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Cowboys’ special-teams coach and his wife grateful he’s on his feet, coaching
Posted Wednesday, Nov. 25, 2009 Comments (1) Recommend (5)Print
By JEFF CAPLAN
jcaplan@star-telegram.com
Joe DeCamillis stands in front of a full-length mirror in the Dallas Cowboys’ weight room.
His knees are bent. His arms are raised and cocked at the elbow. Each hand grips a side of a barbell. His neck, with little mobility to move up and down or side to side since the accident, now naturally protrudes forward so that he must roll his eyes upward to focus straight ahead.
Cowboys strength and conditioning coach Joe Juraszek is taking a half-hour out of his day, as he does every day, to help rehabilitate the Cowboys’ first-year special-teams coach.
"Everywhere I go with him," Juraszek says, smiling at a newspaper photographer shooting the workout, "they want his autograph, they’re taking pictures."
DeCamillis’ eyes shift to the left toward Juraszek. He smirks.
"Break your neck," DeCamillis cracks.
Concentrating again on the barbell, a weight that before the accident would have seemed insignificant, DeCamillis’ eyes rotate up and stare into the mirror. His face is clenched, as tightly as his hands. He finishes the lifts and rotates from one exercise to the next. Juraszek keeps the pace quick.
"He does a little too much sometimes, where I’m like, why don’t you take it down a notch?" says DeCamillis’ wife, Dana. "He said you don’t take it down a notch with Joe Juraszek."
Joe DeCamillis is fortunate to be alive, let alone upright. He wasn’t supposed to coach this season, and definitely not from the sideline, where danger lurks with every play. Yet, he has managed to insulate his constant pain and the numbness he still feels in one hand to defy his doctors, inspire his players and awe his loved ones — even if Dana wouldn’t mind if he didn’t always push himself so hard.
And so, as her husband of 22 years prepares for today’s game against the Oakland Raiders with another injection of pain-subsiding Toradol, Thanksgiving has never meant more to Dana.
Dana, Joe notes, has never meant more to him.
"She’s been such a rock during the whole thing, and I mean I loved her and respected her before this, but now that she’s done the things that she’s done to help me, I wouldn’t have made it through without her," Joe said. "So during the holidays, it’s a good time to reflect on how much I love her and how much I respect her."
Life-altering day
It is nearly seven months since Dana has slept beside her husband. The angle of his La-Z-Boy recliner in the guest room is the only thing that alleviates the pressure on his neck and spine enough to allow him to sleep.
Dana knew Joe had hurt his neck the afternoon of May 2, when a violent thunderstorm shredded the Cowboys’ massive steel-and-tarp indoor practice facility.
She didn’t grasp the seriousness of his condition until she entered the emergency room. Joe lay on a gurney, barely visible.
"He had like 12 doctors around him and they said to him, 'Don’t move, don’t even look at your wife.’ That’s when I just lost it," Dana said. "Because if they don’t want him to move, you know it’s really bad and then they proceeded to tell me that he dislocated his neck. They likened him to kind of a bobble head. They said he dislocated his neck, it was broken in two places, his back was broken and he had broken ribs.
"I was like, 'OK, anything else, anything else on that list?"
A few hours earlier Joe, very likely operating in a state of shock, had somehow managed to walk to his office and call Dana to tell her that he was OK. He then told her he couldn’t feel his hands and hung up.
Dana quickly phoned their oldest daughter Caitlin, a nursing student at Auburn. She called Joe and ordered her dad to lie down and not to move.
"The story will still give you chills," Dana said. "He was face down in water and somehow — he was trapped underneath the tarp — he flipped himself over onto his back and put his knees up just enough to give him some breathing room. He crab-crawled on his elbows out from underneath the metal and everything. He passed a couple of reporters and they asked him if he was OK. He said, 'I think I broke my neck.’
"So, I think he was aware. It was just that survival instinct that kicks in."
Joe underwent five hours of surgery. A 13-inch scar down his neck hides two titanium rods and 10 titanium screws that connect his neck to his vertebrae. He has another scar along his ribcage. A rib was needed to form a bone in his neck.
Incredibly, just two weeks later, Joe was on the practice field for the start of organized team activities (OTAs). He wore a cumbersome brace around his weakened neck and he barked at his players, embarrassingly, through a bullhorn.
"Using a bullhorn is something that I used to make fun of the old coaches for using some kind of sound apparatus," he said. "That was one thing I never really had to worry about."
Painful reminders
The pain and soreness are constant.
The surgeons sliced through muscles in his neck, which can make the simple act of holding up his head unbearable by the end of the day. Yet, he stopped taking any form of pain medication other than the shot on game day when he’ll be on his feet for three hours.
His doctor would prefer he coach from the press box. Joe refuses.
