The Skip Report: Grace Under Pressure
9/26/2018 2:20:00 PM | Football
By Skip Myslenski
NUsports.com Special Contributor
The end is no easy thing for anyone to face, and this is especially true for the young and the athletic. He is then, in his prime, one of the blessed, a child kissed by the gods, a vigorous and vibrant being pursuing a passion and presuming a future that is fruitful and long-lived. To have all that suddenly vitiated, that is amongst the cruelest of fates.
But that is just the fate that befell the sophomore running back Jeremy Larkin, who was recently diagnosed with cervical stenosis and forced to retire from the game that he had played since he was five. This was certainly a blow capable of felling a sequoia and filling a belly with bilge and bitterness, yet he would have none of that. He would instead address the 'Cats at their Monday meeting and give a speech that Pat Fitzgerald would call "One of the most inspirational that I've heard from a young man." Then late Wednesday morning, after his third day as the team's new student assistant coach, he chatted with a small group of scribblers and again reflected that rare kind of courage Ernest Hemingway described as "grace under pressure."
He had long dealt with, he would say, the numbness and the tingling that are symptoms of his condition, which results in a narrowing of the spinal canal in the neck area.
"It would happen in games," he said. "I'd get up, check my hands, see if everything's OK, get the play and just keep going. It was like a whole body experience where it would shoot down the entire back and go all the way down to my legs. It was one of those things where I was thinking it's not a concussion because I'm still conscious, not nauseous, anything like that. That's why I never reported any of those symptoms. I thought something was wrong. But I felt it's just your funny bone, you know what I mean. Since I was able to still play and fully function I didn't think anything terrible was going on. But then I brought it up in the training room and they wanted to do a little bit of research. . .and we were able to find something like this and meet with all these specialists who were surprised I had made it this far in this situation."
But, ironically enough, there was no one incident, no one moment, no one scare that sent him scurrying to the training staff to discuss his discomforts. The genesis of the research that discovered his condition, he said with a laugh, was his "Talking too much. Being the person I am, I was kind of joking around about it. Trainers were obviously there. They're listening and kind of wondering what's going on. We sat down and started going over more of my background and history. That's how the whole thing got started. I don't think I was even talking about this case. I was talking about something else that was hurting and explaining, 'Oh, I didn't really feel it when I hurt it because of such-and-such.' So it wasn't that I even brought it up with them. It was their investigation. Luckily they were able to figure it out."
The team's trainers and its doctors and a trio of outside specialists—it was their work that figured it out.
"I had no idea," he said. "But being who they are, they heard the symptoms and were kind of wide-eyed and realized something may be wrong. That's when they started trying to figure out what was going on."
He learned of his condition last Friday and initially there was some denial on his part.
"Initially, yeah," he said. "I didn't think it would be something this serious. We've got to get it checked out, but it's not going to— you can't medically DQ me. There's no way this is possible. I've been playing with this for four years. So there's no way I thought it would get to this point. That's why it was shocking. So it was definitely tough the first time, hearing the news. But obviously you prepare for the worst. So in this situation I kind of knew. I was hoping I'd get some good news. But at the end of the day I got the news that I did. After processing it, I realized how grateful I am for our medical staff, and the people and family I have to support me."
Here is one big reason those people were important to him here.
"This game means a lot to me," he said. "At the end of the day, this decision was the right decision. But if it was on me fully, I think I would have made the wrong decision. That's why I'm glad we have the people we have here. The medical staff, the coaching staff, and all that support to help me out and push me in the right direction. . . . I didn't have (the symptoms) in daily life, only when I was playing football. That's why the decision was to retire. This is not going to effect me. I don't need surgery. I get to have a normal life. I just can't play football because of the risk of being paralyzed."
With his condition determined and his decision made, he went about informing teammates.
"What I did Friday, when I got the news," he said, "throughout the weekend I kind of went door-to-door to some of my good friends and the other running backs (to) just let them know what was happening and what had been happening and how we got to this point. A lot of guys didn't think this could be true. Neither did I. Everyone goes, 'You're joking.' Obviously, when I sit them down and tell them, 'Hey, man, I'm medically retiring'— I look perfectly fine. I'm standing up. There's nothing (obviously) wrong. So the fact that I'm telling them I have to medically retire third game in and we're on the bye week, they're like, 'What? There's no way. It's just not possible.' I'm glad I was able to have those conversations with those people. Rather than people feeling sorry for me laying in a hospital bed (after getting injured), being that kind of dude. That aspect of it is really great. That's what I'm really happy for."
Among those he visited was the middle linebacker Paddy Fisher, who was one of the few 'Cats who knew that Larkin had been suffering from tingling and numbness.
"But obviously we didn't think any of this would happen and so we'd just joke about it," he said. "So when we actually had the talk (on Friday), we were just sitting there sad. But then we had one of those moments when we were happy for everything that had happened and for making the right decision."
That pair would watch football together over the weekend and already Larkin was buoyed enough to bust on Fisher by asking, "Should I play? Should I play?"
"I'll still joke with them," he said Wednesday, standing on the 'Cats' lakeside practice field. "Like I'm still out here joking with them. 'Oh, man, I still got it. I'm retired but I still got it.'"
Larkin, in fact, was so unbowed, was so strong in the face of news that could have floored a lesser soul that he was able to even bust on the greatest 'Cat runner of them all.
"He couldn't believe it, just like everyone else," he said, recalling his call to Justin Jackson. "Then we talked about it and I told him, 'Hey, man. You're lucky your records are still in tact.' I'm going to be that guy, 'Awww. I would have had it. I would have beaten Justin Jackson's record if I didn't get hurt.' I'm going to be that guy."
Jeremy Larkin, of course, was smiling broadly as he said that, smiling as broadly as the Lake Michigan expanse and again reflecting that rare kind of courage Ernest Hemingway described as "grace under pressure."
