Counting the Days While My Mind Slips Away

by Ben Utecht

  I traveled to Penn State to meet with Echemendia. He put me through a full day of testing, which included tests to determine whether or not I was exaggerating my symptoms. After testing me himself, as well as reviewing my records provided by Drs. Cantu and Sullivan, Echemendia found them all to be consistent. After the day of testing, he called me into his office and told me, “I wouldn’t clear you to play right now.”

  “How much longer do you think it will take for me to recover from this?” I asked. Keep in mind, my concussion happened on August 5, 2009. Nearly seven months had passed by this point.

  From what I can recall, he said, “Best-case scenario, I would say you still need at least another eight to twelve weeks.”

  I asked Echemendia more questions about concussions in general and about my situation. Unfortunately, he couldn’t give me any specific answers for what my future might hold. Even so, I felt pretty good after going to see him. During the two weeks prior to going to see him I felt like I had improved. I backed down the intensity of my workouts, keeping my maximum heartbeat below 150 beats per minute. That seemed to be working. I’d only had a little random dizziness, but nothing like I had earlier.

  My fears returned a week later, however. I called one of my best friends back home in Minnesota, Brandon, to talk about his daughter’s baptism. He’d asked me about my dad performing the service and I wanted to talk to him about the details of when all that was going to happen. When I told Brandon why I had called he sort of stuttered on the other end. “What’s wrong?” I asked. “Did you change your mind about my dad doing the service?”

  “No, Ben,” Brandon replied. “It’s not that. It’s just that . . . uh . . .”

  “What?” I asked.

  “We had this exact same conversation a week ago.”

  “We did?” I asked. I searched hard in my brain. Nothing came up. Even after Brandon recounted the earlier conversation nearly word for word, nothing rang a bell. I had, and still have to this day, absolutely no recollection of that conversation. The first time I experienced a memory gap I thought it odd. Now I was starting to see a pattern. I was scared. For the first time I started to wonder how many of my memories now had an expiration date.

  I also experienced a setback with my workouts. When I increased my intensity, headaches returned. My head felt fine during the workouts themselves. However, either late that night or when I woke up in the morning, my head was pounding. I started getting very frustrated.

  In March, four months after filing my grievance, I went to see the doctor the NFLPA had arranged to examine me as part of the grievance process, Dr. Marc Mayberg in Seattle. He too was “neutral,” that is, he had no previous connections to me or to the NFL. Like the others who had examined me, Dr. Mayberg put me through a series of tests and examined all the records compiled by Sullivan and Dr. Cantu. Thankfully, even though I had recovered from most of my postconcussion symptoms, he came to the same conclusion as all the other doctors. He told me I should not have been cleared to play at the time of my release. Dr. Mayberg also informed the league that I could not return to play “without undue risk of further aggravation of the injury.” The alarming thing to me was that he reached this conclusion a full seven months after my injury.

  After meeting with Dr. Mayberg I called Tim English. “Now that the tests are over, how long should it take before we get a decision?” I asked.

  “Normally, in arbitration cases like this, once both sides have assembled their briefs, the arbitrator will hold a hearing. After that, you should hear something in a few months,” Tim told me. “However, it could take longer. You never know.”

  Now I had two things hanging over my head that frightened me. First, every time I forgot what I was going to say in midsentence or had a memory gap like I had with my friends Melody and Brandon, I wondered if this was just the tip of the iceberg. I honestly had to start wrestling with the question, Will my mind slip away? That was frightening enough, but then I also had the added pressure of wondering how on earth I was going to provide for my family moving forward. When I signed my last contract with the Bengals, I thought I could play until I was thirty-four or thirty-five and then retire financially secure. Not only did that not happen, but I also now found myself fighting to get the nearly $1 million the Bengals refused to pay me.