She might not like it, but Dana understands the tough-guy football coach. She’s the daughter of former Cowboys player and NFL coach Dan Reeves, who returned to the sideline three weeks after triple bypass surgery to coach the Atlanta Falcons in the Super Bowl.
She goes to every game, home and away, but she doesn’t watch the game anymore. At Cowboys Stadium, wives sit on the opposite side with a full view of the Cowboys’ sideline.
"I have what I call 'Joe Watch’ and I literally just watch him," Dana said. "He promised me that he has 53 bodyguards looking out for him, but he gets so into it, watching what’s going on and preparing for the next thing, he doesn’t always pay attention and a couple of times I’ve seen it come really close."
It scares her to death.
"Then the other night I saw a Cleveland Browns coach get just creamed into the bench, Brad Seely, who is a friend of ours," Dana said. "I was like, 'OK, did you see that? That could be you.’ I don’t watch the game anymore. I just watch him."
Cowboys’ special-teams coach and his wife grateful he’s on his feet, coaching
Posted Wednesday, Nov. 25, 2009 Comments (1) Recommend (5)Print
By JEFF CAPLAN
jcaplan@star-telegram.com
Road to recovery
With luck and constant rehab, Joe will regain about 50 percent mobility in his neck. Every day he believes he is lucky. He knows he could be, maybe even should be resigned to a wheelchair, as is Cowboys scouting assistant Rich Behm.
Joe thinks about Behm every day, and it drives him to work harder with his players and work more intensely with Juraszek. It all takes a heavy toll. By the time he gets home around 9:30 or 10 at night after arriving at Valley Ranch before sunrise, he’s exhausted.
"I see Dana for about a half-hour and then I’m out," he said.
"The hardest part of that," Dana said, "has been Joe was always invincible. He was so strong, and I never saw him in a weakened or compromised state, and it’s been hard for him to admit that he’s tired and wiped out."
Dana has become accustomed to seeing her husband less, yet caring for him more. She has the help of their daughter Ashley, who left the University of South Carolina after the accident to help at home.
"It goes back to just how every minute I get, I go to lunch with him on Tuesdays, and I just think the time that we spend now is all quality time," Dana said.
"It has been hard. Luckily, I love taking care of people and I’ve loved taking care of him when he’s needed me, and it’s good to feel like he does need me through all this. We did take those vows for in sickness and health and for better or worse.
"We definitely got some of the worst, but we made it through and I’m just happy to have him any way I can get him."
Jeff Caplan, 817-390-7760
Posted Wednesday, Nov. 25, 2009 Comments (1) Recommend (5)Print
By JEFF CAPLAN
jcaplan@star-telegram.com
Joe DeCamillis stands in front of a full-length mirror in the Dallas Cowboys’ weight room.
His knees are bent. His arms are raised and cocked at the elbow. Each hand grips a side of a barbell. His neck, with little mobility to move up and down or side to side since the accident, now naturally protrudes forward so that he must roll his eyes upward to focus straight ahead.
Cowboys strength and conditioning coach Joe Juraszek is taking a half-hour out of his day, as he does every day, to help rehabilitate the Cowboys’ first-year special-teams coach.
"Everywhere I go with him," Juraszek says, smiling at a newspaper photographer shooting the workout, "they want his autograph, they’re taking pictures."
DeCamillis’ eyes shift to the left toward Juraszek. He smirks.
"Break your neck," DeCamillis cracks.
Concentrating again on the barbell, a weight that before the accident would have seemed insignificant, DeCamillis’ eyes rotate up and stare into the mirror. His face is clenched, as tightly as his hands. He finishes the lifts and rotates from one exercise to the next. Juraszek keeps the pace quick.
"He does a little too much sometimes, where I’m like, why don’t you take it down a notch?" says DeCamillis’ wife, Dana. "He said you don’t take it down a notch with Joe Juraszek."
Joe DeCamillis is fortunate to be alive, let alone upright. He wasn’t supposed to coach this season, and definitely not from the sideline, where danger lurks with every play. Yet, he has managed to insulate his constant pain and the numbness he still feels in one hand to defy his doctors, inspire his players and awe his loved ones — even if Dana wouldn’t mind if he didn’t always push himself so hard.
And so, as her husband of 22 years prepares for today’s game against the Oakland Raiders with another injection of pain-subsiding Toradol, Thanksgiving has never meant more to Dana.
Dana, Joe notes, has never meant more to him.
"She’s been such a rock during the whole thing, and I mean I loved her and respected her before this, but now that she’s done the things that she’s done to help me, I wouldn’t have made it through without her," Joe said. "So during the holidays, it’s a good time to reflect on how much I love her and how much I respect her."
Life-altering day
It is nearly seven months since Dana has slept beside her husband. The angle of his La-Z-Boy recliner in the guest room is the only thing that alleviates the pressure on his neck and spine enough to allow him to sleep.
