Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, September 1, 1995 TAG: 9509010049
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B-5 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LEXINGTON LENGTH: Medium
The winces and the grinding teeth tell you something is wrong. Brian Gliba is in pain. All the time.
The junior left guard on VMI's football team walks off the practice field and finds the only patch of long, soft grass around. He grimaces as he lowers his 6-foot-2, 265-pound body to the ground.
The Keydets open their season at 1 p.m. Saturday at Richmond. A second-team All-State selection by The Roanoke Times last season, Gliba is lucky to be on the depth chart for the game. A shoulder and spinal injury in late May jeopardized his future. He's constantly reminded of it.
``It doesn't tickle, that's for sure,'' Gliba said this week. ``I'm pretty good with the pain during practice. I usually don't feel it until after practice when it hits me like a thunderbolt.''
The thunderbolt first struck in May. Except that time, he didn't feel it. He didn't feel anything.
Gliba, a native of Chagrin Falls, Ohio, was doing squats at the Muscle and Fitness Gym in Cleveland. When he finished his last set, he tried to place the bar back on the rack. Suddenly he couldn't move his head or his arms. He could not move them for the next month-and-a-half.
Doctors gave him an MRI, X-rays, bone scans and other tests before diagnosing a subluxation (partial dislocation) of both shoulders and two bulging disks in his back.
The doctors told him not to play football again.
``They really screwed up my mind,'' Gliba said. ``I freaked out; suicide. I didn't know if I could handle it.
``I've got two more years of eligibility left and I couldn't play again? Uh-uh,'' said Gliba, an honorable mention All-Southern Conference pick as a redshirt sophomore in 1994. ``My goals were so high. I planned on being All-American by my fifth year, if not before.''
Even while he was pass-blocking and opening holes for the Keydets, his shoulders gradually were pulling out of their sockets and his spinal cord was compressing.
After the injury, Gliba rehabilitated two or three times a day and finally regained the feeling in his arms in July. His doctors gave him the clearance to play on Aug. 9, five days before summer practice began.
``We came to an agreement,'' Gliba said. ``As long as I knew the consequences of what might happen.''
And those are?
``Temporary losses of function of my arms, just a lot of pain.''
Wasn't that a worry?
``Nah, it hurt me to think that I would never be able to play the game again.''
VMI line coach Bob Solderitch can identify with Gliba. In the first week of practice at William and Mary in 1985, his senior year, Solderitch took a helmet to his right forearm, just above his wrist. The bone shattered, and a six-inch scar shows how serious the injury was.
``I didn't know what to think, but nothing was going to stop me from playing,'' Solderitch said, sounding much like his player. ``You can always tell the good ones. They want to do whatever it takes to get on the field.''
Nevertheless, it took the doctors' approval and Gliba's agreement to get him back out there. Gliba was so stunned by the prospect of a premature end to his playing career that he almost gave up his hope for a biology degree and a future in medical school.
``I didn't know if I could come back and face my teammates and coaches,'' he said. ``If the doctors weren't going to let me play, I probably wouldn't have come back. I probably would have gone to some community college back home.''
So now Gliba is back, he's starting, and barring a tragic recurrence of the injury, he could be headed to an all-conference type of season.
``I'll be lucky if I don't totally dislocate my shoulders this season,'' he said. ``If I do, then I'm done.
``But I've got to make it to Richmond. Each week, that game's going to be my goal. That's what I'm living for right now.''
by CNB