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Ex-UC star battles back from depression, scary injury
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ctipton Offline
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Ex-UC star battles back from depression, scary injury
Ex-UC star battles back from depression, scary injury

Lindsay H. Jones, USA TODAY Sports 2:55 p.m. EDT August 7, 2014

"Honestly, I was miserable every day. "I was in pain, I wasn't happy about anything. I didn't feel like myself."
Derek_Wolfe


[Image: 1407426480000-Derek-Wolfe.jpg]
Derek Wolfe (95) looks on during a UC team photo at the Liberty Bowl Stadium on December 30, 2011 in Memphis.(Photo: Enquirer file photo)

ENGLEWOOD, Colo. — As the weeks of the 2013 season rolled by, former University of Cincinnati Bearcat Derek Wolfe's hulking body shriveled away — and with it, his mental health.

The muscle definition was gone from his chest and shoulders. His waist narrowed as he lost the girth around his midsection. When his weight dipped to its lowest point in nearly a decade, all the way down to 258 pounds, it felt like he was looking at a human bobblehead in the mirror.

"My head looked real big. I just looked weird. Extremely weird," Wolfe said.

Wolfe was equally unrecognizable when he flipped on video of himself in practice and games. He saw a man wearing the No. 95 jersey, but that guy lacked the strength, power an on-field fire that made the Broncos draft him with their top selection in the 2012 draft.

"I see film from last year, and I'm like, 'Who is that guy?' " Wolfe said.

But to look at Wolfe now, all 295 well-built pounds of him, reveals only part of his remarkable comeback from a lost season that included scary incidents that, over a three-month span, twice landed him in ambulances and hospitals and even in a medically induced coma.

To see Wolfe rib his teammates again, relax while sitting in a chair off to the side of the Broncos practice field and genuinely smile shows how he has been able to reclaim his life after emerging from a deep depression.

"Mentally, physically, emotionally — I feel like I'm right where I need to be," Wolfe told USA TODAY Sports this week, just after completing a set of 40-yard gassers after practice.
Wolfe2

[Image: 1407426805000-Wolfe2.jpg]
Bengals quarterback Andy Dalton (14) is flushed out of the pocket by Denver Broncos defensive end Derek Wolfe (95) in the fourth quarter of their game at Paul Brown Stadium in 2012.(Photo: Enquirer file photo)

His physical and emotional spiral began last August during a preseason game against the Seattle Seahawks, whom the Broncos play Thursday night in their preseason opener. Wolfe was being blocked by two Seahawks — one low at his legs, another, fullback Michael Robinson, near his shoulders and neck. Upon colliding with Robinson, Wolfe fell limp to the turf, unable to feel anything in his extremities as he was loaded onto a stretcher and driven off the field in the ambulance.

The paralysis was only temporary and after being diagnosed with a contusion on his spinal cord, Wolfe was released from the hospital in time to fly home with his teammates to Denver. Three weeks later, Wolfe was cleared by team doctors to play in the regular season opener. Physically, he might have looked OK to trainers and coaches, but it was a lie.

"That's the thing about my injury — it was more of a condition. My mental state was so out of whack, the depression, everything I went through, and I didn't know why I was going through it," Wolfe said. "When you start messing around with your spinal cord, that starts messing with your head."

Wolfe, who started every game as a rookie in 2012, started each of the Broncos' first 11 games last season and even recorded a sack in three consecutive consecutive outings from Oct. 27 through Nov. 17. Onlookers might not have noticed much was wrong, but those close to Wolfe did.

The weight loss was the most obvious red flag. No matter what Wolfe ate or how much he worked out, his weight continued to drop. He was irritable and he lashed out at people who were trying to help him. Already a self-described loner, Wolfe isolated himself further as the depression set in.

The Broncos were in the midst of their most fun regular season in years, racking up wins as Peyton Manning piled up touchdowns.

Wolfe could not enjoy any of it.

"Honestly, I was miserable every day," he said. "I was in pain, I wasn't happy about anything. I didn't feel like myself."

But he continued to get by, playing in a body that didn't feel like his own, and living with emotions he couldn't understand. But on Nov. 29, it all became too much.

Wolfe boarded a team bus bound for Denver International Airport. Just as the bus turned onto a service road, teammates noticed that Wolfe looked woozy and was sweating profusely.

"It was like someone dumped an entire bottle over his head," former Broncos safety Mike Adams, now with the Indianapolis Colts, told USA TODAY Sports recently while recalling his former teammate's seizure-like episode.

Teammates screamed for the driver to pull over. Coaches riding in another bus were alerted, and trainers called for an ambulance. Once again, Wolfe was on a stretcher, being driven away. More than a day later, he awoke in the intensive care unit at the University of Colorado Hospital in Aurora.