  •  •  •

  From the time I started playing with the Colts, I always planned on pursuing a career in music when my playing days were over. I got my start while I was still in Indianapolis. In addition to getting to know Sandi Patty and being mentored by her in the business, I also became friends with Bill and Gloria Gaither. In the world of Christian and gospel music, the Gaithers are royalty. They taught me so much about the music industry. Sandi’s manager, Mike Atkins, agreed to represent me as well. I’ve already written about how I sang with the Indianapolis Symphony while I was with the Colts. When I arrived in Cincinnati I appeared with the Cincinnati Pops Orchestra a few times. In fact, one of the highlights of my life came during one of my appearances with the Pops. I was scheduled to sing the national anthem and “God Bless America” with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. When I arrived at the arena and found my dressing room I discovered that I was sharing it with none other than Neil Armstrong. His name was on the door right beside mine! When I walked into the room I introduced myself and he shook hands with me. We didn’t talk much, but we didn’t have to. How many people have shaken hands with the first man to walk on the moon? Just being in the same room with him was thrill enough for me.

  Not long after I moved from Indianapolis to Cincinnati, I recorded my first, self-titled album for Sandi Patty’s label, Stylos Records. Word distributed it while the William Morris Agency handled my bookings. The album came out in April 2009. Unfortunately, due to my obligations to the Bengals I could not tour with the album, which is what you normally do when your first album comes out. Most of the reviews of my music were very positive, and I made a handful of appearances, but I had to turn down most of the invitations that came my way. As a result, the album just did okay commercially. However, I at least had an album on a label. That was the first step.

  Now that my football playing days were over I decided to plunge full bore into music. I don’t remember exactly how the conversation went, but one day I just sort of announced to Karyn, “We need to move to Nashville.” Karyn and I had been in our house less than two years, and we moved into it after losing a lot of money on our house in Indianapolis. Even so, Karyn told me, “Okay. Whatever we have to do, I’m on board.” I called my friend Jeremy and a couple of other people I knew in Nashville, and we started packing. I did not have any doubts about what we were doing. I fully expected to get to Nashville and carve out a successful career as a singer. Again, I had already done one album with a label. That alone set me apart from so many others who go to Music City with dreams of breaking into the music industry. I had already broken in. Now I hoped to break out.

  •  •  •

  However, before we moved to Tennessee I made one last attempt to resurrect my football career. In April I finally passed all five stages of the return-to-play protocol. Nearly nine months after my concussion I was able to go through strenuous workouts without recurring concussion symptoms. Officially, Dr. Cantu cleared me to play, although he and every doctor I had seen since August 5, 2009, told me I should never play again (although none of them told me I couldn’t play). When my head pounded and my brain felt like sludge, I agreed with the doctors. But once the symptoms went away I had second thoughts about hanging it up. I also looked around at my life and I thought back to all my football dreams going back to college. Injuries always kept me from reaching my potential. I was healthy now after sitting out an entire year. What if . . . I wondered. I contacted my agent, Chris. “I still want to play,” I told him.

  “Are you sure, Ben?” he replied.

  “I just can’t walk away from the game like this,” I said.

  “Okay. I’ll see what I can do,” Ch
ris said.

  A couple of weeks later, right before the NFL draft, I flew back to Boston. This time, instead of visiting Dr. Cantu, I went out to Foxborough and tried out for the New England Patriots. Their team doctors put me through a physical, then they went through a long list of questions about my injury history, with, not surprisingly, a lot of questions about my concussions. Then I went out on the field and ran pass routes and went through agility drills and blocking drills and all the other drills teams use to evaluate talent. I felt like I killed the workout. I caught every ball they threw at me and my speed was right where it had always been. Afterward I met with their head of scouting and he was really encouraging.

  That was the last I heard from the New England Patriots. If they had wanted to sign me, they would have called. They don’t call when they don’t want you. Ultimately, my concussion history proved to be too much for them. Instead of signing me, the Patriots drafted Rob Gronkowski, who developed into one of their most productive players. I think they made the right choice, for both of us. If I had sustained another concussion, who knows where I might be today. Yet at the time I was incredibly disappointed. I knew the end had come, but it was a hard pill to swallow. Just as injuries had kept me from really fulfilling my potential going back to my senior year of high school, an injury had now ended my career.

