Lions Have Own Holiday Story : Pro football: NFL team and Mike Utley, offensive lineman who was paralyzed during game against Rams Nov. 17, face a tough Thanksgiving.

It may be difficult for Mike Utley to give thanks today. He has his life to be grateful for. He has caring teammates to be grateful for. He has a family that loves him by his side.

But Mike Utley can’t walk. It happened in the flash of a nanosecond during a three-hour football game and it changed his life.

Utley, a 25-year-old offensive lineman for the Detroit Lions, was paralyzed from his chest down in a freak accident, a fall on his head, during Detroit’s 21-10 victory over the Los Angeles Rams here on Nov. 17. He was pass blocking against Rams rookie defensive lineman David Rocker on the first play of the fourth quarter.

After an eight-day stay in Detroit’s Henry Ford Hospital, a stay that included two major operations on his spine, Utley was released on Tuesday to begin rehabilitation and his second life.

In the two operations Philip Mayer, Ford’s chief of spinal surgery, removed bone fragments and pieces of spinal disks and inserted a wire to stabilize and brace Utley’s neck.

Utley can talk, and move his arms and hands slightly, and soon will be able to fully turn his head. But doctors say it would take a miracle for him to regain feeling and movement in his legs.

It’s come to this for Mike Utley, a free spirit who, ever since high school, loved to ride motorcycles and play sports and listen to heavy metal music. “Mike is a hero at our school,” said Utley’s football coach at Kennedy High in Seattle, Tom Merrill. “Everyone at school followed his career.”

His injury has led to emotions so varied and difficult to define that at times Lions players are simply at a loss for words. What happened reminds them how human they are; just how fragile their awesome athletes’ bodies are.

For quadriplegic Darryl Stingley, the first NFL player permanently paralyzed in a game, in 1978, watching Utley being carried off the field meant being forced to relive his own nightmare.

Utley has even made those who don’t play football think. Think about walking, think about taking a stroll down the street for granted.

This is about the sights and sounds of a tragedy. But also about courage and strength. Of hope. This is about life, Mike Utley’s and others close to him, and how they all were tossed into turmoil on a Sunday afternoon.

Before the Lions played the Vikings in Minnesota in the first game after Utley’s accident, Detroit players gathered in a huddle near midfield. There was a moment of silence for Utley. Some prayed for him. Some cried for him.

Players wore T-shirts with “Thumbs up” on the front and “Utley” on the back. The idea was spawned from the day Utley was injured. As he was being taken off the field on a stretcher, he looked over at his teammates and gave them thumbs up.

After the Vikings game, a 34-14 Lions victory, players dedicated the game to Utley, who watched it on television from his hospital bed and ate two pizzas while doing so.

“We felt we had an obligation to win this game for Mike,” said running back Barry Sanders, who had 220 yards rushing against the Vikings.

Said Coach Wayne Fontes: “They played their hearts out for Mike Utley back home in Detroit.

“Mike, if you’re listening, God bless you.”

There seems to be two reactions from players when they are asked to talk about Utley’s injury. One is denial: It can’t happen to me. Denial is the defense mechanism. If you don’t think about it, it won’t happen to you.

Vikings center Kirk Lowdermilk: “The thing with Utley ... it was a freak thing. It was an accident. You can’t worry about things like that or you get hurt.”

The other reaction is fright. Players were tentative, at least for the game immediately after such a catastrophe.

New York Giants nose tackle Erik Howard: “They say bad things happen in threes. Utley and I both played at Washington State and we both have had back injuries in the past. ... It’s scary.”

And the Lions. They are caught in a sort of Twilight Zone of emotions. They don’t want to dedicate every game to Utley, because that would mean he is no longer a part of them. But, deep inside, of course they know he will never be back playing with them.

“I hate to say we want to go out and win every game for Mike,” said quarterback Erik Kramer. “I guess because I think he is still a part of this team.

“This whole thing confirms that you have to live life to its fullest. You know I haven’t had anybody in my family have anything catastrophic happen to them. So this is really the first time that someone so close to home, someone I see every day, has been hurt like this.”

During Utley’s senior year in high school he bought a Harley-Davidson motorcycle. He rode it everywhere, and he rode it very fast.

“He always rode this motorcycle and I hated when he rode it,” said Merrill, the coach at Kennedy High. “Because I thought he was going to get hurt.

“One day I asked him what was the fastest he had ever gone on it. He said 154 miles an hour. I said, ‘Were you scared?’ He said, ‘Yeah, I was real scared.’ I kind of look back at that with some weird feelings. I mean, he could ride a bike at 154 miles an hour and not get hurt, but then play a game of football and get hurt.”

Stingley, paralyzed 13 years ago by a defensive back’s hit when he was a wide receiver with the New England Patriots, was watching the game on TV when Utley was carried off. Stingley saw himself as well -- “saw myself lying there again.”

Stingley knows what Utley is going through. He knows what in all likelihood lies ahead.

“Every day for him is going to be like fourth and goal. Some days he may not want to deal with that. I’m not talking suicide ... I never thought about it. But each person is different. I had too much to live for.

“Early on is the hardest. I don’t now how to put it into words. It’s like starting life all over again in another body. You get frustrated because you know what you used to be able to do. It makes you angry. It makes you difficult to be around. I know I was like that at first. But I decided I was going to take on my situation and face it head on.”

Something will be missing from the Lions in their annual Thanksgiving appearance. The game will go on, as it always does, and perhaps the Lions will get to the playoffs. But a chunk of their soul is gone for now.

“I guess the joy of winning, there might be something missing a little bit, for me personally,” said linebacker Chris Spielman.

“When you play you are so focused on the game, that’s really your only escape from it. But before a game, after a game, every day it’s on your mind. Because he’s your brother, man. You go to war with him every week. Now you have an empty feeling. That’s the way it is and you have to deal with it. And we are. Because he would want it that way.

“We owe it to him and we owe it to ourselves.”