Dana knew Joe had hurt his neck the afternoon of May 2, when a violent thunderstorm shredded the Cowboys’ massive steel-and-tarp indoor practice facility.
She didn’t grasp the seriousness of his condition until she entered the emergency room. Joe lay on a gurney, barely visible.
"He had like 12 doctors around him and they said to him, 'Don’t move, don’t even look at your wife.’ That’s when I just lost it," Dana said. "Because if they don’t want him to move, you know it’s really bad and then they proceeded to tell me that he dislocated his neck. They likened him to kind of a bobble head. They said he dislocated his neck, it was broken in two places, his back was broken and he had broken ribs.
"I was like, 'OK, anything else, anything else on that list?"
A few hours earlier Joe, very likely operating in a state of shock, had somehow managed to walk to his office and call Dana to tell her that he was OK. He then told her he couldn’t feel his hands and hung up.
Dana quickly phoned their oldest daughter Caitlin, a nursing student at Auburn. She called Joe and ordered her dad to lie down and not to move.
"The story will still give you chills," Dana said. "He was face down in water and somehow — he was trapped underneath the tarp — he flipped himself over onto his back and put his knees up just enough to give him some breathing room. He crab-crawled on his elbows out from underneath the metal and everything. He passed a couple of reporters and they asked him if he was OK. He said, 'I think I broke my neck.’
"So, I think he was aware. It was just that survival instinct that kicks in."
Joe underwent five hours of surgery. A 13-inch scar down his neck hides two titanium rods and 10 titanium screws that connect his neck to his vertebrae. He has another scar along his ribcage. A rib was needed to form a bone in his neck.
Incredibly, just two weeks later, Joe was on the practice field for the start of organized team activities (OTAs). He wore a cumbersome brace around his weakened neck and he barked at his players, embarrassingly, through a bullhorn.
"Using a bullhorn is something that I used to make fun of the old coaches for using some kind of sound apparatus," he said. "That was one thing I never really had to worry about."
Painful reminders
The pain and soreness are constant.
The surgeons sliced through muscles in his neck, which can make the simple act of holding up his head unbearable by the end of the day. Yet, he stopped taking any form of pain medication other than the shot on game day when he’ll be on his feet for three hours.
His doctor would prefer he coach from the press box. Joe refuses.
She might not like it, but Dana understands the tough-guy football coach. She’s the daughter of former Cowboys player and NFL coach Dan Reeves, who returned to the sideline three weeks after triple bypass surgery to coach the Atlanta Falcons in the Super Bowl.
She goes to every game, home and away, but she doesn’t watch the game anymore. At Cowboys Stadium, wives sit on the opposite side with a full view of the Cowboys’ sideline.
"I have what I call 'Joe Watch’ and I literally just watch him," Dana said. "He promised me that he has 53 bodyguards looking out for him, but he gets so into it, watching what’s going on and preparing for the next thing, he doesn’t always pay attention and a couple of times I’ve seen it come really close."
It scares her to death.
"Then the other night I saw a Cleveland Browns coach get just creamed into the bench, Brad Seely, who is a friend of ours," Dana said. "I was like, 'OK, did you see that? That could be you.’ I don’t watch the game anymore. I just watch him."
Cowboys’ special-teams coach and his wife grateful he’s on his feet, coaching
Posted Wednesday, Nov. 25, 2009 Comments (1) Recommend (5)Print
By JEFF CAPLAN
jcaplan@star-telegram.com
Road to recovery
With luck and constant rehab, Joe will regain about 50 percent mobility in his neck. Every day he believes he is lucky. He knows he could be, maybe even should be resigned to a wheelchair, as is Cowboys scouting assistant Rich Behm.
Joe thinks about Behm every day, and it drives him to work harder with his players and work more intensely with Juraszek. It all takes a heavy toll. By the time he gets home around 9:30 or 10 at night after arriving at Valley Ranch before sunrise, he’s exhausted.
"I see Dana for about a half-hour and then I’m out," he said.
"The hardest part of that," Dana said, "has been Joe was always invincible. He was so strong, and I never saw him in a weakened or compromised state, and it’s been hard for him to admit that he’s tired and wiped out."
Dana has become accustomed to seeing her husband less, yet caring for him more. She has the help of their daughter Ashley, who left the University of South Carolina after the accident to help at home.
"It goes back to just how every minute I get, I go to lunch with him on Tuesdays, and I just think the time that we spend now is all quality time," Dana said.
"It has been hard. Luckily, I love taking care of people and I’ve loved taking care of him when he’s needed me, and it’s good to feel like he does need me through all this. We did take those vows for in sickness and health and for better or worse.
"We definitely got some of the worst, but we made it through and I’m just happy to have him any way I can get him."
Jeff Caplan, 817-390-7760