Chapter 25

My great summer golf adventure was over. I had two weeks to get ready for the opening of summer drills. I had missed first-session summer classes, so I decided to throw caution to the wind and take two mid-afternoon second-session courses. I made sure they wouldn't be too difficult — I took beginning golf and a physiology class. By the end of summer, I'd be 24 course hours short of a degree. I had to take 12 each semester to stay eligible, so I was pretty sure I'd be doing my last season of UK football as a graduate student.

We had lost just four starters off a team that won its last eight games a season before, so talk was ripe of a breakout season.

For once, the hype was dead-on.

Coach had been busy over the summer and had worked all 10 of Sara's plays into the playbook. He thought they were ingenious. We decided we would open the season with one of them. Sara's plays were designed to put defenses in positions they weren't used to — like creating a formation where the middle linebacker or defensive end had coverage responsibility. It was brilliant in its simplicity.

Our opening game was to be televised nationally, so I e-mailed Sara and told her to make sure she watched.

The play we used was a simple crossing route. But because we put three receivers wide to the left it shifted their defense off-kilter. The primary receiver was the tight end who was moving from right to left. It wasn't designed for long yardage, but it was designed to keep defenses honest. We had four plays we could run out a similar formation.

Granted, we were playing UCLA — a team everybody thought would be good but wasn't — but apparently covering the tight end was optional in the Pac 10 conference. Five defenders took the wide receivers on the cross. By the time someone caught up with our lumbering tight end, he was 70 yards downfield.

A couple of plays later it was 7-0 and our season was rolling. The high point of my night was sitting on the sideline after the score with a clipboard and a magic marker.

I wrote, "Sara Markley, age 13, designed the first play," and held it in front of the TV camera. I wasn't sure ABC cut to it, but I learned later they showed it — and the play — over and over again as the game became less interesting.

We had an October trip to Gainesville to play the Gators, so I contacted Sara's mom to see if she and a couple of her friends would like to go.

She told me Sara was trying to get her to plan a big party for that day, but she thought she'd rather see the game in person.

I warned her she'd be sitting with the UK families, and I jokingly suggested that she needed to mind her manners.

Sara called to tell me how excited she was to go to the game. She said she'd told her friends that they all had to root for UK that day, though.

I told her to wear all her Florida stuff and to root for her Gators, but if anyone said anything, to tell them I said it was OK.

I'd arranged for a later flight home than the team's so I treated Sara, her mom, and two of her friends to dinner. The game wasn't close. We were 6-0 by that point and ranked No. 2 in the country. Florida looked like they would have been better off with Sara as their offensive coordinator.

I heard all about the game from Sara's perspective at dinner. Her hair had started to grow back, and it was a shade between brown and red. It looked good on her and matched her eyes. She was going to be a heartbreaker someday.

"So we all come in with our Florida shirts," Sara said. "And some guy starts giving us a hard time. This big woman beside me told him to shut up, though. I started talking to her, and when I told her my name, she knew who I was."

"Pretty soon all the UK fans were coming by and shaking her hand," her mom said when she picked up the story. "I think she even posed for pictures with a few of them.

"You've created some kind of folk hero up there. They all think she's the reason you guys are so good."

Sara blushed when I told her she was a big part of the reason.

"When I took the plays to Coach in the spring he looked at them very carefully," I told them. "I won't lie. He was looking for reasons not to use them. But he didn't find one. So he started to look at the formations and he realized we were pretty stagnant last year. We had a lot of plays that worked, so we ran them often.

"After a day or two with Sara's plays, he had a whole new outlook. You saw how many formations we used today. We have three or four plays out of every formation you created.

"Don't tell anyone, but we've got three plays left in what we call our Bang Bag. If we're trailing or we're close to the goal line, we're pretty sure we can score quickly with no trouble with these plays. But Coach has assured me we'll use all three of them before the season is over, whether we need to or not."

Sara was speechless and her friends were in awe.

I hated to say goodbye when they dropped me off at the airport. Even though I wasn't yet 21, I still felt carefree, like a kid, whenever I was around Sara. I had enough responsibilities that I treasured the feeling.

