Doubts Fade Into Glory Ackerman’s Choice To Struggle Through Another Comeback Pays Off In Big Way

As Mike Kramer and Paul Wulff walked out of Deaconess Hospital into the early evening darkness last February, they shared a common fear - that T.J. Ackerman, perhaps the finest offensive line prospect ever recruited to Eastern Washington, might never play again.

Back inside, several floors above and in the solitude of the private room his head coach and position coach had just left, Ackerman was reluctantly entertaining similar concerns.

The seemingly indestructible 6-foot-6, 305-pounder had just undergone his third major knee surgery in less than 15 months. He was staring at another long, painful period of rehabilitation and wondering if football was worth the additional sacrifice.

Ultimately, he decided it was.

And Saturday at Albi Stadium, the junior from Nooksack will start his seventh consecutive game at right guard when the Eagles face Youngstown State in the semifinals of the Division I-AA college football playoffs.

“Even as late as this summer it got a little hairy, wondering if I’d ever be able to come back and play at this level again,” Ackerman admitted earlier this week. “Now, obviously, we’ve found that I can, and I’m glad I made the decision to try.”

So are his teammates and coaches, who have watched him slowly regain his strength, technique and confidence and develop into one of the most dominant blockers on an offensive line that has been the key to Eastern’s first outright Big Sky Conference championship and current run at a national title.

“In the end, he’s still going to be the best offensive lineman that ever played here,” said Kramer. “When we got him back into the lineup you could just see, all of a sudden, that we had gone from being a quality football team to being a superior football team.

“He brought with him all those intangibles that make you know you’re going to be pretty darn good.”

Great things were expected from Ackerman from the day he decided to follow his older brother Tom, currently a backup center for the NFL’s New Orleans Saints, to Eastern in the fall of 1994. He had received scholarship offers from several schools, including Washington State and Oregon, but chose EWU after having visited his brother on several occasions.

“It just seemed like a perfect fit,” said Ackerman, who had also been a regular at the Eagles’ summer football camp. “I had known all the coaches for a couple of years, and I knew I’d get a chance to play when I was young.”

After redshirting in 1994, Ackerman started the first five games of his freshman season before blowing his right knee in a 14-7 loss to Idaho State. He ruptured both the anterior and medial collateral ligaments and suffered extensive cartilage damage.

The ligaments were reattached during a long, grueling surgery later that fall and Ackerman immediately went to work rehabilitating the knee. He missed spring drills, but was back in the starting lineup when the 1996 season opened, only to rupture the ACL in his left knee in the Eagles’ second game, a 27-21 win over Boise State.

He underwent surgery on that knee last November. Doctors removed the middle third of his patella tendon, including pieces of the bone to which the tendon was attached at each end, and used it to replace the ACL.

The second surgery, like the first, went well. But three months into a second bout with rehab, the staples that were used to reattach the makeshift ACL gave way, and Ackerman had to have the procedure redone last February.

“At that point, he was more familiar with the taste of anesthesia than with the taste of spaghetti,” Kramer recalled. “He was well aware of how to use the call button to summon a nurse, and knew everything about the surgery.

“He was very matter-of-fact about everything at the time, but when Paul and I left the hospital we looked at each other and said, ‘Maybe never again.”’

Kramer had gone through his own reconstructive surgery during the freshman year at Idaho after suffering a knee injury that transformed him “from a stellar defensive lineman into a holding offensive lineman.”

“When I hurt my knee, there were a lot of dark moments,” Kramer recalled. “You think you’re rough, tough and impervious to insult and injury, and then all of a sudden you’re wounded and your career as a player is in doubt.

“I know I bawled like a baby when it happened to me. I don’t know if T.J. did, but I bawled for him.”

What Ackerman did was search his heart for the will to make one more comeback.

“Once I decided to try, it was just a matter of doing whatever I could or whatever I had to do to get back,” he said, “because once I got back around the guys and coaches and got back on the field, all those old feelings came back.

“I knew then that this is what I’ve wanted to do for so long - and that nothing was going to get in the way.”

Ackerman started rehab again, but missed another spring practice session. He was cleared to practice this fall, but was held out of Eastern’s first three games in order to further strengthen the knee and improve his conditioning.

He was eased back into the rotation during the fourth game of the season and played nearly every snap three weeks later in a 40-35 win at Montana. He started the following week against Idaho State.

Since Ackerman’s return, running back Rex Prescott has extended his streak of 100-yard rushing games to eight and become the Eagles’ all-time leading rusher. Eastern, the most prolific I-AA offensive team in the nation, has won each of those games by an average of 15.3 points and now finds itself just one win away from playing in next Saturday’s national championship game Chattanooga, Tenn.

All of which has made the agony of nearly 15 months of rehabilitation nothing but a faint memory for Ackerman.

“I played about 70 plays against Montana and just about died,” Ackerman recalled. “But that game was definitely worth it. And from that point until this point in the season has made my career. It’s made every hour of rehab worth it.”

Kramer said the school will petition the NCAA for an extra year of eligibility for Ackerman because of the two seasons he missed with injuries. If it is granted, Ackerman will have two years to play at the college level.

But no matter what happens in the future, the year he will remember most is this one. And nothing has made Ackerman realize that more than the comment center Kevin Peterson made to him just moments after Eastern had clinched a share of the Big Sky Conference championship with a 31-14 win at Northern Arizona.

“We were in the locker room,” Ackerman recalled, “and Kevin looked at me and said, ‘Wouldn’t you have felt like fool if you hadn’t come back for this?”’

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color Photo