Houston, It Was a Real Problem

Just another wondrous fall afternoon in the Southwest.

Creaky stadium. Checkered end zones. Dill pickles. Frito pie.

A player writhing in pain on the 40-yard-line.

Just another football game poured from a coffee-table book.

Dusty kids chase balls kicked through the end zone. Their perspiring parents flap paper fans while drinking Ozarka water.

A team gathers in solemn prayer as a buddy is wheeled away with a broken left leg and fractured future.

Some days it seems everything that is good about this sport is also everything that is bad. So the fourth-ranked UCLA football team learned Saturday before 19,540 at cozy Robertson Stadium, when it won a game but lost a piece of its heart.

He is receiver Freddie Mitchell, the most exciting player on the team, the one who would have been so scary in January, the one with whom they had a decent chance at a national championship.

The last anyone saw of him here Saturday, he was crumpled on the sideline after landing wrong while completing a 47-yard kickoff return before UCLA’s first possession of the game.

“What’s wrong with my leg, what’s wrong with my leg?”’ he asked Will Dauchy, the Houston emergency medical technician who was summoned to help him.

“I think it’s broken,” Dauchy said.

“Can I play again?” Mitchell asked.

“Not this year,” Dauchy said.

“Oh, no,” Mitchell said, closing his eyes.

After recounting the incident later, Dauchy shook his head.

“I’ve never been what you call a big football fan,” he said.

For a while, neither were the Bruins, some of whom were as woozy as Mitchell after their 42-24 defeat of Houston.

“This is a heartbreaker, I’m not even excited about the win,” receiver Brian Poli-Dixon said. “I could have gained 500 yards receiving and I wouldn’t care.”

They all say they understand the risks. They know that while dancing amid marching bands and pompoms, they are always one step from a walking cast. That around the corner from adulation waits agony.

But, being college kids, they never think it can happen to them.

And they absolutely never thought it would happen to Mitchell, the redshirt freshman who was always talking, always entertaining, always making them believe.

He sat out the 1997 season because of academic deficiencies. When he took the field last week against Texas, it was his first football game in 22 months.

And what a debut, as he threw the first touchdown pass of the season on a trick play, caught another touchdown pass, ran the ball, returned the ball on punts and kicks, accounted for 267 total yards.

“It’s been so long,” he said afterward with a smile.

Now it’s, so long.

“This really hurts, it hurts the heart,” Cade McNown said. “It looked like he had turned that corner, but now . . . he just got cut off.”

Mitchell was scheduled for surgery Saturday night at Methodist Hospital here, and probably would be transported back to Los Angeles by the end of the week. Rehabilitation could take four to five months.

“If all goes well, there’s a very good chance that he can be performing next season, and be as good as he was,” said Gerald Finerman, team physician.

Injuries obviously can be much worse. There are enough Mike Utleys in wheelchairs to prove that Mitchell was very lucky.

Yet on splendid football Saturdays, everything is relative.

“It was just horrible,” guard Andy Meyers said.

Mitchell had just sprinted through a large hole and was speeding down the sidelines in front of the UCLA bench before being tackled out of bounds by Houston’s David Williams.

Oddly enough, Williams tackled Mitchell’s right leg, not his left. But his left leg landed awkwardly on the grass, and the upper bone just cracked.

“I saw him go limp,” UCLA linebacker Billy Pieper said. “I thought it was a cramp, but then his leg was just hanging there.”

Mitchell actually lay on the Bruin sidelines for UCLA’s entire first offensive series--about 10 minutes of actual time--before the EMTs arrived with a special splint.

The delay caused Mitchell to endure more pain that could not be relieved until he reached the hospital about 30 minutes after the injury.

“He was asking for something for the pain, but we are not licensed to give it out,” Dauchy said.

What might have made Freddie Mitchell feel better--but what he didn’t see--was many of his teammates gathered beside him in an impromptu prayer.

It was the first time most of them had prayed like that during a game, but defensive end Travor Turner said everyone felt it was necessary. So they fell to their knees and bowed their heads.

“We prayed out loud for the Lord to put his healing hand on Freddie,” Turner said.

And they were supposed to play a football game after that?

Well, they did, but they clearly missed Mitchell’s excitement and unpredictability.

Poli-Dixon, who must now do more, caught only two passes, although one was for a 61-yard touchdown.

More of the load also must be carried by Brad Melsby, who caught only one ball for 11 yards and now has only two catches in two games--not a ton for a starter in a Cade McNown-run offense.

“It is hard to lose that much productivity, we’re just going to have to find it elsewhere,” said Al Borges, offensive coordinator. “But this is UCLA, we have a good corps of receivers, we find it there.”

Yes, this is UCLA. But for a while, Saturday, it was just a group of uncertain young men, struggling to find their feet, trying to remember exactly why they call it a game.