Loss Strengthens Brothers’ Bond

Others looked at them and saw two pieces of broken furniture.

Neil and Josh Parry looked at each other and saw a new stool.

One strong middle, three strong legs, difficult to kick over, impossible to collapse.

Four seasons ago, they were together on a San Jose State football field when Neil shattered his leg and Josh clutched his stomach.

Several days later, they were together in a hospital room when Neil lost his leg and Josh lost his will.

The younger brother, an amputee from just below the right knee, would never again walk normally. The older brother, his spirit cut off at the core, vowed to never again play football.

It was a Friday night. Neil’s amputation was the next day. So was Josh’s next football game. The hospital room was filled with silence, an occasional sob, then, from deep in the bed, one last idea.

“I looked at Josh standing there and finally said, ‘OK, let’s make a deal,’ ” Neil recalled. “I told him, ‘You don’t quit on football, and I won’t quit on myself.’ ”

Four seasons later, Josh will be the starting fullback for the Philadelphia Eagles in Sunday’s Super Bowl.

Neil, who returned to the college field last year and made a tackle while running on a prosthesis, will be pacing for him in the stands.

Josh will be wearing an “NGU” wristband in honor of Neil’s vow to never give up. Neil will be wearing Josh’s jersey in honor of a brother who wouldn’t let him.

If it’s anything like the Eagles’ victory over the Atlanta Falcons in the NFC championship game, afterward Josh will run over to the stands, find his little brother and hug him.

“I’m only here because of you,” he whispered to Neil, who couldn’t stop crying long enough to tell him the same thing.

*

Josh was always the star. Neil was always the dreamer.

Josh, 19 months older, was bigger and faster and going places. Neil felt lucky to tag along.

The boys’ parents divorced when Josh and Neil were approaching high school in Sonora, Calif., and they lived with their mother.

“I told Josh, ‘You take care of your brother and sister,’ ” recalled Nick Parry, their father. “He took that very seriously. That’s how he and Neil became so close.”

They fished together in a backyard creek and wrestled together on the lawn and once, only once, Neil actually found the courage to hit his older brother.

“I’ve never run so fast in my life,” recalled Neil, 25.

“I still remember how I couldn’t catch him,” recalled Josh, 26.

Josh went to San Jose State on a football scholarship. Neil followed a couple of years later as a walk-on.

Neil suffered the injury in the fall of 2000 while being blocked on the kickoff team in a game against Texas El Paso.

Josh was running onto the field to play defense. When he heard it was his brother, he sprinted to him, then froze.

“His leg was a sight I’ll never forget,” Josh said. “The bone was sticking out of his sock.”

An artery and nerve had been severed, leading to infections that, nine days later, resulted in amputation 10 inches below the knee.

“You just don’t lose your leg in football,” said Josh, his eyes misty and voice quietly angry when talking about his brother’s accident. “You don’t go through a life-changing event when you’re playing a game.”

Neil’s widely publicized misfortune reminded the sports world that, indeed, you can, and you do.

Josh said he felt like his career also ended that day.

“It wasn’t in my heart,” he said.

That is, until their memorable conversation, which occurred within 24 hours of kickoff of the San Jose State game at Nevada.

“He said, ‘If you don’t want to play for yourself, play for me,’ ” Josh recalled. “So I did.”

He rushed to the airport, caught a flight to Nevada, played the game on no sleep, even as his brother was undergoing the amputation.

Afterward, in the locker room, he told the team.

“I’ve never cried so hard in my life,” he said.

Then it was time for the rehabilitation, of Neil’s leg and Josh’s pro career.

Neil was trying to become only the third known amputee to play in a college football game. Josh was trying to crack the NFL after not being drafted.

It was obvious who had the more difficult assignment.

“Sometimes I would look at him ... with no leg ... times get pretty sad and I think, ‘Why him?’ ” Josh said.

But Neil never saw it that way. He viewed Josh’s struggle as equal. Together they would work out at the gym, goading each other, scolding each other.

“I would tell him to envision getting back in the NFL, what it would be like,” Neil said. “He would be spotting for me on the weights and saying, ‘Just think how your comeback is going to feel.’ He took my pain away.”

President Clinton visited Neil to offer encouragement, but it was nothing like hearing from his brother.

“Their relationship is the kind of thing where, if my boys are talking, and I walk into the room, they get real quiet,” Nick said. “They share things.”

When Neil made his collegiate return on a San Jose State punt blocking team, running downfield with a carbon graphite prosthesis, Josh was there.

“I couldn’t even open my mouth,” Josh said.

When Josh finally made the Eagle roster last September after being cut four times, Neil was the first person he called. Even if it was 5 a.m. in California.

“He called and said, ‘We made the roster!’ ” Neil recalled. “It wasn’t ‘me’ ... it was ‘we.’ ... I’ll never forget that.”

When Josh appeared in his first playoff game in January, Neil was in the Philadelphia stands, even though he was so sick with flu, he was vomiting into a bucket.

“That’s him,” Josh said with a grin.

Neil also has been with Josh during uncomfortable times this season, such as when Josh knocked out the Redskins’ Shawn Springs with a hit so vicious, the defensive back was carted off the field.

Though the game continued, and Springs eventually was OK, Josh’s mind drifted back to the scene of four years ago.

“I was like, you’ve got to be kidding me,” he said. “I was really praying to God for him. The rest of the game, I was going in there hitting, but it wasn’t the same.”

He told Neil about it, of course. They talk every day on the phone. Josh wants to stick in the league. Neil, graduating from San Jose State this spring, wants to become a coach. There is always another challenge.

When Josh takes the field Sunday against the New England Patriots, his little brother will, of course, be in the stands.

Neil has undergone 26 surgeries, tried nearly 30 types of prostheses, endured daily pain that one cannot imagine. Yet, as always, it is Josh who is his hero.

Said Neil: “I really look up to my big brother.”

Said Josh: “Neil is bigger than any of us realize.”