SEATTLE — After offseason knee surgery and months of rehabilitation, Dexter Charles was looking forward to his senior season at the University of Washington.
Never did he imagine that he was facing the end of his football career.
But football, like life, can sometimes present unexpected, even cruel setbacks. Last week Charles was told that his ailing left knee — the same knee he had surgically repaired earlier in the year — would not allow him to play his final college season. With Washington’s 2015 opener just weeks away, team doctors recommended he give up the game he had played since childhood, and the game he hoped to continue playing in the NFL.
“One day I’m practicing with all my friends and the next day they say I can’t do this anymore,” said Charles, an offensive lineman and a 2011 graduate of Stanwood High School. “It was like my world flipped upside down in one day.”
When his knee was unusually sore and swollen after a recent UW practice, Charles had it evaluated by the medical staff. A doctor later drained the knee and found blood in the fluid. A subsequent MRI revealed an absence of cartilage, which meant the knee bones were rubbing together.
In fact, Charles said, “they were rubbing together so hard that the bones themselves were bleeding. That’s where the blood was coming from.”
He was given the option of still trying to play, but it would have meant sitting out the ensuing 2-3 weeks to give his knee time to recover. “I knew that didn’t make much sense,” he said, “so I had to make the decision that it was in my best interest to medically retire.”
“I’m still coming to terms with this,” he said softly. “I’ll hold my helmet and look at it and think, ‘Wow, what happened?’ It still doesn’t feel real.”
The greatest disappointment, he went on, is not just “leaving the game, but the way it was taken from me. I don’t get to play my last year and that’s heartbreaking. … I would’ve loved to go out on my own terms, but you don’t always get to choose that.”
His forced retirement follows another severe blow for Charles and his family earlier this year. In March, their home on Camano Island burned down and they lost most of their belongings. Charles lost everything except what he had taken with him to Seattle.
“The last five months have been pretty crazy,” he said. “Life will throw you crazy things.”
Still, there is some good news. Doctors have recommended a corrective operation in a few weeks, during which they plan to move his patella tendon to provide cushion and stability.
“This surgery isn’t meant for me to come back and play football,” he said. “It’s meant that I can play catch with my kids and walk a mile and do things (in later life) without having my knee hurt.”
In the meantime, Charles wants to stay involved with football. He plans to remain at Washington this season, helping out where he can. After that he hopes to become a graduate assistant for the Huskies or at another school, and all with the goal of becoming a college coach someday.
“I don’t want to lose this game,” said Charles, who graduated in the spring with a degree in anthropology. “I love football and I love everything about it. My five- or 10-year plan is to get into coaching and start rolling with that.”
UW head coach Chris Petersen and offensive line coach Chris Strausser “are pushing me towards it,” he added. “They believe that I could make a great coach and I buy into that idea.”
During the occasional dark moments, Charles finds solace in the many remaining blessings in his life. He likewise draws encouragement from his mother, Becky Charles, who has persevered despite a back injury about 10 years ago that causes her “to live in chronic pain every single day,” he said.
“Watching her go through all that pain — she walks with a cane — is hard. There’s one woman I love with all my heart and it’s my mom. I’d do anything for her. … I’ve learned a lot of toughness from my family. People assume that I grew up tough because my dad was a Marine, but a lot of the toughness I learned was from my mom. She’s a warrior, she really is.”
That type of perspective has helped Charles get past the occasional “Why me?” moments that followed his sudden retirement. He has also dealt with other injuries in his UW career, and underwent three shoulder surgeries prior to last season.
At times in the last week, he said, “I was like, ‘Why does this stuff always happen?’ But then I realized, ‘You know what, this is life.’ I can’t sit around and say woe is me. There are so many people out there going through so many different things and they’re worse than my situation.
“And you know what, I have a good life. I can’t complain. I’m part of a great football team. I graduated from a great university. And I’ll have an opportunity to try to coach. If I hang my head and say, ‘Poor me,’ I’m not going to get anywhere. And I wasn’t raised like that. … I want to focus on what I do have and what I can achieve from here.”
Being on the sidelines this season “will be hard,” he said. “This will be the first time at Husky Stadium that I won’t run out of the tunnel in shoulder pads getting ready to play.”
But as he begins a new phase of life, he takes with him a great many wonderful memories.
“Nothing beats the feeling of running out of that tunnel with the siren and the smoke, and with thousands of fans cheering,” Charles said. “Nothing beats scoring a big touchdown in a tight game, winning games you’re not supposed to win, and just being with the guys and having fun.”
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