Cooper Hazel

Alex Smith says he was ashamed of his leg and bitter toward football until rehabbing alongside wounded service members changed his life “In my rehab process, I'm so thankful I got this thing called the Secretary of Defense designation, which is this deal for civilians that are deemed to have what's called a warlike injury. And so I got access to military medical care because there were no athletes for me to look to that had gone through something like this at that point. When I had half a leg and they're moving body parts down and it was like, hey, so and so did this and came back to play. There was nobody. The only examples of any positivity were people in the military through the decades of wars in the Middle East and roadside bombs and IEDs that there were a lot of servicemen and women that had severe lower leg injuries, severe tissue loss, severe breaks. Which through the infection and the hit was kind of like where I was at” “So I got to go down and do my rehab at this military center. It doesn't matter what branch of the military you're in. If you have a severe limb injury, this is where you go. And it's in San Antonio, Texas. And it's called the Center for the Intrepid. And it changed my life. Again, I was super ashamed of my leg. It was grotesque looking and I kept it covered. I was ashamed of it. It represented everything that I had lost. I was really kind of struggling with my new normal. And I'll never forget going down there from day one. The military believes in this thing called group suck. Doing hard things, it's better to do them together. And so when you go down to this rehab center at the Center for the Intrepid, there are no private rooms. There's just one great big open room and it's surrounded by windows and everybody does their rehab together” “I'll never forget my first trip there again. I couldn't even stand on my leg. I got it all wrapped up. I've got this steel cage bolted keeping it together. And there's double amputees, there's triple amputees, there's terrible burn victims. And nobody is hiding behind their scars. Everything's out in the open and people are moving forward with their life. And the physical therapist, Johnny Owens, walks behind the desk and gets a football and comes back to me and he has me get down on my good knee. And again, mind you, I'm very bitter towards football at this point, and I got three young kids, two boys that love to play catch with their dad, and I have not touched a football from the day of my injury. And now this is four months later” “He brings out a football, throws it to me again. I'm on my one good knee on the ground, and he has me start playing catch. And this is from 10 feet away. And I'll never forget the light bulb going on of like, I can still play catch. Like, what else can I still go do. And it was the only place in the world where those guys were egging me on and goading me into you can do more… And that's the first day I said I wanted to play again was that day”