The Ole Miss trainer ran out onto the field, knelt beside Chucky and asked him what the problem was. ''I cannot feel anything, anywhere," replied Chucky.
The emergency medical team immobilized him on a spine board and took him to the small community hospital in Oxford. Once the doctors X-rayed him, they saw the catastrophic damage that had been done to his spine. He
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was immediately flown to the neurosurgery intensive-care unit at Baptist Memorial Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee, eighty miles away. His status: paralyzed from the neck down and fighting for his life.
The force with which he had hit that Vanderbilt receiver had caused four vertebrae in his spine to fracture explosively. The neurosurgeon who operated on Chucky said it was the worst such injury he had ever seen. The surgery to realign his spine, although successful, left him paralyzed from the neck down without the possibility of a return of function.
Chucky, a sophomore, vowed not only to walk again, but to return to Ole Miss for his degree. Ole Miss officials quickly established a Chucky Mullins Trust Fund and invited contributions from students, alumni and other universities to help meet the phenomenal medical costs, estimated at ten thousand dollars per week.
The following Saturday, Ole Miss was to play Louisiana State University. The student body decided to take up a collection for the Chucky Mullins Trust Fund at that game. So many students signed up that hundreds had to be turned away. The students waded through the stands carrying buckets and trash bags, and collected donations in excess of $175,000.
Chucky, allowed to sit up in bed and listen to the game on the radio, was stunned to hear the announcers describe the outpouring of affection for him. The story was soon being told all over America. Money arrived from every state in the nation. Within a few months, the donations had reached close to a million dollars.
Later that year, the university was preparing to elect its "Colonel Rebel," which is the school's highest accolade. Seven students were in the running. All withdrew their candidacies by writing a joint letter to the dean saying that it was their hope that all students would show
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their support by voting for Chucky Mullins. Chucky, a poor African American from Alabama, was named Colonel Rebel that year. It is important to keep in mind that this is the same school where federal troops were once needed to protect a single black student who wanted to enroll.
The Ole Miss football team completed the season by defeating arch-rival Mississippi State and gaining an invitation to the Liberty Bowl. Miraculously, only a few months after the devastating injury, Chucky attended the Liberty Bowl game, bound to his wheelchair. Moments before the game, as the players crowded around him, all wearing #38 on the sides of their helmets, he nodded to them and whispered, "It's time." Ole Miss defeated the Air Force Academy that night 42 to 29, becoming Liberty Bowl Champions.
The following year, Chucky sat in the corner of the stands near the players' exit, where each Ole Miss Rebel teammate clasped his hand before taking the field at the start of each home football game. That season, Ole Miss outgained their opposition by an average of forty yards per game, upset one conference powerhouse after another, won a national ranking and gained an invitation to the Gator Bowl in Jacksonville, Florida.
In January, against all odds, Chucky returned to classes at Ole Miss. Although some would call it his greatest achievement, his goal was to eventually get up and walk out of his wheelchair. He would tell reporters, "I know what the doctors say, but I will never quit trying."
Wednesday, May 1, 1991, Chucky was getting ready for class when he suddenly stopped breathing. A blood clot shut down his lungs. He never regained consciousness and died five days later.
All of the Ole Miss football team members were present at the funeral, where he was laid to rest by his mother.
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Afterward, some people would say that it might have been better if he had died right away and been spared the suffering. Obviously, they did not understand. Chucky, who came to the University of Mississippi as a poor kid with nothing, changed his world forever.
James Simmons
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Zap the Sap!
For me, growth begins immediately after I am able to admit my mistakes and forgive myself.
Kimberly Kirberger
I couldn't believe it. As I walked onto campus I saw posters everywhere with the words "Zap the Sap!" scrawled on them. I was the student body president and I was being recalled from my position. As my peers began arriving on campus, I watched them gather around the posters and then look my way. At that moment, I felt my heart, my character, and my whole body was being pushed back and forth over a cheese-grater. I was in pieces and trying desperately to keep my composure.
When I was elected student body president, campus officials congratulated me on my campaign saying it was one of the best the college had seen. My political career began by throwing Frisbees on the campus lawn. I would throw a Frisbee to someone I didn't know and they would throw it to someone they didn't know. Before long, we had built a community of people who met every day at lunch to throw Frisbees.
