NFL Tickets
Thanking my man upstairs for another victory! Quick celebration for this one and now it’s on to the next one #NDNation
— Danny Spond (@Dspond13) October 21, 2012
One day, Notre Dame junior linebacker, Danny Spond, is down on the ground, wondering if he will ever walk again. And on another day, Spond is down on that same Notre Dame turf once again—this time after catching the interception that sealed the Irish victory over BYU.
Actually, there was about two months in between that day of August agony and the early evening of October glory. But for Spond, who early on in the season tweeted, “I am a linebacker at the University of Notre Dame and I live for the Lord and to glorify him!” it was His glory that kept him going all along.
But back to that early August practice. Spond, who expected to start this year after being a back-up his first two seasons with the Irish, remembered that August 8th preseason practice starting like any other, except for the fact he had a slight headache.
It was a normal headache at first, a byproduct of football practice in August, Spond thought. But it kept getting worse, until Spond finally told the trainers that something was wrong…
The next thing Spond recalls was waking up in the hospital, unable to move the left side of his body.
“I was pretty scared, there’s no doubt about it,” Spond said. “There was a time where I didn’t know if I was going to be able to walk again because I really couldn’t move parts of my body and stuff.”
“So I was petrified…relying on Christ quite a bit. But through His grace, everyone’s prayers and the [help of] the best doctors around, I pulled through. [The doctors] really helped me learn what this was, and be able to treat it each and every day now.”
After a battery of tests to see if it was a concussion or even a stroke, doctors determined Spond had a vicious migraine that they had to get under control.
Spond lay immobile in bed for two days before the doctors solved the situation, but Spond now has medication to take on a daily basis to prevent the migraines entirely. And, after missing the first two games, Spond started against Michigan State and hasn’t looked back, saving his best game (five tackles, two pass break-ups, and of course, the interception) for last week.
Of course, as good of a game as that was, Spond, as his recent tweet suggests, will probably have to respond with an even better one if the Irish are to beat the heavily-favored Oklahoma Sooners. But if the Sooners, after suffering an early-season loss to undefeated Kansas State, say they will now play with nothing to lose, Spond, after suffering through a condition that could have ended his career, literally does.
“Just the love of the game is what got me through, honestly,” said Spond. That, and the love of the Lord.
So as the Irish prepare to take on an Oklahoma team who are ten-and-a-half-point favorites and climbing, in what Notre Dame coach Brian Kelly calls “the biggest game for Notre Dame in years,” perhaps you’d like to unite your suffering to that of Spond and Christ by joining the Suffering Irish. For, to paraphrase Our Lady, what have you got to lose?
Related: Notre Dame-Oklahoma 1957: A Lesson for the Irish in 2012?
(Subscribe to RSS)
Hey ND fans! Follow this link to get to Tom’s latest ND features. Follow him on Twitter, visit him on LinkedIn, and email him . And for you diehard fans, check out Suffering Irish too.
Share 
