GW’s Fowler back after serious injury
By TED SILARY
By TED SILARY
THAT JAMES FOWLER kid was a darn good receiver, wasn't he?
Yeah, he showed good hands. Was tough in traffic. Plus, he had a knack for making plays in the clutch.
Wonder what happened to him? I haven't seen his name all season.
Maybe he transferred? Maybe he just stopped playing football?
If only things were that simple...
Fowler, now a 6-1, 220-pound senior, still attends George Washington High. And he'll be playing Saturday afternoon, 3:30 start, at Northeast's Charlie Martin Memorial Stadium as the Eagles meet Northeast for the Public AAAA championship.
Don't look for Fowler at tight end, however. Search for him among the grunts. He'll be easy to spot, because of a pad on his left forearm the size of a small country.
Though he pines for the glory that formerly came with serving his team at a skill position, Fowler, now a guard and linebacker, knows he's lucky to still be playing at all. Matter of fact, he's fortunate to still have that arm. Maybe just to be here at all.
"Five more minutes, he might not have made it," coach Ron Cohen said. "I tell his dad, he should kiss him every day."
Last April 30, at a friend's house, Fowler tripped and put his arm through a glass table. The damage was extensive.
Even now, after three surgeries (two of subtance, one for cleaning), his hand is more like a claw. Hold out your hand, face up, and start to make a fist. Stop about a third of the way through the process. That's where Fowler's fingers are pretty much stuck.
There's an ugly, jagged, still-pink scar on his forearm. Ironically, its shape pretty much resembles a goalpost and it runs all the way from just short of the elbow to the wrist.
Before practice yesterday, Fowler held out the arm and Cohen handled the preparations. Lots of tape. A plastic cast over that. Padding to cover the cast. One last coating of tape.
"Put this in the paper," Cohen said. "For the people who say I never do anything."
Fowler laughed right along with his coach. All these months later, he's trying his best to get through a still-tough situation, and every bit of levity helps.
Nonetheless, the flashbacks never quite go away.
Ask James Fowler how many stitches it took to close his wound and hear him say, "Hundreds. I don't know. Three hundred? Five hundred? They probably couldn't tell me because they lost count."
He pointed to the inner part of his left thigh.
"I have them along here, too," he said. "They had to take a vein from my leg to help repair my arm."
Repair being a relative term.
"After the season, I'm going to have more surgery," he said. "The hope for that one is that my arm will be back to normal in 5 to 6 months. Or at least close to it.
"Actually, I'm in more pain now than I used to be. But that's good. It means the feeling is coming back. I can actually feel it now when my hand hits cold water. Weird, right? Before, everything was just numb."
Fowler is grateful that his buddies maintained their poise when tragedy struck.
"If we'd just waited for the ambulance, I could have been in real trouble," he said quietly, sitting in the stands just before practice began. "The doctors said it could have been too close of a call. My friends did the right things. One tied a shirt around my arm and another drove me to the hospital. Luckily, somebody knew something."
The sight was frightful.
"My one friend said the blood was like a puddle. When he stepped in it, it splashed."
In last year's final, won by Washington over Northeast, 41-34, in three overtimes, Fowler contributed three catches for 30 yards and two touchdowns.
His best play was a 6-yard, fourth-down, high-traffic TD catch in the second OT. An incompletion would have given the Vikings the win.
Now that seems like a lifetime ago.
The accident caused Fowler to miss the rest of the school year, and he needed to attend summer school to catch up. He's back on target to graduate. Great support from his parents, Fiona and Chuck, and his girlfriend, Marisa Pellegrino, got him through the dark periods. Along with constant encouragement from his coaches and teammates, of course.
In time, he even learned to appreciate the needling of his fellow linemen.
"They think tight ends don't block, so how can I do it now?" he said, smiling. "My dad [a lineman who also played for Cohen] messes with me, too. Hey, I did a pretty good job with it when I was playing that position."
Luckily, Fowler is righthanded, so he has been able to function in school.
"I can make tackles pretty good, too," he said. "Though it was definitely hard to adjust to having this [problem]."
Understandably, Fowler greatly misses his former connections with quarterback Aaron Wilmer.
"The first game of the year, against Parkland, we hardly completed any passes," he said. "I was thinking, 'I could have helped us so much.' But I just couldn't.
"I guess I always took for granted my skill at catching a football. Not everybody can do that. It just shows that it can be taken away at any moment.
"I've learned not to take this whole football experience for granted. It's a gift from God."
Fowler, who lives in East Torresdale, said he has been told he remained awake pretty much throughout that first-night, touch-and-go ordeal, which began at Jeanes Hospital and concluded at Temple. Coulda fooled him. He remembers very little, which is probably a good thing.
His hospital stay lasted 2 weeks.
"Everybody was saying I'd be able to play again," he said. "Honestly, I didn't see how. I thought they were saying it just to keep me from getting depressed. I'm amazed I am able to play, really. I'm grateful to everyone who has helped me."
Fowler still attends three rehab sessions per week. They last 6 total hours, and mostly feature stretching.
"My nerves have to come back to a certain point before I can have the next surgery," he said. "Progress is definitely being made."
Partaking of college football is still very much in his plans.
"I might have to redshirt a year," he said. "I want to play receiver again. If this next surgery goes well, maybe I'll be able to catch again."
This year, junior Brandon Chudnoff is the Eagles' tight end.
"I guess some people think he's me," Fowler said. "I know if they're still looking for No. 44, they're not going to find me. Linemen can't wear that number."
But No. 58 numbers himself among the fortunate.
"I appreciate every day," James Fowler said.