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One day while throwing Frisbees, the group spontaneously decided to climb the mountain near our campus. When we reached the summit, it felt like we were at summer camp. We laughed, danced and told dirty jokes. It was intoxicatingly fun. While playing like little children in the cool mountain air, we unanimously decided to do it again the following week. Our motto was "Bring a Friend."
So the next week while playing Frisbee, we would throw it to someone we didn't know, run over and invite them to climb the mountain with us. We would say, "Climbing the mountain is better than sex. We guarantee a climax every time."
We started out with a small group of hikers. But as the word spread, the number of participants increased. One day on campus, I met a woman in a wheelchair and we started talking. Her name was Grace. I asked her if she had ever been to the top of the mountain. She said she hadn't. I told her that my buddies and I would carry her if she were up for it. Grace accepted the offer. The next time we went up the mountain, we all took turns grabbing a corner of her chair as we carried her 1.7 miles to the top.
This was probably one of the most magical and deeply meaningful things I did in college. By the end, we had over seventy-five people climbing the mountain on Thursdays, including Grace. All of us who participated felt like we were part of something much bigger than we were. We were building a community and it felt great.
With the student body elections approaching, my friends from the mountain encouraged me to run for president. So I did. I knew I could make a difference. With a campaign team of seventy-five people rallying around me, no one was surprised that I had won the election.
The first thing I did as president was hang a sign outside the Associated Students office that read, "Under New Management!" I was proud of my accomplishment to say the least. Most of my life as a youth was spent in the
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principal's office for being in trouble and this was one of the few times I had actually achieved bona fide respect and appreciation from my peers.
They say absolute power corrupts absolutely. It sure did in my case. I let all the power go to my head. My ego, my arrogance and my pride were out of control. I began speaking down to people, demanding they listen to me because I thought I knew what was best. My friends and supporters tried to communicate to me that I had changed, that I was abusing my position, but I wasn't listening.
It wasn't long before the very people who had believed in my presidency began to turn against me. But I still wasn't paying attention. I took my obsession with power to such an extreme. A public conflict with the female vice president opened the floodgates for others who were upset with me. It became a blood bath. What started out as a wonderfully enriching experience, or so I thought, suddenly turned into one of my worst nightmares. "Zap the Sap!" posters would soon be everywhere on campus.
; When I realized I had made a mistake, it was too late. My whole world collapsed. I had never felt so much pain and sadness in my life as I did then. There I was, one of the most-liked guys on campus, powerful and making a difference, until my ego took over and destroyed everything.
A friend of mine said, "When a man looks into the abyss and nothing is staring back, that is when he finds his true character." I was empty and emotionally bankrupt. I was at the bottom and had nowhere else to go but up. I began to rebuild. I apologized to a couple of die-hard supporters, who for whatever reason did not quit on me, and asked them to forgive me for all the wrongdoing I had committed. They accepted. I told them I was going to fight this recall election. I wasn't just going to roll over and accept defeat.
The campus was in an uproar. Every day the newspaper had an article or letter to the editor saying what a big jerk I was. So I went back out to the campus lawn and began
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explaining to the students that the allegations were true. I had let the power get to my head and abused my position. I promised that I had learned my lesson and that I was not done serving the students. I wanted to build a coffeehouse on the campus, only the second of its kind in the state. I wanted to build it near the fine arts area and have the theater department do one-act plays, the music department perform concerts and the speech department recite poetry there. I thought to myself, Please do not recall me. I am not done yet.
I am not sure if I would have been recalled or not, but, by a stroke of magic or divine intervention, summer came. The charges were dropped and I stayed in office.
The next semester, I had a chance to begin again. As I approached my mission to build the coffeehouse, I was much more humble. I wanted to show the campus and myself that I was worthy of my position. I had never built a coffeehouse before and didn't really know what I was doing, so I asked everyone for help. I asked the students, my advisor, the governing board and the college president.
I used to think that I had to pretend to know what I was doing, that I had everything under control and that I was in charge. It was that kind of thinking that got me into trouble in the first place. Now, I was finding that the easiest way to gain other people's respect was to admit to them what I did not know. I was shocked. It was my not knowing, my humility, and my willingness to ask others for help that was making me win in my new endeavor.
I finished my term as president. In the end, the team that I had put together raised over $125,000 and we built a coffeehouse that is still there eleven years later.
On graduation day, as I grabbed my diploma and walked past my college president, he whispered, "Son, what doesn't kill you makes you stronger."
Eric Saperston
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I Said No
I was eighteen years old when I left home for the first significant period of time. As a college freshman, I spent the five-hour drive upstate arguing with my mother about the speed limit and the radio. When we arrived, I was eager for her to depart.
