Carpe diem
Carpe diem
August 31, 2001
[FONT=Arial,Helvetica]Former Irish prodigy thriving in life after football[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial,Helvetica]Catching up with ... John Foley[/FONT]
By ERIC HANSEN Irish Sports Report
There are nights when John Foley thrashes and squirms until the alarm clock rescues him at 4 a.m.
Even after a good night's sleep, it's never a given that the former Notre Dame football player will be able to get out of bed by himself or hug his sons without pain or shave without remembering the hit that ended his career.
But every day John Foley looks in the mirror and his eyes light up.
"I'm feel like the luckiest guy in the world," he said.
"I live with a lot of pain, but I've been given a lot of gifts. The best thing that ever happened to me was for my football career to end. It opened the door to my dreams."
Foley's two youngest sons, Tyler (7) and Nicholas (4), think their dad works flipping burgers. The 34-year-old Notre Dame graduate actually works for a firm called McDonald Investments, drives a Mercedes Benz from St. Charles. Ill., into Chicago every day and shares a 5,000-square foot home with wife Pam, son Ryan (9) and the two younger boys.
He reads incessantly, rarely socializes outside the family and cringes that Ryan has taken up football.
"I never knew that life had so much out there," he said. "I mean, I lived in an apartment in the inner city growing up. My dad drove a beer truck. My mom worked as hard as anyone. But we didn't have much. So I was floored when I got to Notre Dame and there were kids who had computers in their rooms and whose dads had company cars.
"It's amazing the opportunity Notre Dame creates."
And equally amazing was how well Foley took advantage of it.
The hit
It was the tail end of Foley's sophomore year and Notre Dame was matched up with Texas A&M in the Cotton Bowl to cap the 1987 season. The Aggies had a promising, young linebackers coach by the name of Bob Davie and the Irish had newly crowned Heisman Trophy winner Tim Brown.
Foley was hardly a footnote in the scheme of things. The former Parade All-America linebacker and USA Today Defensive Player of the Year had been switched to the defensive line late in the season and appeared as if he had found a home there. His performance on the line against the Aggies was stellar.
The Chicago product had long been a terror on special teams and was operating with his usual proficiency that New Year's Day, even as the Aggies were pummeling the Irish 35-10.
"If you look at the tapes, Tim Brown almost broke the first two kickoffs for touchdowns," Foley said. "One of the reasons was because I was taking their '12th man' out every time. But the third kickoff they changed their strategy.
Texas A&M sent the two players after Foley -- "one to distract me, one to take me out," he remembers.
"I got hit so hard, I couldn't think straight. I mean, one guy put his helmet in my neck. I played the rest of the game, but my career was over. I lost the use of my right arm for about a year. The doctors told me that it might get better for a while but that down the line it would affect me tremendously. Eventually, they said, the pain would come back and it might never go away."
That wasn't the scariest part for Foley, however. Being separated from football forever was.
"I honestly had a lot of emotional problems when I got hurt," Foley said. "I actually, no exaggeration, thought my life was going to end. I didn't think I was smart enough to get a real job. I never had confidence that I could do anything out in the real world."
The slap in the face
What Foley never realized was that he had long been immersed in the real world, and the NCAA saw to that.
The NCAA had just instituted its most controversial legislation in years -- Proposition 48. Prospective student-athletes would henceforth be held to minimum GPAs in their "core curriculum" and minimum scores on the SAT and/or ACT college entrance exams.
Prospects who did not meet the minimums would be required to sit out their freshman season with no opportunity to so much as practice with the team and no opportunity to recoup that lost year -- even if they went on to become valedictorian of their class. (Proposition 48 still exists today, but in a much less restricted form).
The first group to be affected by the rule were the freshmen entering college in the fall of 1986. Foley, Tony Rice and Irish men's basketball player Keith Robinson were all snagged by the new legislation and ended up being the only Prop 48 players ND has ever accepted.
"I can remember how hard it was on me to have football taken away from me," said Rice, who eventually quarterbacked ND to the 1988 national title and received his degree.
"But for John, I think it was even worse. I'm glad he stuck in there. I'm glad he didn't give up."
Prop 48 casualties in that era carried a stigma. Some walked away from college altogether. The ones that stuck with it were often heckled by opposing fans in the games and fellow students in the hallways.
"I laugh at those people now who made that rule," Foley said. "I don't want to sound arrogant, but
I probably make two to three times what the president does. But then again, I owe it all to Notre Dame and to Lou Holtz."
Picking up the pieces
While playing football for the Irish, Foley hated Holtz, loathed his methods, was confused about what he stood for.
When he suffered the injury, that perception died.
"I wasn't taking school very seriously when I was playing ball," Foley said. "And I really didn't think Lou Holtz cared about grades anyway. Well, let me tell you something, Lou Holtz cares as much as anybody.
Lou Holtz spent more time with me after football was no longer there for me than when I was a player.
The whole university supported me. I owe everything to Notre Dame."
Foley graduated and found his way into the business world. He listened to motivational tapes in the car and metabolized every word. His wife put up with moves to Minnesota, Massachusetts, Tennessee and back to the Chicago area all within a five-year period as Foley eschewed the corporate ladder for a high-speed elevator.
"I turned down a job for seven figures a few months ago," Foley said. "It just wasn't a good fit."
Life as he knows it, though, is a good fit -- even though the doctors were right about the pain coming back.
"It happened when I was 27," he said. "Now, I've got a lot of swelling in my spine. Eventually, I'll need reconstructive surgery on my back. It's just a matter of when."
Yet if the pain never went away, Foley wouldn't rewrite the script.
"Life goes on without football because of Notre Dame," he said. "I never stop thinking about how grateful I am. In fact, I called Lou Holtz a few months ago and left a voice mail, thanking him.
"And when I can't sleep in the middle of the night, that's a great thought to hang onto. I'm 34 and I have my whole life ahead of me.
"I'm blessed."
