“We had just finished our homecoming basketball game in eighth grade, and so we were celebrating after our big win. We were having a great time and then I had the bright idea, in the midst of our celebration, to jump over someone else’s shoulders… kind of like leap frog. So when I jumped over him and I came to land, I twisted my ankle and shattered it. I got rushed to the hospital in an ambulance and I had to have emergency surgery to fix a vessel that had burst open. I also had to get five pins in my ankle so that my body would be stabilized. I missed the rest of that season and half of baseball season in recovery, and I still have those five pins in my ankle after fourteen years.”