Friday, Sept. 19, 2003 | 10:43 a.m.
Steve Guiremand covers college football for the Sun. He can be reached at [email protected] or (702) 259-2324.
The Heisman Trophy is supposed to go each year to who is supposed to be the best player in college football.
There is no other set criteria, although it usually goes to an offensive player who piles up glossy stats for a team contending for a national championship.
The favorite coming into the 2003 season to win the Heisman, Ohio State running back Maurice Clarett, took himself out of the running following several off-the-field problems that may have ended his college career. That opened the door for North Carolina State quarterback Phillip Rivers, whose stock has fallen recently because the highly touted Wolfpack have already lost games to Wake Forest and Clarett-less Ohio State.
This week's flavor of the month is Michigan running back Chris Perry, who leads the nation in rushing (183 yards per game) and scoring (16 points) and is coming off an impressive performance on national television against Notre Dame. But the Wolverines must travel to Oregon this week which is no easy task.
But one player who probably deserves to be a Heisman candidate over Clarett, Perry and Rivers but probably won't even make it to the ceremonies in New York is a special teams player from San Jose State.
Neil Parry, 23, won't throw for 4,000 yards, rush for 2,000 yards or catch 100 passes for Fitz Hill's Spartans. But what he accomplished Thursday night in just walking onto the field to play on San Jose State's punt return squad against Nevada-Reno should probably move him to the top of the Heisman list.
You want Heisman stats? Consider these.
Parry has accomplished those stats in the past 35 months since his college career seemingly came to a brutal end when a teammate, Zack Rance, was knocked into the front of Parry's knee while he was covering a kickoff against UTEP on Oct. 14, 2000.
"I heard screaming but I wasn't sure where it was coming from," junior Melvin Cook told the San Fracisco Chronicle this week. "To hear a grown man scream, you just turn instantly."
Parry had suffered a compound fracture of his left leg. Blood soaked through his sock. Nine days later, after a variety of infections attacked the wound, Parry had to have the leg amputation just below the left knee.
Almost immediately Parry began making plans for a very unlikely comeback. Only one other player is believed to have played Division I-A college football with an artificial leg and that was a kicker, Brian Hall, of Texas Tech from 1974 to 1976.
Parry not only had to go through the obvious physical obstacles but tried almost 30 different prosthetics and had to receive a special insurance waiver to be cleared to play. After the NCAA gave its blessing last year, Mutual of Omaha originally threatened to cancel its lifetime coverage for Parry's prostheses. But some negative media reports apparently caused the company to change its mind.
It looked like he would meet his goal of playing in the 2002 season opener against UTEP until further complications resulted in a 25th surgery.
Parry continued with his vow to play football again through it all, working hard in the weight room and also working out with the team on the field. He finally found a carbon-graphite prosthetic that allows him to cut nearly as sharply and run almost as fast as before the injury.
After practicing for six weeks full speed with the Spartans with no further problems, Parry got the news he had been dreaming off since the night of his terrible injury.
"This is something that he's earned," Hill stressed during this week's WAC media conference call. "It was not something that was given to him. If he can't do the job, he'll be replaced just like anyone else."
Don't count on it. Not after what Neil Parry has been through to get back.
As for the Heisman Trophy, it's too bad they don't keep stats for courage because Parry would have already sewn it up.
Does he deserve consideration for college football's most cherished treasure? One look at the trophy, with a player shooting out a straight-arm while ironically balancing on just one leg, would seem to answer that.
But for Neil Parry it really doesn't matter. After all, he's happy to just be playing football again.
"Anything inside white lines is better than being in a hospital bed," he said this week.
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