|
Sidelines
Kalani Simpson
|
Northern Colorado’s Mendoza deserves rousing stadium welcome
CHEER him. Welcome him. Rain love down upon him until he feels like he's floating on air.
The first field he steps onto will be your field. The first fans to greet him will be you fans. The first cheers he hears will be your cheers.
Let him hear them. Lift him. Welcome him home.
When Northern Colorado's Rafael Mendoza comes out for warm-ups at Aloha Stadium this Saturday to play Hawaii greet him with a rousing, chicken-skin ovation. When he sends his first punt soaring into the air, do the same for his heart.
Let him know he's safe. Let him know it's over, once and for all.
No, this is not Mendoza's first game back since a teammate attacked him in the dark, last September, hit him in the head, stabbed him in the leg. No, he was actually back in action 11 days after the assault, even tried to tackle somebody. He went right back into the lineup. With a stab wound. That's how tough this guy is.
But this is the first game since the Aug. 9 conviction of his former backup, Mitch Cozad, of second-degree assault (and acquittal of first-degree murder). This is the first game since it's been over, conclusively, thankfully, finally over. This game marks the beginning, and the end. This is the first game since he can now, finally, hopefully, put this nightmare behind him. This is the first game of the rest of his life.
Let him hear it.
When he takes to the field shake the stadium with your lungs.
Anyone who's come back from what he's been through should get to hear that sound.
This was more than just an injury, the stabbing. It changed him, shook him. It scarred him. It was a traumatic attack out of the darkness. It was a teammate.
He may never feel the same walking down the street at night, getting out of his car in the dark.
He was convinced that someone had tried not only to stab him, but to kill him. And it was a teammate.
During the trial, when they replayed his 911 call, it was too much to re-live. Mendoza broke down sobbing. The judge called a recess.
"In the hallway afterward, Mendoza clung to (his fiancée) and sobbed. His family quickly surrounded the couple, hugging them," the Associated Press report said.
It's been that kind of year. A long, difficult, emotional, living nightmare of a year. But now it's over, finally, thankfully.
And a new one starts Saturday night.
He's come so far. He came back last September, thrusting himself back into the lineup right away, playing with what the Associated Press described as "a 3- to 5-inch gash" in his kicking leg.
But it's Saturday night that is the end of a long road. The first game of the rest of his life.
When he reported to camp, Mendoza told the Greeley Tribune that he'd had a lot of stress with this stuff, "but football is kind of taking my mind off everything and clears my mind of everything. When I am out on the field it is like nothing else is going on."
Northern Colorado coach Scott Downing talked about the hope of getting "the regular Rafee back."
On Saturday night he makes his first appearance. You are his first audience.
Let him hear it.
Let him hear you.
Welcome him home.