Chantel Jennings, ESPN Staff Writer 8y

Pharaoh Brown, who once faced amputation, returns in spring game

EUGENE, Ore. -- A few weeks ago, Pharaoh Brown sat 100 yards west of Autzen Stadium and tried to imagine what it would be like to finally be back, playing the game that almost took his leg.

It was only a year and a half ago that he faced partial amputation of his right leg following an injury that occurred during the Ducks’ game against Utah. He had stepped on a teammate’s foot, tearing two ligaments, but more substantially, he had also injured an artery in his leg that had cut off blood flow below his shin.

“That first play,” he said. “I’ve got so much built up inside me, so much I’ve been through. I don’t know how it’s going to be like when I score my first touchdown or catch my first pass. I try to imagine. I don’t know what I’m going to do in that moment.”

On Saturday he got a chance to find out on the fourth play of Oregon’s spring game as quarterback Travis Jonsen hit him for a 1-yard completion.

The answer?

Brown got up.

“It felt pretty good,” Brown said. “Getting hit is fine. … That sounds bad. I don’t like getting hit, but it’s OK because it happens.”

Brown had set the goal of returning to the spring game quite a while ago and he had let the coaches know that was what he wanted to do.

He has received support from coaches and teammates since he returned to campus a year ago (and before that the support came through text and calls from those same people). As he slowly moved from crutches to running to being cleared for contact, most have stood amazed at what Brown has accomplished.

“From where he came from in that injury, from his initial process of going from life-threatening to walking to playing football to, ‘Can he actually get back to as good as he was?’" offensive coordinator Matt Lubick said. “To see all those things come to fruition, it’s a miracle.”

Brown had a chance to be in on only a handful of plays, but he made the most out of them: three catches for 43 yards. He called it a “glimpse,” but it did show that the return is more than just a feel-good story, it’s for real -- the redshirt senior has a chance to be the Ducks’ best tight end come fall.

That’ll be the next hurdle for the player. But first he needs to get back into “70-play condition” by focusing on running and getting back into the kind of shape he was in before the injury.

But with how fast and how far Brown has progressed over the past year and a half -- from an operating table in Salt Lake City to Cleveland to Eugene, no one is betting against him.

He has had his first play and his first catch back on his long road. Now he’s just waiting on that first touchdown. And based off everything he has shown and done, that might not be too far off, either.

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