Shining Example

His crutches are propped against a wall and a San Jose State football helmet is on top of the television set in front of the chair where Spartan safety Neil Parry is resting, a knitted blanket over his lap.

Neil’s mother, Linda, asks him if he wants to change out of his shorts into a pair of sweat pants, but he says he doesn’t. Neil says he is fine in his gray Spartan T-shirt and blue athletic shorts.

He shifts his weight in the chair and tries to get comfortable, which isn’t easy. It’s just that the bottom of his right foot itches.

Only Neil doesn’t have a right foot.

“Pretty weird, huh,” Parry says. “At this moment, I can feel the bottom of my foot tingling. My toes too. But I just don’t have a foot.”

*

Neil Parry hasn’t had a right foot since Oct. 23, when his leg was amputated about 10 inches below the knee. That was nine days after he was seriously injured on the field in San Jose State’s game against Texas El Paso, when a teammate was knocked into Parry and rolled into the back of his leg.

Neil suffered a compound fracture of two bones in his leg. An artery and a nerve also were severed. The injury was so severe that Spartan linebacker Josh Parry had to look away after rushing to the side of his brother as he lay on the grass field.

“I was the first one out there to see it,” Josh said. “I only wish I had held his hand, but I left and went over to the sideline. I just had a real hard time with it.”

*

It seems strange to even say it, but at this moment, there are unmistakable signs that it may not be quite as hard for everyone involved anymore.

The sun is shining through the window in the apartment near the Stanford Medical Center where Parry and his mother and father Nick and his brother have been staying since the operation. But this is moving day and Nick and Linda, who are divorced and remarried, are heading back home with Neil to Sonora.

Josh isn’t going, though. He is San Jose State’s top defensive player, so he is going back to campus and back to practice for the Spartans, who upset No. 9-ranked Texas Christian a couple of weeks ago.

Neil says he is going to be back on campus before you know it. A sophomore who turns 21 on Sunday, he knows this semester is pretty well shot, but Neil intends to make it back by February, when a new semester begins.

“I’ll be walking by then,” he says.

And there’s one more thing. Neil plans to play football again for the Spartans, once he is fitted for a prosthesis. No one has ever done that before, but Neil says he is going to be the first.

In fact, Neil has even thought about what the other players might feel when he’s back on the field.

“It might be scary for some of my teammates if I’m running downfield and my leg falls off,” he says.

That Neil . . . always kidding, always upbeat, says Nick Parry. He remembers when the doctors at Stanford Medical Center told him that part of Neil’s leg had to come off. Nick began weeping. He dreaded telling Neil, but as soon as he did, he almost couldn’t believe his ears.

“You know those times as a parent when your child looks up at you in those eyes with questions and you don’t have answers?” Nick says. “I told him he had to have his leg removed at mid-calf. There was complete silence for about a minute and then he said, ‘Dad, sometimes you got to roll with the punches.’ ”

*

His son has always been a breath of fresh air, Nick Parry said. If there ever has been a kid with a good sense of humor and a bright outlook, it has to be Neil. He started playing football in the fifth grade, but he wasn’t recruited to play college football, so Neil walked on to the San Jose State team.

“I know it’s a cliche, but he carries sunshine around in his pocket,” Nick Parry said.

Linda Decker said Neil and Josh are as close as brothers can be, complete with the standard bickering and sniping that usually comes with the territory. She said little kids always gravitate toward Neil because he is so childlike and receptive.

Even though Josh is married and a father himself, Neil has lived with him for the last two years. You can’t get much closer than that, Nick said.

On the football field, their differences were exaggerated. Josh, 23, is 240 pounds and the leading tackler in the Western Athletic Conference. He has made 33 consecutive starts for San Jose State, where he is a biology major with a 3.39 grade-point average and a candidate for the Academic All-American team.

Neil hasn’t declared a major field of study in the classroom. On the field, at 176 pounds, Neil wasn’t used much as a safety because of his size, but he saw quite a bit of action on the special teams.

On Oct. 14 at Spartan Stadium, Deonce Whitaker’s 44-yard touchdown run early in the third quarter had given San Jose State a 30-27 lead over Texas El Paso.

Parry lined up on the kickoff cover team. His job was to defend the center of the field against the return. The return man caught the ball and found a lane but swerved to the left near Parry, who planted his right foot and then hit the ground when a teammate rolled into the back of his leg after being pushed.

“I heard it break,” Parry said. “When I hit the ground, I glanced at it. I didn’t look at it after that. I didn’t know the bones were sticking through the skin. They told me to lie down. I didn’t know I was bleeding.”

Parry was rushed to O’Connor Hospital in San Jose, where doctors told him his leg was badly infected. Parry said it was probably from the wet grass on the field.

“When they were trying to put my leg together,” he explained.

Doctors at Stanford Medical Center performed two surgical procedures to try to save his leg. Parry was adamant about it when he talked with his doctors.

“I said, ‘Dude, got to have my leg, got to play football again,’ ” he said.

Within days, there was no real hope that Neil would be able to keep all of his right leg. First, the doctors told Nick, who then told Neil.

Roll with the punches, Neil said.

“I was trying not to break down, not to lose it,” Nick said. “But as soon as he tells me that, man, I’m there. I got to be.”

It was Josh who told the team in the locker room after a Spartan victory over Nevada that Neil would have to have his leg amputated. Coach Dave Baldwin said he can’t forget the scene.

