In my senior year of high school, we played a district football game against the Powell Panthers in Powell, Wyoming on October 4, 1985. At some point during the game, I got knocked out on the field and lost consciousness. After I walked off the field, I was taken by ambulance to the emergency room and diagnosed with a concussion. I only have a few scattered memories of this game.
I started as a defensive end (left side). I was also the deep snapper for punts and extra points, and I was on the kickoff and kickoff return teams.
We received the ball first to open the game. We did not have much success and punted. After snapping the ball, I ran hard down the middle of the field. As I approached the ball carrier to make the tackle, I was blindsided by a hard hit to the side of my helmet. It was a very hard hit and I do not remember much about the rest of the game.
After we scored a touchdown, Coach Hokanson sent me in with the play because we were going for two instead of kicking the extra point. I told Erik Campbell (our quarterback) the play to call. After he called the play and broke the huddle, I remember turning to Erik as we walked to the line of scrimmage and asking "What am I supposed to do?" He said just snap the ball on one.
I remember laying on the ground looking up at several of my teammates looking down on me. I thought it was strange that I was on the ground looking up while they were looking down at me. I do not know how or why I was laying on the ground. In those days, we did not have videos of our games, so I still do not know what happened to knock me out.
I was sitting in the dark (turned out it was the ambulance) and a woman took both of my hand in hers. Her hands were freezing cold. She asked me my name and then my birthdate. I told her my name and birthday. A few minutes later, she asked me the same thing again. I thought it was strange that she could not remember what I already told her. She continued to ask my name and birthday every few minutes. I was still wondering why she could not remember what I was telling her
In my head, I was trying to remember the other players on the football team. I would mentally check off about three or four of them. Then, I would forget who I had already named and would start over with a new list.
While I was in the emergency room, I remember a doctor asking me to look toward the corner. Then a blindingly bright light shined in my eyes. At some point, Mom and Dad were there too.
After leaving the hospital, Mom and Dad took me back to the team bus. As I got on the bus at the high school in Powell, all my teammates cheered while I walked down the aisle.
I do not remember why I did not stay with Mom and Dad. Powell is about 6 hours from Afton. Because we played a night game, the team stayed in a motel that night and came back to Star Valley the next morning.
The team went to a restaurant for dinner. We had salads with dinner. I was sitting across from Erik Campbell at the table. When the salad dressing was passed around the table, I put about 5 times the normal amount of salad dressing on my salad. Erik asked me what I was doing. I said I liked lots of salad dressing. I remember my first bite had too much dressing. I do not remember if I ate the rest of the salad.
We rode the bus back to Star Valley the next day. There was a dance at the high school that night. I went to the dance but was still having trouble remembering things.
Dad took me to see Dr. O.D. Perkes on Monday. By then, I seemed to be back to normal. Dr. Perkes gave me a clean bill of health. I practiced every night that week and played against Worland that Friday in our next game.
Concussion protocols for football have changed a bit since then.
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