There aren’t many days off in the fall for those involved with the machine that is Alabama football. But Jeff Allen, the director of sports medicine at UA, was enjoying such an afternoon in November when he received a phone call with an 850 area code, which serves the Florida panhandle.
He answered, and the emergency room doctor on the other end informed him that one of his football players, then-sophomore running back Trey Sanders, had been the passenger in a bad car accident. She told him, “We think he’s going to make it.”
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Those words were jarring to the man who oversees player injuries nearly year-round. He’s accustomed to long rehab processes for injuries to knees, feet, arms and shoulders. What he’s not comfortable with are the words “we think he’s going to make it.”
“I’ve gotten these calls before,” Allen said. “‘‘Yeah, so and so was in a car accident; he’s OK, here’s what we got,’ you know. But this one started out with a completely different tone, and I knew right there. ‘OK, this is a major situation.’”
Sanders’ injuries were bad. Aside from the pelvic injury that would require extensive rehabilitation, there were internal organ injuries. It was a scary accident.
After consultations with the doctors in the ER, the medical staff at UA and the surgeons from Andrews Sports Medicine in Birmingham, the decision was made to transfer Sanders to UAB, where trauma surgeon Dr. Clay Spitler would take the lead.
Nearly a year later, Sanders was more than just back in a Crimson Tide uniform in Atlanta when Alabama opened its season against Miami on Saturday. He was thriving. Sanders finished with 41 yards rushing and an emotional 20-yard touchdown run in the third quarter, after which he met the awaiting arms of the man who’d been with him throughout every step of the rehabilitation process, Alabama’s director of rehabilitation Jeremy Gsell.
“I wanted to cry when I saw Jeremy, but we were on TV, so I had to keep my composure,” Sanders said. “It was just a steppingstone knowing that fact that I’ve come a long way. It was a blessing.”
The moment was emotional and heartwarming for both men, so much so that it nearly cost Alabama a penalty.
“He was about five yards out on the field, and I actually yelled and said, ‘Jeremy they’re kicking the extra point, get off the field,’” Allen said.
Trey Sanders embraced Jeremy Gsell after his touchdown Saturday. (Kent Gidley / UA Athletics)Those penalty yards would’ve been worth it after what Sanders went through to get to play football at Alabama again. There was a time in the immediate aftermath of the accident that no one would have begrudged Sanders simply walking away from football.
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Sanders signed with Alabama in the recruiting class of 2019 as a five-star prospect. He’s listed as 247sports’ 152nd highest-rated recruit since they began tracking such things.
In his first preseason camp that year, he made such a mark that he all but ensured himself of playing time during the 2019 season. But a freak play near the end of one practice ended his freshman season before it could begin. He fractured his foot, and a grueling rehab process awaited him.
So he returned the next season. Despite Alabama having Najee Harris and Brian Robinson, he saw action for the No. 1 team in the country up until an idle week in early November when he escaped his football responsibilities for the week and went to Florida. There, he was a passenger in a horrific automobile crash.
Rumors spread quickly on messages boards and on the internet. Some feared he’d died. Others speculated he may never walk again. Others just trafficked in the gossip that an Alabama football player had serious health concerns moving forward.
The athletic training staff at Alabama, led by Allen and Gsell, first came up with a plan to get Sanders back to a good quality of life. But it quickly became evident that Sanders wanted more. He wanted to play football again.
“We didn’t even talk about football for a while, we just wanted to make sure Trey was OK,” Gsell said.
There was a period of healing for the internal injuries that had to be fully recuperated from before the orthopedic rehabilitation could take place. It was so serious that one of his first exercises was simply standing up out of a chair.
It was clear, though, that Sanders had the right mental makeup to do the work.
“That’s an injury that a lot of us, I think, honestly can say we weren’t sure if he was going to come back from that,” Gsell said. “But he did, and he said he was going to do it from the beginning, and he did, and worked really, really hard, went through a lot of pain and went through a lot of work to get back to where he was. So, to me, that moment was just realization that he did what he said he was gonna do.
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“Regardless of the doctors or me or anybody else that dealt with him and helped him get better, if he didn’t have the right attitude, didn’t come up with his lunch pail ready to work every day, he wouldn’t be where he’s at.”
