781501137747
Einband
Taschenbuch
Anzahl der Seiten
272
Kontakt zum Hersteller
Nicht verfügbar
Verantwortliche Person
Simon and Schuster Netherlands BV
info@simonandschuster.nl

Herculesplein 96
Utrecht
3584 AA
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