John U. Bacon

The University of Michigan’s athletic department just completed its $226 million renovation, on time and on budget. To celebrate, last Saturday Michigan rededicated its iconic stadium in grand style, including fancy receptions, programs, pins and not one but two flyovers, all followed by a big win over Connecticut.

But the show-stopper wasn’t a world-class pilot or an All-American athlete – just some guy who walked out to mid-field.

In 2007, on Christmas Eve, 23-year-old Brock Mealer was riding home from their cousin’s house with his family and his brother’s girlfriend. It was a wonderful evening, full of appreciation and promise.

Brock’s brother Elliott had just accepted a scholarship to play football at Michigan, and Elliot and his girlfriend seemed headed for the altar.

But on the way home, a 90-year-old driver named H. Edward Johnson ran a stop sign and struck the Mealers’ SUV. Elliott’s girlfriend Hollis Richer and the Mealers’ father, Dave, were killed instantly. Brock was paralyzed from the waist down.

The other driver survived, but never apologized.

Doctors gave Brock less than a 1% chance of walking again. They advised his mom to consider buying a specially equipped van for about $100,000, and to be prepared to change her son’s diapers. Hope was officially discouraged.

The doctors had their reasons. In most cases like Brock’s, there really isn’t much chance of walking, and to pretend there is can be demoralizing.

But Brock’s will to live hinged on walking again. With little hope for improvement, he had fallen into a deep depression, made worse when his insurance company cut him off last fall.

He still had family, though, and Michigan football. About a year ago, strength coach Mike Barwis invited him to work with them.

The guy had no idea what he was in for.

Michigan’s strength staff may be many things, but soft is not one of them. Barwis turned the job over to Parker Whiteman, who gave Brock his daily lunch hour, but not an inch of slack, especially when the going got tough – which it did, every day.

Within a month, Brock had re-learned how to stand up – just for a second, at first, and then for a moment, and then a minute. Then he started walking with arm crutches. And then, by this spring, just canes.

And that’s when head coach Rich Rodriguez told Brock they wanted him to help open the renovated stadium on Saturday. Leading up to the big day, Brock was as nervous as any player – maybe more. On game day, his brother, Elliott, was more anxious about Brock’s walk than his own play.

With a record crowd standing and cheering him on, Brock Mealer got out of his wheel chair, gripped his canes, and did something the experts said he never would. He took one step, and then another. And then another. He was so pumped, he was worried about going too fast and losing his balance.

Since the famed banner was first raised in 1962, Michigan football players have touched it over 30,000 times – and every single one of them got there faster than Brock Mealer did.

But as Mealer approached the block M in the center of the field, stopped, and reached up to touch the banner, no All-American or Heisman Trophy winner ever received more affection and respect from the crowd than he did.

When they write about that day a hundred years from now, Brock Mealer is the one they’re going to remember.
About the author: John U. Bacon lives in Ann Arbor and has written for Time, the New York Times, and ESPN Magazine, among others. His most recent book is “Bo’s Lasting Lessons,” a New York Times and Wall Street Journal business bestseller. Bacon teaches at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio; Northwestern’s Medill School of Journalism; and the University of Michigan, where the students awarded him the Golden Apple Award for 2009. This commentary originally aired on Michigan Radio.