Allen said the patient is always the most critical factor in that process.
“We’re only as good as they will allow us to be,” he said.
Rehab consisted of work in the pool, weightlifting and more. There were times it was more than just uncomfortable or strenuous. It was downright painful. Yet Sanders kept moving forward at every step.
The level of trust each person had with the other helped pave the way to a full recovery.
“My first injury (2019) was the first time I ever missed a football season, and I’ve been playing since I was 5 years old,” Sanders said. “At first, it was pretty tough because I had never been out of football for more than a week, and this was the whole year. It was really tough mentally to process not being able to play football. There were times where I just wanted to give up on football because I had never been through that before, but that is where Jeremy helped me.
“There were days when I didn’t want to come in and rehab because I was hurting too bad. He always encouraged me, but also made sure I got my rehab done. He would tell me the work I was doing now is what was going to get me back on the football field. The training staff, the coaches and my teammates played an important role in not only physically getting me back on the field, but mentally getting me ready to play football.”
It wasn’t a normal process, either. The Alabama training staff is accustomed to ACL injuries, foot injuries, broken arms, torn muscles in shoulders, etc. For each of those injures, there is a process. That wasn’t the case here. There was no playbook for Sanders’ injuries because they weren’t football injuries. It certainly wasn’t guesswork, but there was an element of learning through the rehab.
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It also helped, at least mentally, that the UA training staff had helped lead the recovery of Tua Tagovailoa from his hip injury in 2019.
“It’s challenging because you know with orthopedic injuries, I always have somewhat of a script,” Gsell said. “So when an ACL happens, I know at this many weeks we do this, then we start doing that. There was no script for this. We just had to hit one milestone and then regroup and say, ‘OK, now we do this,’ then hit another milestone and say, ‘OK, we hit the second milestone, now what we’ll do is this.’ Start climbing that ladder, and Trey had to be willing to do it. In the beginning, just getting up out of the chair, starting to run, starting to lift weights. Those are milestones that hurt but were necessary, and he had to trust into the fact that what you’re telling me is right and what you’re telling me is gonna make him better. And he did that.”
All the work led to the moment when Sanders turned the corner on the right and headed for a touchdown against Miami. It was cathartic for Sanders and the UA training staff. For his teammates, it was celebratory.
“Man, I think that was one of the moments in the game that was really special for everybody,” wide receiver John Metchie said. “I think just all of us kind of knowing what he’s been through and all the work that he’s put in and just being able to see that moment, it was just special for everybody.”
It wasn’t an endgame for Sanders, though. He didn’t put in all that work for just one game, for one touchdown. In actuality, it’s a new starting point. His time away has allowed for Jase McClellan and Roydell Williams to get reps that otherwise would have gone to him. Alabama has lots of capable backs. Can he consistently find his way into the rotation?
The confidence he gained from that game is a building block. Even his grizzled veteran coach got caught up in the emotion of his return and all it took to make it happen. His respect has been earned.
“There was a point in time where I think he questioned, and a lot of us questioned, would he really be able to come back?” Nick Saban said. “Because of his perseverance and his resilience to continue to work the way he did is what allowed him to come back. When you see a player go through that kind of adversity, certainly makes them stronger as a person, but you also have a great feeling for seeing them be able to come back and do well in the game, score a touchdown and have some positive plays. Certainly for him, it’s got to be a great confidence builder.”
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No one would have blamed Sanders for walking away. But he wouldn’t allow himself to do it. That’s a large reason why so many people are happy for him. Adversity overcome is a storyline that never gets old. People are rooting for Sanders in a way that many five-star players don’t get. It’s not pity. It’s genuine happiness.
The relationship that Sanders and Gsell now have goes beyond football. There’s a genuine love there.
“Words can’t describe what Jeremy means to me and how important our relationship is to me,” Sanders said. “He isn’t my blood family, but he is family to me. The fact he stuck with me these past two years, even though there were times I wanted to give up, means so much. I can’t really put into words what he means to me, but he means more than anyone could imagine.”
(Top photo: Rich von Biberstein / Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
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