"When he first got there, he ripped all the (medical wires) off. He tore the bed apart. He's a big dude. They had him strapped in, but they couldn't hold him. I said, 'Why'd you do that?' And he said, 'Foxy, I have to be in a game. I'm playing a game today,' Broncos head coach John Fox told USA TODAY Sports.

"When he went out, he was on a bus to go to Kansas City. When he woke up, he was in the hospital. That would be a scary proposition. He couldn't remember a thing, so he obviously freaked out, and that freaked the hospital people out."

While the rest of the Broncos were playing the Kansas City Chiefs, Fox, who had returned to Denver earlier that week after recovering from emergency heart surgery in North Carolina, spent the day with Wolfe at the hospital. Wolfe was subjected to a battery of tests as doctors tried to figure out what was going on.

Fox recalled telling Wolfe to be honest with the physicians about how he had been feeling, both physically and emotionally. Wolfe's nervous system was overtaxed, and his mind overstressed. It was all connected.

"I felt bad for him, because they couldn't figure it out. Was it his heart? Was it respiratory? Really, what it came down to, it was really mental anxiety. He's been through a lot," Fox said.

The coach knew then that Wolfe's season was over, though the Broncos waited until January to officially place him on injured reserve. Wolfe tried to return to practice once, in late December, but was nowhere close to being physically or mentally ready to handle it.

"He needed to get away from it," Fox said.

Wolfe's road back to himself

Thus began the process of rebuilding Derek Wolfe. Even after two hospitalizations, he said he never considered that he might not play again.

"It was always, 'How quick can I get back?' That was really the issue," Wolfe said. "And the crazy thing was, the quickest way to get back to football was for me to just forget about football and worry about my life, get my life together. In doing that, it made me love the game even more than I did before."

Barred by doctors from doing any strenuous physical activity, but desperately needing to regain more than 20 pounds he had lost, Wolfe spent much of his time at home eating. He would cook pounds of ground bison and eat it by the bowlful, topped with avocado and ketchup. Needing some sort of physical outlet, Wolfe started doing yoga several times a week. That exercise has physical benefits and proved to be an emotional stabilizer as well.

"That really helped get my mind and body back on the same page," Wolfe said. "I was doing that while I was gaining weight, so it helped me keep my body control."

Wolfe chose to stay in Denver for most of the offseason, living in the house he recently bought, in order to work with the team's strength coaches once he was allowed to start lifting weights in March. He also wanted to be near his doctors.

Along the way, Wolfe forced himself to be less of an introvert and spent more time in public, launching a charity and holding a benefit beach volleyball tournament. He vacationed in Florida and has a steady girlfriend. These things had as much to do with Wolfe's comeback as anything related to football.

"It was my life. I had to get my life together," Wolfe said. "Going through that — I hate to say that I'm glad I went through it — but it was something that I really needed for me to see what is really important in my life."

Wolfe was physically cleared for full participation in the offseason program that began in April. He reported to training camp last month weighing 295 pounds, almost 10 pounds more than his playing weight as a rookie, when he had six sacks as a hybrid end-tackle in coordinator Jack Del Rio's defense.

When Del Rio looks at Wolfe now, he sees the player the Broncos drafted — and then some. Del Rio plans to use Wolfe as the starting left end in the base defense, which requires four linemen, but shift him inside to tackle in passing situations.

"First of all, it's great to see him out there, because he had a tough stretch. And he's come through it, and he's back doing the things he loves. And then for us, we're a stronger team with a healthy Derek Wolfe," Del Rio told USA TODAY Sports.

With the return of Wolfe and defensive tackle Kevin Vickerson (who suffered a dislocated hip in November), the addition of Marvin Austin and emergence last year of Malik Jackson and 2013 first-round pick Sylvester Williams, the Broncos believe they have their strongest and deepest defensive line in years.

"I'm expecting a great season out of myself," Wolfe said. "I just want our defense to be the best in the league. I don't care about my stats, I just want to be part of that type of defense."

Teammates have noticed the change, and not just the physical transformation. Since training camp began, they've watched Wolfe push around offensive teammates in practice and run his mouth during drills — signs that Wolfe has his football mindset back.

But it wasn't until the Broncos' scrimmage last week that Wolfe really felt normal on the field again. But Wolfe said he won't let himself make any "emotional decisions" upon his return to live game action. He'll just appreciate his health and second chance he's built for himself.

"I'm having fun now. I wasn't having fun last year, because of the pain I was going through and the issues I was dealing with," Wolfe said.

"But now I'm healthy, I'm strong, I'm mentally stable."

http://www.cincinnati.com/story/sports/c.../13721125/
 
08-08-2014 12:28 AM
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Dannyboy Offline
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Post: #2
RE: Ex-UC star battles back from depression, scary injury
Great story. It's easy to forget these guys are human. Trauma like that really gets to you.
 
08-08-2014 03:31 PM
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