  •  •  •

  With my football career now officially over, I faced the daunting journey of redefining myself. I had played football at some level for nearly twenty years, and while I never thought of myself purely in terms of the game, it was always a huge part of who I was. When my family moved to Hastings when I was only ten, most of my new friendships started on the football field. In middle school and high school I played in the band and sang in school choirs and acted in nearly every school play, but my doing so stood out even more because I was one of the school’s star athletes. Starting in college, football and my future went hand in hand. The game paid for my education and was my first job out of school. I was a Colt and a Super Bowl champ, then I became a Bengal.

  And now . . . Who was I now?

  I thought I might find the answer in Nashville. As soon as my tryout with the Patriots ended poorly, Karyn and I loaded up our stuff and headed south. We left Cincinnati so quickly we didn’t have a place to stay. Thankfully our friends Jeremy and Adie opened up their home to us for a few months as we began looking for a rental house to call home. We learned our lesson in Indy and Cincinnati. Rather than buy, we planned on renting for a while to see how our life there might shake out.

  A couple of months after our move to Nashville, Karyn and I were still staying with our friends. I stayed busy with demo tapes and making the rounds in town. Karyn wasn’t feeling well. When she noticed the nausea felt a lot worse in the mornings, she bought a pregnancy test. All the bad feelings I had about my time in Cincinnati evaporated the moment she told me, “We’re having another baby.” I cannot tell you how excited I was to become a father again.

  Shortly after we discovered Karyn was pregnant, she went to see her doctor. I was on the couch in the basement of our friends’ home when she called.

  “Hey, Karyn,” I said.

  “We’re having two,” Karyn said.

  I sat there on the couch, my phone in my hand, unable to speak.

  “Ben?” Karyn said. “Are you there?”

  I was speechless. Finally, after more awkward silence I managed to say, “Two?”

  “Yes, two as in twins,” Karyn said.

  More stunned silence followed on my end. “Twins?” I said at long last. “How is that scientifically possible? We have zero history of twins on either side of our family.”

  “I don’t know,” Karyn replied. “The doctor didn’t explain how it happened. She just said we have twins on the way.”

  “Wow,” I said. It wasn’t that I wasn’t excited by the news. I was. I was just in shock. However, once the shock wore off and the reality settled in that we were going to go from man-to-man to zone coverage in one pregnancy, we both became very excited. We felt like these two little babies were a special gift from God, a confirmation that the timing of our pregnancy was ordained. Both Karyn and I believed that this news signaled a true fresh start for us.

  I had felt such a huge weight on my shoulders when we moved to Nashville. I didn’t know if the transition from football to music was going to work out. I didn’t know if or when the grievance I filed might be settled. The future looked so unsettled. And yet, God had decided to bless us with two new babies. That gift told us that God didn’t feel apprehensive about our future. Like my mother had told me so many years before, when I suffered my first injury in a football game, I just needed to trust the Lord. He was going to take care of the rest.

  * * *

  I. Dr. Casson’s response can be viewed at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R4NbU_HaB3Y.

  II. http://espn.go.com/espn/otl/story/_/page/OTL-Mixed-Messages/nfl-disability-board-concluded-playing-football-caused-brain-injuries-even-officials-issued-denials-years.

  III. The NFL reversed itself in December 2009 and admitted that concussions do have lasting consequences. However, this came one month after the Bengals cut me. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/21/sports/football/21concussions.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0.

  CHAPTER 20

  BACK INTO THE JUNGLE

  KARYN AND I MOVED TO Nashville to get a fresh start. I was trying to find myself, to redefine myself, find my identity. All of my life I had been a standout athlete. That life was over. It was time to start anew.

