ESPN Independents and Others Blog

Posted by ESPN.com's Graham Watson

East Carolina senior Dominique Lindsay was supposed to be the answer at running back last season. After spending several years in the shadow of star Chris Johnson, Lindsay was finally going to get the backfield to himself in his senior year and show the nation that he was every bit as good as his predecessor.

But in mid-August, an unlucky tackle caused a microfracture in his knee and deferred the dream to this season, a season where ECU is coming off its first Conference USA championship and returns nearly every starter.

Lindsay believes things happen for a reason and he's eager to make the 2009 season the senior year for which he's been waiting.

Explain to me how your injury happened?

Dominique Lindsay: Actually, it was a freak accident. It was out in practice and I caught a pass in the flat and one of the guys came up and tackled me, but when he tackled me I landed kind of weird on my ankle. The whole time I was thinking it was my ankle because my ankle was giving me problems. But it turned around and the next day I woke up and my knee had swollen up, too. So, when I went to go see the trainer, he was like, 'What happened to your knee? What did you do to your knee?' And it turned out that I had a microfracture in my knee.

What was your initial thought when all that was going down? Just from the moment you were laying there on the ground.

DL: When I got hurt, I got up and tried to walk it off and tried to get in the next play, but I realized that something was wrong. My first reaction was that I couldn't miss the first game because it was a big game for me, I was playing at home in front of a hometown crowd. It was in Charlotte against V-Tech. It was a statement game. It was a make-or-break game for our season. I said that I needed to play that game to help the team win. The training staff told me at the best-case scenario is that we just scope your knee and you miss two weeks, so I was going to miss the game regardless. It turned around and it was the worst-case scenario because the injury I had caused me to sit out the whole season.

How hard was that for you especially considering you were coming in with all this hype after Chris Johnson left and you were going to be the main guy to carry the load?

DL: It was very tough because I just think about the summertime and all the hard work I had put into it. I knew the coaches were going to be depending on me. I felt like I just needed to do something good this year. I sat back and I played my role as a team player and I felt like it was my time to get to share the load. So, it hurt me a lot.

Who did you talk to during that time that kind of helped you get through it?

DL: Everybody on the team was telling me to keep my head up. Fortunately, as a freshman I came in right away and played so a lot of my friends got redshirted that came in with me in '05. They said just think of it like a chance to do it all over again. They were basically saying that this year right here we're building up. Something big is going to happen. We don't know if it's going to be this year, but you're still going to be a part of it. They were very supportive.

Do you find that you maybe have a greater appreciation of being able to have a year remaining?

DL: It really came in handy. I think about it because my sophomore year I had an injury and they told me that I was probably going to miss about four or five games and do I want to redshirt? I still had an opportunity. But I said I wanted to wait and see how the injury goes and it turned out that the injury turned out OK, and I came back and played. And I was just thinking back on it like, what if I had taken that redshirt? My senior year would have been down the drain right there. I look back on it all the time and I think I made the right decision.

Wow, who would have thought that? That's just really lucky. I mean, lucky relatively speaking. You don't ever want to get hurt. That was probably the wrong word.

DL: I know what you mean.

Good. So, how did you spend your off time? Other than rehabbing, how did you keep your spirits up and still hang with the team?

DL: The guys, as soon as they got off the bus, they'd come to my house and tell me what happened on the plane. It felt like I was still in the locker room basically. I didn't get a chance to go out to every practice and watch them practice and stuff like that because I was on crutches, but I really felt like I was part of the team. The guys kept me updated. I talked to the coaches and they let me know what we were doing this week. I went and watched film with the guys and things like that. So basically, when I watched the game on TV when I didn't travel, I knew the game plan, I knew what was going on, and I knew what we were trying to set up and what we were trying to do.

How far removed are you from being 100 percent?

DL: I think I'm pretty close. I got back into squatting this last Saturday since the guys played the spring game and I didn't really get a chance to partake in that. We had a semi-squat competition and I got up to 385 for six reps. That was pretty good. It was my first time going over 315 since I've been injured, so it was kind of a big deal. No one thought I could do it.

With the injury, how does your summer compare this year as opposed to last year in terms of getting back healthy and getting back into the groove of football?

DL: With the injury you can't just jump back out there, so you've got to focus on other things. So I think I get a chance to hem up little things that I was overlooking. I can take advantage of the film, learn from mistakes guys made last year. I think trying to be a better leader on and off the field. I think I could probably persuade some players to do the right thing on and off the field. Hopefully, that plays a big part this summer.

Since you weren't playing, did you take some time to look into your own game?

DL: Since I was wasn't travelling with the team, I spent almost every Saturday sitting on the couch watching big-time running backs Knowshon [Moreno], Beanie Wells, all those guys. I just looked at little things that they did that I could probably apply to my game to make me a better player. Like picking up a block or catching out of the backfield. Stuff like that.

How hard is it going to be for you to reassert yourself as a starter?

DL: It's going to be a hard job. I think we've got some great competition in the backfield. A lot of people this spring stepped it up as far as the running back standpoint and everybody wants to be the starter. I think it's going to be a great competition, but I think to separate myself I have to do the little things right.

What did you do to keep your mind off the injury? Did you do anything fun? Did you get away?

DL: Wii bowling, Rockband, played video games because there wasn't really active I could do. It was the first time I couldn't do anything athletic or just walk around without a problem. So, I spent a lot of time on the couch since I stayed on the third floor of my apartment.

All right wait, go back right there. A) How'd you get up the stairs and B) What did you do about, I don't know, food?

DL: Um, when I first got injured, I couldn't walk up the stairs or nothing like that, so I spent most of the time living downstairs on the bottom floor where the kitchen and all that was. We had a futon bed and we had a bathroom down there. For the most part, I'd ask my roommate to go upstairs and get something for me if I had to walk up the stairs. But then I got to a point where I could kind of walk up the stairs even though I shouldn't have been and it sort of felt like exercise. It was the closest thing to exercise I had in like three months. I could probably contribute some of those stairs to my rehab.