NFL teams
Bruce Feldman 18y

This Side Of A Miracle

Texas Longhorns, Pittsburgh Steelers

The Longhorns medical team didn't know what to expect when Tony Hills walked into the trainers room that day in December 2003. Heck, they didn't know if he'd be able to walk into the room at all. But there he stood, looking as strong as a steer, just a year removed from a knee injury so severe that it had all but guaranteed his college football career would be over before it had even begun.

The Horns were preparing to leave for a Holiday Bowl date with Washington State when Hills arrived. But for the next hour, the trip to California was put on standby. Trainers and doctors gawked as the tight end prospect did everything everybody said he couldn't. He blew through one-legged hops, vertical jumps and calf raises, finishing each drill with a laugh and an "I told you so" as jaws practically bounced off the rubberized floor. When Hills exited the room, there was nothing left for his audience to do but scratch their heads at the miracle they'd witnessed.

"We were real shocked," says head trainer Kenny Boyd. "I think some things aren't meant to be explained by science."

THERE WAS a time when it was Hills' talent that left people speechless. Mack Brown calls him the greatest tight end he has ever seen, a nimble 6'6", 265-pounder who could pluck the football from the air and plant a defensive end in the ground. Hills is from Houston and grew up a Miami Hurricanes fan. But after one trip to Austin, it didn't take long for Hills to accept Brown's offer. Hills verbaled to UT in the fall of 2002.

And then in one moment, the prospect's dream was snatched away. It started out routinely enough, a reception in the flat for Elsik High in the second quarter of the state 5A semifinals on Dec. 7. Hills stiff-armed a Converse Judson linebacker who was intent on wrestling him to the Alamodome turf, then gave the overmatched defender a piggyback ride upfield until a DB dived at his legs. The takedown didn't look particularly vicious, but Hills stayed prone for several minutes.

His mother, Mary Lemons, had been at a junior high game watching her younger son, Jeremy. She arrived as Elsik's doctor fitted Tony's left knee with a brace. As her son was carted off the field, she began to pray.

Later, at the hospital, doctors diagnosed a strained knee. A few days later, it was deemed a possible tear. Either way, the team's 30-21 loss hurt Hills more than the injury. The next week, though, Hills lost sensation in his foot; it seemed as if it wasn't his own size 16 that he saw dangling below his jeans. When a third diagnosis was offered, it was much more dire: nerve damage. Doctors told Hills he had only a 2% chance of playing again. "I never understood what was going on," Hills says.

Brown got a message to Mary the day after he heard about Hills' knee: UT would honor its offer. But Hills had been skeptical even before the latest diagnosis. He'd heard enough broken-down-athlete horror tales that ended with "Hey, it's a business."

To reassure both of them, Hills' mother scheduled his official visit to Austin later that December. She insisted on having a wheelchair waiting for him when they arrived. Hills was distraught; that would make him look all the more hopeless. He couldn't fathom how fast he'd gone from Parade All-America to … what, a stock boy at the local grocery?

Pushed by his mom, Hills rolled into the UT football complex and down to Brown's office. In his soft drawl, the coach insisted he still wanted Hills to be part of the Longhorns family. Again, he said Hills could keep his scholarship and work as a student assistant. Maybe he'd help out in the weight room or at practice. But playing football was one subject Brown didn't broach. There was no reason to make the kid talk about how bad he was hurting. Let him focus on his grades, and if he got healthy, great. If not … "You'll help us coach," Brown said. "You're going to get to Texas either way."

Hills returned home relieved, even as his medical prognosis grew murkier. One doctor said the leg could heal on its own; another told him it wouldn't. The only consensus was that he should forget about football. Mary couldn't believe, wouldn't believe what she was hearing. What she did believe was that something needed to be done.

She scoured the Net for treatment options, did background checks on physicians and battled her insurance company over coverage. Finally, two months after the injury, Mary found Dr. J. Bruce Moseley, then the orthopedist for the Houston Rockets. Moseley agreed that Hills needed surgery but made it clear that repairing the nerve damage was a much more delicate proposition than fixing the shredded knee. He diagnosed Hills' condition as drop foot. On a scale of 0 to 5, Hills' ability to bend his ankle rated a 0. "Mostly you see this injury in people involved in high-speed car crashes," says Texas team doctor Carey Windler. Typically, if there is no sign of recovery in three to six months, there probably won't be any.

Mary refused to concede that Tony's football career was done. The setback would only make him tougher, make him appreciate what he had once he made it to the NFL. That, she says, was revealed to her one day in church. She recounted the message to her son: God has a plan for Tony Hills. Texas will be his training ground, and special things will happen there. Hills wasn't sold. Doctors, he knew, were the authority in these matters.

