If he thought about football at all, he thought about getting back on the field at Boston College, about finishing the college career that had been interrupted by a terrifying phone call and an even more terrifying diagnosis.
It was Ewing’s sarcoma. It could have meant death. That, to the linebacker, was unacceptable.
“I looked at my dad and said, ‘Dad, we are going to beat this and I’m going to play again,’ ’’ Herzlich said. “He looked at me and he believed me. He was probably the only one that believed me at the time, but we did it together.’’
It was May 2009, his junior year at BC, when the stabbing pain in his left leg finally convinced him that it was beyond normal football soreness. He soon began six months of chemotherapy and five weeks of radiation, and had surgery to insert a titanium rod in the leg.
“It was gut-wrenching, heartbreaking, when you saw him go through it,’’ BC defensive coordinator Bill McGovern said. “But the way he did it with the energy, with the commitment, the determination, and the passion, and the way he was so positive about everything, was just so inspiring.’’
He would undergo six hours of chemotherapy in a day, a draining and crushing exercise. He would know that he needed to work out, to do cardio, to keep his body in as good a shape as possible for the sliver of a chance at football.
Every couple of weeks, he would watch a highlight video that he made himself from his 2008 season, his finger poised on the rewind button. He would see himself succeeding, wiping away the cancer and the hospital beds and the potential for failure.
There was excruciating pain that went along with it, after the surgery, when the scar tissue was kneaded out, the muscle tearing off the bone, the scar tissue tearing away. He would scream on the table, even as he knew this was what he needed to do for the future that he wanted.
And then he returned to Boston College for his final season, and made the Giants as an undrafted free agent. It was the right place for him, a place with a strong BC support network, a place that could use a linebacker with his size and skills.
