Taylor Houchin has done it all this season for the Cobblers. He leads the team in rushing yards, touchdowns, interceptions and points. (Photo Kevin Cox/IDS)
Near the end of the third quarter of last Friday’s game against Mitchell, everyone in O’Harra Stadium could feel the momentum swing towards the Central Cobblers. The players on the sideline started hooting and hollering. Taylor Houchin could feel it. Central’s star running back was playing the game of his life. He had already gained over 170 yards. He had intercepted a pass, kicked a 48-yard field goal, and he was playing like there was no tomorrow.
Time was suspended. Houchin was getting hammered every time he touched the ball, but he felt no pain. He was exhausted, but he felt like he was floating. Around the edges of the glow he could tell that this was one of those games that comes along once, maybe twice in a lifetime.
The Cobblers were down 20-9, but the defense had just smothered a Mitchell drive, and forced the Kernels to punt. When Houchin jogged to his punt return position, he had a feeling that this was Central’s time…Central’s game.
He caught the ball on the 20-yard-line, and took off to his left, down the sideline.
And then he got rocked…
No one on the Central coaching staff saw the hit. The pile was all the way across the field, near the Mitchell sideline. Taylor wobbled when he got up, and one of his linemen caught him. Maybe he just tripped on another player in the pile. Maybe the exhaustion was beginning to show.
Never mind. Central had the ball, and it was Taylor’s time to rock.
Houchin off-tackle for 8 yards.
Houchin up the middle for 21 yards and a first down.
Houchin up the middle for a 7-yard touchdown.
The only hint that there was a small crease in the flow of Central’s momentum was the extra point. The normally reliable Houchin missed it. Give an exhausted star a break…it was just an extra point.
And then, on the sidelines, he vomited.
“You okay?” His teammates asked? “Yeah, yeah. I’m good to go.”
“You okay?” The trainer asked. “Yeah.” He said with a big smile. “I’m just exhausted. I just needed to throw up. I’m good to go.”
Against Mitchell last Friday, Houchin rushed for 250 yards despite suffering a concussion in the third quarter. (Photo Kevin Cox/IDS)
At the end of the game, Taylor Houchin had rushed for 250 yards. With less than a minute to play, with the game out of reach, he pounded his way for a 23-yard gain. “I just wanted to keep playing, keep running.” He told me. “I can’t stand to lose. I just can’t stand it.” But all the will power in the world couldn’t hold back destiny.
Central lost 34-23.
After the game Taylor and his teammates sat on the sidelines in a river of tears. “I saw him crying.” Head coach Trent Pikula explained. “It was a hard loss. Everyone was crying. I didn’t know anything was wrong.” What Houchin hadn’t told Pikula, or the trainer, or his teammates, was that he couldn’t remember a single thing about the game after the punt return. It was all a fog.
“Everyone wonders if I hid it from Coach, or if I played through it. I wasn’t trying to be macho or anything like that. I didn’t even know that I had had a concussion. I just kept playing. I knew I’d gotten my bell rung. But even after I threw up, I didn’t know enough to know that I should come out of the game. When I got up the next morning, I had headaches, and I was sick to my stomach. I threw up again, and I couldn’t remember the game.”
Taylor spent the whole weekend in denial. He drove to Chadron with a friend to watch the Eagles play Colorado State-Pueblo. At lunch he couldn’t remember what he had ordered five minutes earlier. He walked into the women’s bathroom, and never noticed. He was lost in the fog, and couldn’t shake the headaches. When his friend’s dad explained that a concussion could take weeks to recover from, Taylor thought about this week’s game against O’Gorman, and the last three games of his senior season. He gritted his teeth and told himself, “Well, in that case, I don’t have a concussion.”
On Sunday, as if to will himself back to health, he slipped out of the house and lifted weights at the YMCA.
It wasn’t a smart move. He knew it. He didn’t tell anyone.
The headaches came roaring back. “I have always been able to do more than one thing at a time.” Taylor told me. “I can listen to music and do my homework, or send a text and listen to a conversation. But all of a sudden I couldn’t keep everything straight. It was like my brain could only do one thing at a time. I just wanted to sit in the dark in my room and listen to music.”
Houchin looks on from the sidelines this week at practice. (Photo Sam Hurst/IDS)
On Monday, he struggled in school. He couldn’t remember the lessons from last week, especially in chemistry. The headaches wouldn’t go away. He went to the Monday afternoon film session with the team, and watched the game on tape; all his great runs, his heroic effort. He could remember little fleeting moments, but he couldn’t remember a single play. That’s when he decided to come clean with Coach Pikula.
Trent Pikula did exactly what he’s suppose to do. He grounded Taylor from practice and sent him to the trainer. Slowly, he began to improve. On Wednesday afternoon he still had headaches, but they were mild. He hadn’t thrown up since Saturday.
“How’s your memory doing?” I asked him Wednesday night. “I remember talking to the Journal reporter after the game. But I still can’t remember a single play.” He told me.
On Wednesday afternoon, Taylor still held out hope that he could play against O’Gorman, but the clock was against him. He had to take his ImPACT test to see if he had returned to his baseline, and then he had to be evaluated by Dr. Chris Dietrich on Thursday morning. Dietrich would read the test, and consider it, but even if the test showed improvement, it wasn’t a “get out of jail free” card. Dietrich was bound to ask if Taylor as symptom free, and Taylor knew he wasn’t.
On Thursday morning, he was more hopeful than ever. No headaches. No nausea. He had a morning class, and then his appointment with Dr. Dietrich. That’s when reality came crashing down on him.
The fire bell rang at school—a drill.
The fire bell set off an explosion in Taylor’s head. It was so loud, head pounding loud. Back came the throbbing headaches.
“At first Dr. Dietrich seemed to be hinting but not really saying it straight out.” Taylor told me after his appointment with Dietrich. “He talked about how concussions work. It was really helpful. He told me about Sidney Crosby. He told me that everyone is different. Every concussion is different, and he couldn’t tell me when I would recover fully. And then he asked me, ‘Are you a junior or a senior?’ I told him I was a senior, and I could see him cringe. That’s when I knew he wasn’t going to clear me.”
“My feelings are a little bit of everything. Disappointment, anger, sadness. I only have a few more games left in my high school career. Now I’ve got to take it one day at a time. I can go to practice, and be with the team. But Dr. Dietrich told me not to do anything strenuous. Now I just hope I can be ready for next week, or the game against Stevens, or the playoffs.”
“I used to think concussions were just a myth. Now I know…it’s my brain. I’m not going to rush it.”
For more information about the work of Dr. Chris Dietrich and concussion research, visit the Facebook page of the Rapid City Concussion Project (http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Rapid-City-Concussion-Project/152955474717256)
What a great quote–”it’s my brain. I’m not going to rush it”. This shows what a smart kid Taylor is. You do only have one brain and it is the most delicate and and important “organ” in our body. Returning to play too early is dangerous and leaves an athlete recovering from a concussion vulnerable to a devastating reinjury. I applaud Taylor and his coaches for understanding what is really important in the long term. I also applaud Dr. Dietrich’s and Sam Hurst’s ongoing efforts to raise public awareness and educate the public about this topic. Good luck to Taylor and I hope he has a speedy recovery. If he weren’t so good at football I would tell him to get back out on the soccer field.
Taylor take care of yourself and don’t rush it. Hopefully you will be able to be back before the season is over, but for now be a sideline motivator and coach. The rest of the boys need to step up tonight in your absence and lets take the sting away of last weeks heartbreaker by shocking the state tonight. This is a special senior class that has stuck together thru alot of stuff that could have ruined a lesser group of young men. We are all proud of all of you.