Forward Progress

For the first time in more than seven years Monday, the world saw quadriplegic Mike Utley walk out of his wheelchair.

And slip.

In a small hotel meeting room here, the former football star’s knees buckled as he took his first public step.

Reporters and camera crews gasped. Two friends and his girlfriend struggled to help him regain his balance.

The tension was so penetrating, one reporter in the back collapsed with a thud, and paramedics were called.

Maybe Mike Utley had been dreaming.

Maybe he really didn’t have the ability to overrule doctors who’d said he would never walk again after he had landed on his head during a 1991 game with the Detroit Lions against the Rams.

Maybe this news conference was just a glorified telethon.

Whoever is going to start walking after more than seven years in a wheelchair, anyway?

The small crowd stared in silence.

Utley stared back.

“Just making sure these guys are paying attention,” he shouted, glancing at the men holding each arm.

Then, once again, the world saw Mike Utley fight back.

He took a deep breath, clenched his teeth, threw his weight back, raised his left leg, and took his first step.

He trembled. He gasped. The strain showed in the formidable muscles in his upper body.

He took another step. Then another. And another.

After seven tiny, stiff, clunky steps that covered 10 feet, he called for his wheelchair.

“Man, I would rather do double days,” he said.

He smiled. The crowd cheered. The message was finally clear.

This miracle news conference was not about a miracle.

It was about something far less dreamy and far more attainable.

It was about courage.

It was about the reality of a person living maybe our most fearsome nightmare, and how nothing can change that reality like toughness.

In an attempt to show the world how far a quadriplegic can travel with today’s medical advancements, Mike Utley inadvertently reminded us that the best way is still the old-fashioned way.

He takes steps because he has earned them.

It was a message that couldn’t have been any more powerful if he had entered the room floating.

Can he actually walk? No.

But were witnesses filled with wonder and inspired by watching him try? Absolutely.

And maybe somewhere, some devastated young person facing the same struggle will read this and be filled with the same kind of determination.

“A buddy passed me the other day and said, ‘Why are you trying to do this on national TV, with all that pressure?’ ” Utley said afterward. “I told him, ‘Because I want to show my family, and people who have supported me, that I have never quit. I will never quit.’ ”

If people didn’t believe it before, they believe it now.

Utley wore lower leg braces to keep his ankles from rolling. He had two football buddies holding his arms for balance, while girlfriend Dani Andersen helped straighten his feet from the front.

But those were his steps.

Bill Lewis, former NFL center who held Utley’s right arm, was still shaking his head later.

“When I heard about this, I thought, ‘He’s really going to walk?’ ” Lewis said. “But, I mean, I was just there for balance. He did it all on his own. He was actually moving his legs. It was amazing.”

That’s a good word to describe Utley’s life since he began regaining some feeling below his chest two years ago, after five years of six-hour workdays.

Doctors said that walking would be impossible after he broke his sixth and seventh cervical vertebrae--that’s a broken neck--while trying to block the Rams’ David Rocker on Nov. 17, 1991.

When he was wheeled off the field that day, he gave the Silverdome crowd a thumbs up, a sign that has become the symbol of his foundation.

At the time, he was 25, a 6-foot-6, 315-pound guard who was reaching the peak of his career.

It was a thumbs up that nobody really believed.

But Utley.

On the backs of T-shirts distributed in honor of Monday’s achievement, there are two thumbs ups.

“Every single injury is different, so I’m not saying that every quadriplegic like me can walk,” said Utley, who suffered an “incomplete” fracture, meaning he’s had the ability to regain limited feeling. “But one thing you do have control over is your mind.

“This injury cannot change you unless you allow it to change you.”

After regaining those tiny feelings in his legs, Utley continued working until he recently began taking baby steps in a gym in Wenatchee, Wash.

He became so excited, he decided to take a few steps publicly just to show his many supporters--including the National Football League, which helped him get the best treatment--of his progress.

So he called one reporter in Detroit and told him he was going to take those steps in Phoenix, where his foundation is based and can be reached at (800) 294-4683.

Soon, dozens of media outlets were calling.

The private display quickly turned into a very public showing, attracting cameras from all the major networks and a couple of stations from Detroit and even guests at the small hotel.

“I wasn’t making calls, I was taking calls,” said Allison Ward, the foundation’s publicist. “We had no big plans for any of this. But it is a good piece of news, and people are interested in good news.”

During his rehabilitation, Utley has learned to drive boats, scuba-dive, sky-dive and kayak. Last year he gained enough control of his lower arms that he no longer needs a personal nurse.

“I used to need somebody to brush my teeth and tuck in my shirt,” he said. “No more.”

But rarely, he said, has he felt the pressure he felt Monday. In fact, just before the news conference, he requested that nobody televise it live.

He would have been sweating, but because of his paralysis, he cannot sweat.

Wearing a blue Detroit Lions T-shirt with the thumbs on the back, his hair slicked back in typical renegade fashion, he rolled in front of the cameras with wide eyes and a water sprayer.

“It felt close to being in a ballgame,” he said. “But this was reality.”

Was it ever. The minute he got to his feet, just before that first ill-fated step, a cell phone began ringing somewhere,

“Dominoes,” he shouted.

Everyone laughed, then cringed as he slipped, then eventually applauded as he finished what he said was just a start.

“This is just a beginning,” said Utley, 33. “I am going to walk off that Silverdome field. I am going to walk my mother three blocks to church.”

He said his ultimate finish line, however, is something far less tangible.

“You know, I was 6-foot-6, 315 pounds,” he said. “I was proud to be as big as I was, as tall I am. I want that back.”

If you didn’t know any better, you would think that with those seven small steps Monday, he got that back.

Bill Plaschke can be reached at bill.plaschke@latimes.com