Groebner recalls night that changed his life

By Jim Bastian

Journal Sports Writer

NEW ULM -- It was almost three years ago but he can still remember the night; it is as vivid as if it occurred yesterday rather than in 1997.

It was a night that Dave Groebner will not forget. It is hard to forget something that happened to you as a freshman, especially when it eventually put an end to a promising high school football career.

IF YOU ASK NEW ULM CATHEDRAL FOOTBALL coach Denny Lux about Groebner when he entered his freshman year at Cathedral, he will tell you Groebner was showing that he had the ability and skills to dominate a game. He was 6-foot-4 and weighed 276 pounds.

"He ran the 40-yard dash in 4.91," said Lux."He had quickness and the strength to be special."

GROEBNER WAS PLAYING OFFENSIVE TACKLE THAT NIGHT, OCT. 4, 1997, because ironically his brother -- Ryan Christian -- had broken his leg earlier in the football season.

"I was playing offensive tackle (for my brother). I went for a standard crunch block and the next thing I know -- that is when it gets blurry, feeling the pain and knowing that something was wrong," Groebner said. "I remember bits and pieces, feeling like I was screaming, but no sounds were coming out. It is still kind of hard to talk about because you can see that that was the beginning of the end of my football career. I remember the ambulance ride home. It seemed to take forever. I was blacking out on the ride (to the hospital)."

What had happened to Groebner was a herniated disc on the C-5 and C-6 vertebrae. It caused some paralysis in his right arm.

It is doubly ironic, said Groebner, because the game might not have been played that night because one of the light standards on the field was not working right. "They thought about postponing the game, but everyone wanted to play that night. Maybe that was a sign not to play the game.

GROEBNER HAD DREAMS OF PLAYING FOOTBALL BEYOND HIGH SCHOOL. He had attended college football camps at Michigan last year (prior to his junior season).

"I loved the camp," Groebner said. "I loved the atmosphere. I had the size and the potential to go. I had aspirations to play college football and it is tough to let that go. Now I have kind of switched to academics and I know that I can make it that way. But it was a dream and I think that a lot of kids have that dream to play D-I football. I felt that I had a shot at that but ..."

GROEBNER SAID ONE OF the most vivid memories he has of the injury is the morning after he was hurt.

"I was sitting in the hospital and the doctors tell me that there is no way that I am going to play football again," he said. "But the next year, my sophomore year, I started again. That was a real achievement, but there is a certain point where you have to realize that it is not worth risking it all to play football."

Groebner said his dreams of playing did not end that day in the hospital when he was told that he could not play football again. But it was a lot of hard and, at times, frustrating, rehab, he added.

"They did a lot of massaging. Then, they would immobilize my head and pull on my neck. After that, it became more strength training, trying to get everything back to what is was. When I was hurt, I was probably bench pressing 285 pounds and after the injury, I could barely hit 135 (pounds). My strength in my arms is still affected. I have to work on my strength because the nerve and the muscle (in the right arm) are hurt and the muscles don't react the same."

Groebner's right thumb will still twitch because of the injury.

"There were times when the rehab was very frustrating and it was tough," he said. "I often wondered if it would be worth it. Driving up the the Twin Cities to do rehab and see doctors and neurosurgeons and knowing the whole time that it could require surgery. Neck surgery when you are 16 or 17 is a real scary thing. It was very frustrating all around.

"I was scared at times. I wondered if it would ever come back again. The doctors would ask you to squeeze their hand and you could not do a simple thing like that. It is frustrating because you start to wonder 'why me?' You wonder if maybe if I had not done that block that night I would be OK. When they tell you that you will never play again, a lot of people will say, 'OK' that's it.' But I wanted to make that comeback. I had to prove it to myself that I could not do it. There were some people who told me after the injury to throw in the towel."

Groebner felt that his junior season was not a good one, owing to the fact he wasn't able to play at full speed because of the injury.

THIS SEASON WILL BE HIS FIRST full season without playing football, a game that he has played all of his life.

"That will be hard, especially in (my) senior season,"he said. "You play all of those years and now, that you are a senior, you can't play. At first, I thought I could just walk away from the game, but it will be difficult and it is just not the game.

"You build up all that team unity and everyone looks forward to their senior season. ... I don't know what I will do when football starts. I thought about going to practice, but I don't know how I would handle it and I don't want to bring then down. I enjoyed playing, getting announced over the PA, reading about the game the next day in the paper. All of that stuff I will not be part of now, but I feel like I should be."

LAST WEEKEND, GROEBNER WENT TO A DIFFERENT SORT OF CAMP. Rathern than football, he attended the Summer Scholars Program at Washington University in St. Louis. "They allow you to enroll for five weeks in an undergraduate program.I was taking college-level courses, so I was in classes with other college students and I actually earned college credits for it," Grobner said. He maintains a 3.8 GPA at Cathedral.

"That is an example of how I have switched my focus. Last year, it was at a Michigan football camp and I excelled there. Now, this summer, I have shifted over to academics and went to a premier university to work on my academic career."

Groebner said he is interested in going to law school or business school. "I might actually major in something like philosophy because that is one of my interests. I am not sure where I will go but it will probably be either Washington University or Northwestern in Illinois."

RETURN TO 1997 ON OCT. 4 AND THAT GAME WITH NICOLLET and Groebner will say one thing. "I have replayed that play in my mind a little too much. ... If there was one thing in my life that I could change, I honestly don't know if that would be it, but it would be near the top. That night was one of the worst nights of my life and I can still tell you what happened. And I often wonder about the lights. What if we hadn't played that game that night? But I have to come to grips with it and realize that I cannot change it. All that I can do is go on with my life."