During a football game in 2010, free safety LC Wright was sprinting to tackle the Plano Senior High running back hurling towards him.

As he dived, the player’s knee slammed into Wright’s right shoulder, knocking it completely out of socket. Wright collapsed to the ground.

Sitting in the stands, his mother Carol Wright sat at the bottom of the bleachers with her mother in the handicapped section. Not in her usual spot, Mrs. Wright could not see the commotion stirring on the field.

His dad, Jeff Wright, sat in the family’s usual seats in the reserved section, watching every move made during the game.

“It was a freak accident,” Wright said.

Wright lay flat on the ground, not moving. Coaches and trainers ran towards him. They found Wright gripping his arm.

“I was crying so hard, that the coaches in the booth could hear me through the headset,” Wright said.

As the coaches and trainers walked Wright back to the sidelines, he cradled his injured arm close to his body. Sitting him down, the trainers rotated his arm around until it slipped back into place. Realizing that it was her son that was injured, Mrs. Wright stood up in panic. She looked up to her husband in the stands, watching as they carried Wright to the sidelines.

“At that point I couldn’t tell what was wrong, but I knew it was bad,” Mrs. Wright said.

The next day, doctors found that Wright had torn something in his shoulder. However, just two weeks after the injury occurred, doctors felt Wright had healed enough to play football again. Still, he had to wear a protective brace to keep the joint in place.

Despite knowing he would have to get orthopedic surgery after the season was over and would not be able to have full contact for nine months, Wright decided to play in first round of the 8-5A playoffs, against Guyer.

He played the game against Guyer with no further problems.

***

Once the season was over, Wright had surgery. Doctors performed the arthroscopic operation, leaving only a small scar on top of his right shoulder. The summer before his senior year and only months after his past injury and surgery, Wright was put into a scrimmage game to play seven-on-seven – a play that designates seven players to cover seven players. Mr. Wright watched as his son once again was injured.

“He should not have been out there playing seven-on-seven,” Mr. Wright said. “I started second guessing myself as a parent.”

As two receivers and two defensive backs went for the ball Wright did as well. Once gravity hit, the four players fell back on Wright. He was stiff armed. His shoulder pulled out of socket again.

“I was devastated,” Mrs. Wright said. “We thought we had dealt with it when he got his surgery and it was repaired.”

Once again, Wright would have to have surgery on his shoulder. The surgeons went to his shoulder bone. They spent three and a half hours reconstructing his shoulder. This was his second surgery in less than a year.

Since Wright’s injury, head football coach Bryan Erwin has decided to never use the seven-on-seven while he is the coach.

“We have never been big on seven-on-seven,” Erwin said. “It isn’t a part of our program, due to the fact that guys are running around full speed with no helmets on. They are not protected. We just think that the risks are bigger than the rewards.”

The 2011 football season Wright rode the bench and was replaced by junior Dylan Ward as safety.

“It was like watching my little brother play instead of me and it was hard in the beginning,” Wright said. “I should be out there. I should be playing. But I can’t.”

His parents found it hard to attend the games to watch their son on the sidelines, a place where he had never been before.

“I wanted to be there to support him, but I couldn’t go and watch him standing on the sidelines,” Mrs. Wright said.

As a child, Wright’s dream was to graduate from high school and play college football at the University of Texas, and hope to later move onto the NFL. It was painful because Wright’s life had always been about football. Since he was 5, Wright played. He started with the Lewisville Football Association, then played at Lamar Middle School and finally at Marcus. He made the varsity team his freshman year. To remember the day he made the team, the Wright family marked Feb. 19, 2009 on their family kitchen calendar.

Wright’s future looked good. Starting his junior year, he began to get letters from colleges. Oklahoma State sent Wright an invitation to come and watch their spring practice. He was also receiving letters from the Air Force every other week. Colleges were waiting to scout Wright his senior year, but when he stopped playing, the letters stopped coming.

“With all the decisions we made, we still ended up with nothing,” Mrs. Wright said.

***

Just a few months before graduation, his plans for college have changed. He hoped to college on an athletic scholarship. Now must get in by his grades.

Instead he watched on Feb. 1, senior football players signed their letters of intent in front of friends and family. A picture and list of everyone that committed was sent out to all football parents. His friends signed to colleges such as TCU, Texas A&M Kingsville, UNT, and Benedictine.

“It was really hard,” Mrs. Wright said. “Boys that played with him got scholarships and he didn’t.”

At the beginning of the month, Wright received positive news for his shoulder. His shoulder is fully recovered. He will no longer have to attend physical rehab, and he can begin to lift weights to gain his strength in his shoulder once again. He recently was accepted to the University of Arkansas, and will be attending next fall, hoping to major in Business.

When his life was absorbed in football, it was all Wright ever knew. He now finds the sport is not everything, and that he will have to move on without knowing what his future will hold.

“I might try to walk on, but my real focus right now is to be a normal person,” Wright said. “I’m healed.”