CENTENNIAL — If you hadn’t seen Ed Reinhardt Jr. drag his leg through the Folsom Field press box Saturday and hadn’t seen him in 17 years, you would have sworn he had made a medical breakthrough something akin to, well, what he had already previously accomplished.
He walked into his family den here Wednesday and launched into an inspirational speech, nearly morphing into Tony Robbins.
“Many years ago I had an accident. I was a football star at the University of Colorado. I was second in the nation in pass receiving — in the nation! My grade-point average was 3.6. In the second game of my sophomore year, I caught a pass, was tackled, my head hit the ground very hard. I was in a coma for 62 days. The injury was a subdural hematoma complicated by pneumonia.
“Doctors said it was a miracle I survived. They were sure I’d stay in a VEGETATIVE STATE!”
He finishes with, “At times I have been frustrated and filled with despair. But I am going to tell you one thing: If we stay open to the possibility that God has for our lives, anything can happen, even a miracle.”
He was asked what he gets out of telling people this. Suddenly, his eloquence disappears.
“Fun,” he said. “Good time. Great atmosphere.”
This month marks the 25th anniversary of the seemingly innocent hit that nearly cost Reinhardt his life at Oregon’s Autzen Stadium on Sept. 15, 1984. The Heritage High School graduate didn’t speak for three months and was in a wheelchair for a year and a half. His weight dropped from 230 to 163. Crawling along padded mats in this same den was only one part of a brutal rehabilitation that would reduce any NFL player to tears.
By 1992, he had gone from eight hours of daily therapy in which 140 volunteers worked with him every day for two years to running 5K fun runs, however awkwardly.
Since then, his improvement is less marked. Double vision still prevents him from reading. The right side of his body, while improved, remains impaired. He still speaks primarily in one- to three-word sentences.
However, his life has clearly begun to turn. His dream of becoming a football coach is still on hold. He has instead become a life coach. He and his father, Ed Sr., crisscross the country telling their story.
His father has his own story to tell. Ed Sr. reconciled with his father 30 years after Floyd Reinhardt left the family. Ed Sr. was on the verge of leaving his wife, Pat, and their six children. The next thing he knew, their strapping, 6-foot-5 son lay in a coma in Oregon.
Since then, family love has been the glue that kept Ed alive.
“We had a meeting up in Boulder (in 1994),” Ed Sr. said. “We were just sharing our story and tied Ed and my story together. On the way out, someone said, ‘You know, guys need to hear that story.’ “
Since then, they have done more than 300 meetings. They have addressed Christian men’s groups, civic organizations, “Everybody who has a father,” Ed Sr. said. More than 2,400 attended sessions in Albuquerque and Orlando, Fla.
Ed Jr. was asked what response he gets.
“Sad. Crying. Beautiful,” he said. He left out standing ovations.
“Our theme is this: the good that comes out of tragedy,” his dad said. “We talk about the importance of the influence of fathers in the family.”
They both tell their story. They show a five-minute video, narrated by CU broadcaster Larry Zimmer, that shows the tragic hit on which Reinhardt, a tight end, catches a pass, then hits the shoulder pad of a defender, then his thigh pad, then the ground.
Ed Jr. sings a couple of songs. The blood clot was on the left side of his brain, but the lower right side affects the singing voice. He sings fine. His intelligence is intact. However, while he thinks like he always could, he can no longer communicate like he has always wanted.
He’s a 44-year-old man trapped in the voice box of a toddler.
He still does rehab, but it’s not nearly as intense as it once was. Every day he punches a speed bag 1,000 times with his bad right hand and stretches on a table for 36 minutes. Botox helps with the flexibility. He can now lift his right arm to his shoulder. Seventeen years ago, he could barely pull it away from his chest.
“There’s more refinement in his movements,” Ed Sr. said. “He doesn’t trip and fall. Oh, God, when he first started walking, he’d come in and his knuckles and knees were just bloody.”
He listens to books on tape and uses voice-activated e-mail. He was asked if he’s happy.
“I’m happy,” he said. “Why? Good friends. Quality scenery. Expectations. Good siblings.”
Expectations are what still motivate him. He still dreams of coaching. He also dreams of something else.
“I’d like a wife,” he said, sadly. “Five-four. Five-six.”
How tall are you?
“I’m 6-7,” he said, before adding with a smile, “I grew 2 inches in a coma.”
His singing ability put him in various theater projects. One of his favorite songs, “Blazing Saddles,” finishes with a lyric — using his own personal twist — that sums up his new life better than any inspirational speech.
“I’ve conquered fear and I’ve conquered hate. I turned our night into day. I made my blazing saddle a torch to light the way.”