  However, a few months after diving into my new life I had to return to Cincinnati to try to bring closure to my old. The grievance I had filed against the Bengals had yet to be resolved. Since the day we filed the grievance on December 1, 2009, I spoke daily either to Tim English, the NFLPA attorney in charge of my case, or Scott Hillstrom, my personal attorney, or my agent, Chris Murray. A lot of days I called all three. I was very nervous about how this was going to play out. When I was first cut I thought my case could be resolved very quickly. The way Tim English explained it to me, the CBA left little room for interpretation. Hurt players on the IR who have not recovered to the point where they can perform all the usual moves and actions required of their playing positions cannot be cut. End of story. But now, nearly one year after my injury and seven and a half months after filing my grievance, we were no closer to a resolution.

  I hoped the grievance hearing in Cincinnati might finally settle this thing once and for all. I drove up to Cincinnati the day before the hearing and spent the night in a hotel. The next morning, July 13, 2010, I got up early and met Tim for breakfast. When the two of us sat down, his first question was, “How are you doing, Ben?”

  “I’m nervous,” I said.

  Tim smiled. “I understand that. You don’t need to be.” He then gave me a rundown of how the hearing was going to play out and what I could expect from both the NFL’s attorneys and from the arbitrator. “The arbitrator’s name is Richard Kasher. He’s from Pennsylvania. He has a strong résumé. He’s even been appointed to serve on boards by more than one president.”

  I was impressed, but still nervous.

  We left breakfast together and headed over to Paul Brown Stadium, where the hearing was to be held. Pulling up in front of the stadium for the first time as a non–football player felt very strange. Not only was I not a Bengal, I was going up against the team. I didn’t know how I might be received. In my time in Cincinnati I had enjoyed a good relationship with everyone in the Bengals’ organization, or at least I did until November 18, 2009. As I wrote before, football teams have a family feel to them. From the coaching staff to the general manager’s office, all the way up to the owner, the entire organization tries to create a sense of oneness, like we are all working toward a common goal and have one another’s best interests at heart. That relationship extends to the players’ and coaches’ families. Karyn had developed a friendship with owner Mike Brown’s daughter, Katie Blackb
urn. Karyn and Katie played golf together while I was with the team. All the “family” connections gave the grievance hearing the feel of a divorce proceeding. No wonder I felt so uncomfortable walking through the main doors of the stadium office area.

  The NFL’s lawyer greeted Tim and me as soon as we walked in. Katie Blackburn also came over and said hello and asked about my family. I saw one or two other Bengals staff members who asked about my health in a way that seemed to suggest they were genuinely concerned about me. Everyone seemed so cordial and kind. I started to think my apprehensions were misguided.

  And then the hearing started.

  The conference room where the hearing took place looked and felt like a miniature Law & Order set. The arbitrator sat at the end of a large conference table, while the lawyers from the two sides sat opposite each other. A courtroom stenographer sat off to one side, typing out everything that was said.

  I was one of the first witnesses called to testify. I do not remember the specific questions the NFL attorneys fired at me, but I clearly recall the overall direction of their questioning. Specifically, they asked about my return-to-play workout and rehabilitation program. Their questions and the way they asked them implied I was able to do much more than I let on. They also seized on my concussion symptoms journal. One of the lawyers read specific passages out of it, then asked questions about why I wrote what I did. They challenged the accuracy of my record and suggested that I exaggerated my symptoms. In short, they all but accused me of lying about being hurt. All my life I’ve tried to live with honesty and integrity. To have that challenged, well, it ticked me off. However, I didn’t lash out. I answered every question and simply told the truth.

  I didn’t have to defend myself because even the members of the Bengals staff testified at depositions verifying my character. The team’s sport psychologist, Peter Ganshirt, had testified that I was “absolutely truthful and honest.” Even Tom Sullivan, the team’s neuropsychologist, who had cleared me to play (without telling me, I might add), had testified, “I can’t imagine Ben Utecht lying. . . . Ben is a very credible person.” I don’t think the team lawyer asking the questions appreciated those answers since part of the team’s defense hung on their trying to prove that I did not give an accurate account of my condition. I guess they believed I was faking my headaches and sensitivity to light and memory lapses and all the rest.