Growing up, I had been shy, reclusive and insecure. I viewed going to college as a chance to wipe that slate clean. Despite my parents' reminder that "we take our hang-ups everywhere we go," I wanted to become an entirely new person, outgoing and confident. I began to introduce myself with my middle name instead of my first, about which I had been teased for years.
I met Brian my first day on campus. A tall, charming senior, this Texan lived right down the hall and helped me move my things in. Although I was suspicious of the endless string of compliments he drawled, I was also quite flattered. I had never believed I was beautiful, though my family told me so all the time. I didn't date much in high school; just the occasional movie date with this boy or a walk around the mall with that one. I felt special when Brian called out, "Hey, gorgeous" even when I was wearing my glasses instead of my contact lenses.
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My roommate, Tara, had turned out to be a disaster. Tara was a homesick Bostonian who cried all day about how she should have joined the Peace Corps. Frankly, I also rather enjoyed the idea of her departing for some far-off country. The tension between us made Brian's room a haven of sorts for me. He would fix me screwdrivers, which I sipped while he downed beer after beer and talked about scamming people for money. I knew he was bad news, but at the time that just made him more appealing.
One night he came into my room and lifted me over his shoulder. He carried me, kicking, screaming and laughing, into his room and began tickling me. The next thing I knew, we were kissing.
We began fooling around every day. He was much more experienced than I, who had never done more than kiss. I was upfront about my virginal status, and he said he was fine with it. Then one night things got out of hand.
I remember certain things, like we were watching The Cutting Edge, and I was wearing my white ribbed tank top. I had been hinting all week about wanting to discuss ''where we stood," but he kept dodging the subject in that sly way of his. It was like pulling teeth, but I finally got an answeronly it wasn't the one I was hoping for. He didn't want a girlfriend because he was graduating in the spring.
I felt stupid and used. All I wanted was someone to love me. We started discussing sex again, but I knew I wasn't ready, especially with someone who wouldn't commit to me. He said there were other things we could do, to which I finally consented, even though I knew it was against my better judgment.
It happened so fast. One minute we were making out, doing "other things," then before I knew it, it was all over. I wasn't a virgin anymore. I was so shocked I couldn't move or speak. I was so angry, so scared, so confusedand I couldn't quite believe it had happened.
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After it was over, Brian made me swear not to tell anyone. At that time, I was so humiliated, I couldn't imagine telling another soul. I was sure my friends and family would lose all respect for me because I had sex with a guy I had only known for a short while. It took me a while to accept that what happened to me wasn't sex.
Most of us have a stereotyped image of sexual assault. In the TV movie of the week, rape is about being grabbed in a dark alley by a stranger. It is always violent and always leaves physical scars. That isn't what happened to me. As with most women who are sexually assaulted, I knew my attacker. The scars left by ''acquaintance rape" are emotional, yet the scars last just as long as, or longer than, physical scars.
After it happened, I had tests done for STDs and pregnancy, all of which were fortunately negative. I moved to another dorm, all the way across campus, where I would no longer be greeted with Brian's sheepish, "Hey, kiddo, how's it going?" I talked to my friends. I went to a counselor. It's a process, and it makes me angry that I have to live with it for the rest of my life. But it's fading. I am moving past it.
One thing that really helped me was the "Take Back the Night" march on campus, where victims, their friends and anyone opposed to rape joins in a rally. Afterward there was a speak-out, and girl after girl got up to tell her story. It shocked me to see how many young women have experienced some version of what I went through.
All of our stories are different, yet the same. While I wish this had never happened to any of us, it makes me feel better that I can be available to help someone else who may experience something similar.
Natasha Carrie Cohen
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The Rest of the Story
Jennifer would have caught my attention even if she hadn't stopped to talk that afternoon. The first couple of weeks in my writing class are always a bit unsettling. The students are a blur of unfamiliar faces, most of them freshmen trying to acclimate themselves to their new environment. When Jennifer approached me with a question after the second day, I was grateful for the chance to connect at least one name with a face.
Her writing wasn't perfect, but her effort was. She worked hard and pushed herself to excel. She was excited to learn, which made me enjoy teaching her. I didn't realize then how much she would also teach me.
One Friday afternoon, a fe
w weeks into the semester, Jennifer stopped by after class. She wasn't clarifying an assignment or asking a question about a paper I'd returned.