“It was probably one of the most emotional moments I’ve had in football,” Baldwin said. “We had just given Josh the game ball, and he told the team that his brother’s leg would be amputated. There was an eerie silence.

“[Neil] has been incredibly strong. I’ve never seen him cry or say a negative thing.”

*

Three weeks after the Texas El Paso game and four days after being released from Stanford Medical Center, Neil was back on the field at Spartan Stadium and watched San Jose State defeat Texas Christian.

There will come a time when he will be back on the field in a uniform, Parry is certain.

Martin Trieb, San Jose State’s team physician, said it’s possible that Parry could be right and that he will make history as the first college football player with a prosthetic right leg to appear in a game.

“With the technology out there, he can reach his goal, I’m sure of it,” Trieb said.

Maybe Parry will be able to accomplish what Sam Paneno could not. Paneno, 23, was a running back at UC Davis from La Canada who was severely injured in a game against Western Oregon, Sept. 11, 1999, and had his right leg amputated just below his knee.

Paneno, who has a prosthesis, is still at UC Davis and has a double major of psychology and philosophy. He will graduate in June and hopes to go to law school.

Parry is rethinking what his major should be. After his stay in two hospitals, he is considering nursing.

“Maybe I can help someone in my situation,” he said.

But what Neil really wants to do is slip on that blue Spartan jersey and play football again. His goal is to make it back so he can play the last home game of the year as a senior, when they are honored in a special ceremony. That would be a meaningful end to his college football career and complete the cycle on his own terms, he said.

“I took pride wearing the blue and gold,” Neil said. “I’m going to finish what I started.

“I am 100% positive that I am going to play again. I may not play safety, and if I can only run downfield on kickoffs then that’s what I will do.”

Neil doesn’t have to do anything close to that, Josh said. After what Neil has been through and the way he has faced up to losing his leg, Josh said Neil has nothing left to prove.

“What a man he is,” Josh said. “He’s 20 years old and one day he’s walking around playing football and the next he’s in a hospital. He’s special. He’s the best brother you could ask for. He has never once said it, but he deserves more. He deserves better than what he’s been given.”

Neil doesn’t really look at it that way. He says he’s happy about the size of his stump, because doctors have told him they have more leg to work with, so that could help when it’s time to fit him with a prosthesis next summer.

“I’m pretty happy,” he said. “It could be worse.”

While Neil counts his good fortune, tributes to his courage have poured in from football programs around the country. President Clinton even paid him a brief visit at the practice field on his way to a speaking engagement in San Jose. Parry said he told the president to make space on his calendar to watch him play again. Parry said Clinton said he expected he would have plenty of time.

The San Jose Sharks sent a jersey. TCU sent a special shirt they always give to the Horned Frog player who exhibits the best mental toughness and most extra effort. The USC Trojans sent a signed helmet. The University of Hawaii players wore a sticker of No. 32, Parry’s number, on their helmets. Stanford sent a football. The father of Stanford player Coy Wire offered him a job. The University of Nebraska sent a letter. Rice sent a helmet. The San Francisco 49ers made him a special guest at Sunday’s game against the Atlanta Falcons and gave him a game ball from the victory.

But Parry has an even more precious game ball. It’s the one the Spartans gave him after their victory over TCU.

“What happened to Neil has drawn us a lot closer together,” said defensive tackle John Hammer. “We all know it could happen to any one of us. We all feel it. It’s built a lot of emotion in all of us.”

The Spartan players wear a decal of Parry’s uniform No. 32 on their helmets.

“On third and long, you think about just mailing it in, then you look at his number and you can’t do it,” Hammer said. “You know that he would do anything in the world to trade places with us.”

Defensive tackle Bryant Yeager said Parry’s injury caused tears, but that the team is rallying around him in the final game Saturday at Spartan Stadium against Fresno State.

“We’re not going to win for the Gipper or anything like that,” Yeager said. “But we want to play with the spirit that Neil played with.”

Parry said he is grateful for all the support he has received, but that’s what he expected from the football fraternity anyway.

“In football, your goal is to go out there and kick the other guys’ tails, but if anybody goes down, everybody is there. Everyone playing the game knows anything can happen. The way I look at it, I have one brother, but really a hundred others.”

That’s the way Neil looks at it, all right. He said his parents taught him the proper values, the difference between right and wrong, how to carry himself, even in times of trouble.

He has always been a special kid, Linda said. Nick said he is relieved and overjoyed about Neil’s attitude. When he watched his son in such pain in the hospital, he thought about how it could have turned out even worse. And for that, Nick is grateful.

“I’m getting the person back,” Nick said. “I get to see him come in and light up the room again.”

Neil said he doesn’t feel like anything very special, just a kid who had a bad break who is trying to make the most of it. It’s like he said, you just roll with the punches or you get knocked out. And that’s not going to happen to him.

“If you say ‘Why me?’ and ‘Why did this happen?’ you’re dwelling on the negative and you’ll never get over it,” Neil said. “It controls you. I wish I knew at that exact moment to have lifted my foot up so it wouldn’t have been planted when I got hit. But that’s the way it goes.

“Right now, I’m looking forward to getting my prosthesis and moving on. I just wish I could speed things up.”

And there’s one more thing Neil wonders about right now, something he no longer takes for granted, but something that is a goal just as much as being there on senior night at Spartan Stadium in the blue and gold of San Jose State.

“I wonder how it’s going to be learning to walk,” he said.

Sounds as if he has already taken that first step.