Try telling that to Mary. "The doctors don't have the last word, God does," she told her son. In her heart, Mary knew that while she and her son may look crazy for believing now, someday everyone else would rethink what was and was not possible.

Moseley performed surgery on the knee in late January 2003, and Hills wore a brace to stabilize his foot. The staff at Texas suggested he delay enrollment for a semester to give him more time to heal. Hills got a job doing clerical work in a law office. His mom remade his diet. Out went the junk food and soft drinks he loved. Instead, she served whole grains, fruits, vegetables, soy and green tea. "Healing comes from the inside out," she preached.

If only his knee was all that was scarred. More and more, Hills' mind was too. Doubt. Frustration. Fear. Some days he'd lie in bed, staring at the ceiling and thinking about those clichés his coaches used to spout. "'Play every play as if it's your last.' I never understood that 'til then," Hills says.

But Mom had no intention of letting him stew in self-pity. She set up weights in their apartment and encouraged Hills to do whatever he could to keep in shape. Hills realized his mom was right. "I'd always asked, Why me? but it turned into, Lord, I understand you're challenging me. I'm ready." Every day after work, he'd sweat through his frustrations, tossing iron for hours. Mom's makeshift weight room was his sanctuary, and the endless reps were his violent meditation.

In August 2003, Hills had a second operation, this time to remove scar tissue in an attempt to free the peroneal nerve, which runs from above the knee to the foot, so that it could start regenerating. This time, it was the neurosurgeon who couldn't promise anything.

"That's okay," Mary said. "You do what you have to do. God will do the rest."

HILLS' MOM believes. No one can tell her that her son's story doesn't describe a miracle. Not a medical miracle, mind you. No, her son was healed by a much higher power. And you wouldn't be alone if you entertained the notion that she's right. She certainly made a believer out of her son. Within six weeks of the second surgery, he ripped off the brace and ran around the apartment, even though doctors' orders prohibited it. This wasn't Forrest Gump; this was real life. Hills raced around like a kid, gauging how fast God would let him move.

Mary is sure that if she hadn't prayed, her son would have been stuck in that brace for the rest of his life. And the facts bolster her point. "I've been involved in about 100 similar surgeries," says Moseley. "Tony is the first one to fully come back."

Then again, even true believers don't get exactly what they want. The plan-Mary's plan, Tony's plan-hasn't gone quite as it was hatched. By the spring of 2004, when he finally got his chance to suit up for UT, Hills weighed 280 pounds. He flashed some of the old athleticism and personality, but the coaches weren't convinced his speed would ever be the same. After two practices, they decided Hills' nimble footwork might make him an ideal offensive tackle.

Soon, Hills was enthusiastically poring over film with starting left tackle Jonathan Scott. They talked about balance and stepping true on a foot that once hung uselessly. The energy that drove his rehab was now channeled toward making him the prototypical pass-protector. "I haven't seen anybody with a will like this in my 25 years," says Jeff "Mad Dog" Madden, UT's strength coach.

Hills apprenticed well. As UT rolled to its first national title since 1970 last season, Scott, an All-America, shifted to right tackle about half the time so Hills could get experience protecting Vince Young's blind side. Now, both Scott and Young are NFL-bound, and the new starting QB-whether it's redshirt freshman Colt McCoy or early enrollee Jevan Snead-won't scramble out of mistakes like his predecessor did. But Brown isn't worried. "Tony has the chance to be one of the greatest to play here," he says. In fact, plan B now looks like it has some real merit. "He'll play a lot longer and make a lot more money at left tackle than he would've at tight end," says line coach Mac McWhorter.

Hills smiles when told of the praise. He reclines his considerable frame-he's up to 305 now-in a high-back leather chair inside the sprawling football complex on the day before spring break. On a very talented team that lacks any high-wattage stars, Hills may just be the new face of Texas football. There's not a soul in Austin with more Texas pride. His enormous belt buckle with the rhinestone longhorn looks like something out of Vince McMahon's collection. "It's time," he says. "That's the motto I'm living this year. I don't have anybody to lean on if I make mistakes. It's on me."

He points to the 2005 Rose Bowl ring he got after UT beat Michigan and says, "It's special to me because when I came in, Mom told me Texas will do something really special and do things they haven't done." He stares at the jewelry as he continues. "And now we won a national championship, and I'm going to be starting. It's amazing."

Mary calls it something else. "It's a miracle. Don't be ashamed of it. That's exactly what it is."

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