Back in 2009 we PITT fans eagerly awaited Penn Hill’s linebacker Dan Mason’s field debut as a Panther and it wasn’t too long before we were able to see the extent of how he could play. Mason, a four star recruit who was on everyone’s All-Everything lists, verballed early to PITT and impressed the staff enough that he was in the two-deep at Middle Linebacker coming out of the summer training camp.

He did well that year,  assuming the starting role after Adam Gunn went down with an injury. In his first start he had 11 tackles and two sacks against Navy which earned him the Big East Defensive Player of the Week. Pretty damn good start to a career, eh? Mason ended up with three starts in 2009 including the bowl game where he made a game saving interception at the goal line to preserve a win against North Carolina.

In 2010 he was the uncontested starter at Middle Linebacker and played in three games before his dramatic and very serious knee injury, sustained when he was tackling a Miami player after a pass reception. That is a gruesome injury and he found out afterward that it was much more than a common MCL/ACL injury as he had thought. Reflecting back on how it happened Mason said this:

“I think about it ’cause I was so stupid just,” Mason says with a smile. “I love getting contact so as he was going down I wanted to give him an extra shot, and I guess I blinked or something and he went lower than I thought he was gonna go. He took out my knee.”

 Mason initially didn’t know the damage that had been done. He thought he had torn his ACL. If only. “I rolled over and I looked down and saw my knee poking out. I was like ‘Oh man. I saw some of my teammates running the other way grossed out and everything. [The bone] wasn’t poking out of my skin, but you could see the form of the bone poking out. It didn’t break the skin.”

Ugh.  It was bad then and the news would get worse. Not only was his knee almost literally destroyed in being dislocated along with shredded ligaments but he also had serious nerve damage which resulted in “Foot Drop”, which sounds harmless enough but is a condition in which the person can’t flex the ankle into an upward position which leads to the foot staying at a downward angle and dragging along the floor.  Try waking with that let alone attempting to play ball again.

Needless to say he was out of commission for the rest of 2010 and subsequently the whole of 2011. Mason didn’t curl up into a ball and wonder why it happened to him but worked like a maniac to prove wrong the doctors who said he wouldn’t walk properly again let alone play football.

 Doctors initially told Mason it was highly doubtful he would return to play football. Mason refused to listen. He underwent five operations and spent countless hours doing rehab, working on flexibility in his knee, cutting, strengthening and generating nerve function again. He was able to run at full speed eight months after the surgery and was able to return to the practice field last season.

Five operations!  That’s four more than I would have had. “Just get me able to walk to the Social Security office for my disability claim Doc!”  Plus I’ve a low tolerance for pain and would have been addicted to the painkillers that first week in the hospital.

Mason did what he said he’d do and suited up for practices prior to the 2011 season. However, the dream fell just a bit short at that time as he remained on the sideline where he contributed to the team as a peer-coach and mentor to the other linebackers.

Many people thought that would be the extent of his involvement with the Panthers for the rest of his career, but Mason had a different outlook fueled by his belief in God and his unwavering pride.

“Yeah [it is a miracle],” Mason said, “but I couldn’t stop rehabbing and everything, trying to get back. God put something in me, I just couldn’t [quit], I just had to try. It was working hard and faith. I was doubting right after the injury, but that is the only time I doubted. But, once I just got back into it, got my mindset right, it just started coming back.  “But it isn’t me, don’t get me wrong, it isn’t me,” he said, then gave all the credit to God.

There were a ton of questions we PITT fans had about Mason going into the 2012 spring practices when he’d been medically cleared to play and would fight to regain his starting job. What would he be able to do physically? What was his frame of mind after that life-changing experience? What did the coaches think of the situation? All valid questions and ones that were answered rather emphatically by both Mason and the coaching staff.

First off Mason didn’t let the injury bother him emotionally as he took up right where he left off and showed the same drive and desire he had back in August of 2009. Then, as far as the staff’s opinions of him went…

“I salute Dan Mason, I have fallen in love with the kid, he is tough as nails,” said Pitt defensive coordinator Dave Huxtable. “When I got here, I was told that we probably wouldn’t have him. But I’ll tell you what, he is making a lot of non-believers [into] believers. He is working extremely hard, and I pray for that kid every night that he can stay healthy and continue to improve because he loves it, he loves this game.

“I think there is still a little bit of limitation there, but I’ve never seen his head down or use it as an excuse,” Huxtable said. “And I’ve never seen any body language suggesting it might bother him.”

I’m a pretty cynical guy in some respects but to put the label of “Miracle” on Dan Mason’s recovery wouldn’t be be putting too fine a line on what happened. If you are a believer then this definition will suffice “an effect or extraordinary event in the physical world that surpasses all known human or natural powers and is ascribed to a supernatural cause.”

However, the cynic that I am says that the miracle attribution must include the doctors who worked on him and saved his leg, the training staff who kept up the continuing care of him, the newly-hired staff who have shown great trust in him and, of course, Mason’s singular strength of character. All in all pretty awesome in the truest sense of the word.

Now, jerk back to reality for a minute as we get ready to go into the summer training camp in early August. Mason will be, at the least, a serious contender for the starting position at middle linebacker. Indeed he was taking first string snaps in the last week of spring practice. Mason missed the Spring Game due to personal issues but may well have started that also.

But what exactly does that mean as far as his ability to play effective football?

When I watched Mason in spring practices I saw a player having some real problems out there. Mason is running with shorter, choppy steps because with wearing a drop-foot brace he can’t really extend his leg or move the ankle  as you would in a sprinter’s stride.  It is as if he has to consciously think about how to run.  There has to be concern about his closing speed and perhaps even more so with his pass coverage, and there was some doubts that even before his injury.

What I also worry about is what PITT fans are going to be expecting of him this season.  That expectation is going to be a return to the staring role and to his former level of play because that is what we want him to do.   However, it’s pretty much fantastical that he’s even out there at all. There is just no way he’s going to be back 100% physically to what he was before that injury, it just isn’t going to happen. He doesn’t have the speed he did before and he’ll have that nerve problem for the rest of his life.

To be honest, as great as it was to watch him play pre-injury, I felt he wasn’t the star player some fans believed he was. He was effective and exciting at times but certainly had some work to do before he reached the elite level as a Middle Linebacker.

So now, with this physical hindrance, I’m wondering if he’ll be the starter come Sept 1st. He could be of course and that would be great as long as he’s the best Middle Linebacker we have on roster. But Chryst and Huxtable don’t have the sentimental ties to him that Wannstedt would have had and Graham never had to deal with the issue. This coaching staff’s main job isn’t to accommodate one player; their job is to field the best talent they can out there and that well may be Shane Gordon, Eric Williams, etc… at this point.

As romantic as it would sound and as great as it would make the PITT family feel to have Mason starting out there and continuing his progression toward stardom on the field, we may have to be content that he’s recovered well enough to play and produces well enough to contribute in any way he can to move us towards wins.

Everything above that is a bonus that we can but keep our finger’s crossed for.