In late November, the Tennessee game was Senior Day. Tom VandeVender was one of five seniors on the roster and it was his final home game, so I asked Coach Brown if Tom could start the game.

"He's done so much for me, personally," I told him. "And you know how much he's done for the team. I think he deserves the honor."

Coach thought it over for a day then announced all the seniors would start Saturday's game and would play as long as warranted.

I hoped I wouldn't see the field Saturday.

Tom wanted to take the first snap and turn the game over to me, but Coach Brown told Tom he'd play him just like the rest of the seniors.

"It's the only way I know to thank you, Tom," Coach told him. I hope Tom knew those were my sentiments as well.

I got my wish that Saturday as Tom performed exceptionally. We were up by four touchdowns late in the third quarter when Coach asked if I wanted to play. I told him maybe one of the younger guys should get a chance today and he laughed.

"It's Tom's day," I said. "If I go on the field, he might think they're cheering for me. I want him to know for certain it's for him."

Tom took one snap in the fourth quarter before Coach Brown called timeout. He sent a little used redshirt sophomore into the game and Tom VandeVender left to a standing ovation. I met him on the sideline with a hug and cup of water — the same things he offered me each time I'd been replaced in a blowout for the last two seasons. The tears on his cheeks made me glad I'd done it.

I might have done things differently if I'd have known that this was my last time suiting up in Kentucky's home blue at Commonwealth Stadium.

Like I said, it might have made a difference, but I don't think so.

Having Bailey with me during the fall was magical. I can't think of a better way to describe it. We spent as much time together as we could — which wasn't much. She was playing fall golf and was the unofficial SEC medalist during the short season. With golf, football and classes, it was sometimes difficult to spend as much time together as I wanted.

But I doubted I could spend as much time as I wanted with Bailey if they added 10 hours to each day.

She was adjusting well to college. Her natural charm and grace made sure of that. She became friends with my friends, and I became friends with hers. Soon everybody was friends with everybody else.

I came to learn it was Bailey and our gang that started Tom VandeVender's standing ovation during his last game. They were the first, but everyone else was more than willing to jump up and join in.

There was no way I wasn't in love with Bailey. Anything I'd felt before was just small potatoes.

Even Beth approved. She was still living in my apartment with me while she took graduate classes. She and Bailey weren't exactly friends, but they saw each other so much it was almost like a big sister-little sister relationship.

I thought to myself that I had never been happier in my life.

The SEC Championship Game was being played in Atlanta. I invited Bailey and the Stenstroms, and Beth and the Fergusons, as my guests. Bailey begged off saying she was tired of traveling and I was kind of a dick to her.

I invited Sara and her mom to join us in Athens since it was only a few hours from their home. They gladly took the tickets off my hands.

I guess I took savage delight the next day when Bailey told me her parents had decided they wanted to come.

"Sorry," I said. "I gave them away. You know I'm not very good with second chances."

Those were the terms Bailey and I were on when I left for Atlanta. It was our first major disagreement, and neither of us was willing to back down. I felt guilty by the time we got off the plane, but when I called her talk to her I only got her voice mail.

I got her voice mail the next morning, too, and figured to hell with it. If she wanted to stay mad she could stay mad.

The preceding paragraphs are estimates I've pieced together. In the fourth quarter, just like four years earlier, I was drilled from behind and left unconscious.

If the hit in high school was brutal, this one was devastating. I've seen the replay from seven camera angles. Each makes me nauseated when I see it.

The force was so great I wound up lying across the defender, Arturo James. His legs were stuck beneath my torso. He knew immediately I was hurt and started motioning to a trainer before the play — another interception — was concluded. He had the presence of mind first not to move and second to remove my mouthpiece so I didn't choke on it.

He sat perfectly still for more than 15 minutes while the training staff worked on me. Tom and a couple of the linemen came up and put their hands on his shoulders and crouched beside him.

Almost six hours later, I awoke in a hospital room to see a sweet-looking woman sitting in a chair.

I had no idea who she was but I wanted to know pretty quickly.

She felt me move and turned toward me.

"Oh, thank God," she said. "You're alright. I'm going to get a doctor."

As she rushed off I couldn't help but notice how nice her butt looked a blue jeans and I was glad she hadn't pulled her blue UK sweatshirt down over it.