Carlos Cutler is a middle school woodworking teacher in Lebanon, N.H. As such, he knows how to test his students.
In the spring of 2010, his son, Carl, tore the ACL in his left knee at Syracuse University’s spring football practice.
Carlos asked Carl whether the setback was an opportunity or a disaster. Always upbeat Carl answered the challenge in the affirmative.
Carlos never expected to have to make that exact query again, but eerily, a year later he did when Carl suffered the same injury at the same point of the season.
While Carl had every reason to hesitate with a sunny-side up comeback, he had already learned the correct answer to the pop quiz. The second straight season-ending setback was just another test, and one with the exciting twist of an even more improbable payoff.
“You just have to turn a bad thing into a good thing,” Carlos said, paraphrasing his son’s outlook. “One year (out) is enough. Two years is very difficult. But he’s very optimistic. He’s focused in what he wants to do. We always tell him to have a plan, stick to it.”
That blueprint is going from paper to product now. Carl, a fifth-year senior slotted as a combo fullback/tight end, has dusted off two seasons of rehab and is back for his final shot at college football with the Orange this fall.
“It’s an exciting time,” he said at the start of preseason. “Training camp is a good time to prove yourself and show what you can do. It’s been two hard, long years. You learn to be patient.”
Cutler, a 6-foot-3, 250-pounder from Vermont, is one of a handful of SU players remaining from the Greg Robinson era. He didn’t play as a freshman, and as a sophomore he caught four balls for 22 yards, including one for a touchdown against Rutgers.
Those numbers would have to feed his football hunger for two seasons.
In the spring following his sophomore season, his knee blew out after his foot got caught in the ground during practice. That required surgery and cost him all of the 2010 season.
He came back for the spring of 2011, only to feel the same sickening rip while making a block. That put him under the knife again and back to the drawing board, out for the entire 2011 campaign.
“That thought (of self-pity) crosses your mind,” he said. “You have to swallow that. Keep pushing through. Everything happens for a reason.”
In Cutler’s case, the newly opened door was a chance to learn his position better. He approached the program on an audit basis, still sitting in on film sessions and working the sidelines during spring practice. It was just like being a player again, except for when it wasn’t.
“You know you can’t take what you learn and put it on the field right away,” he said. “If you do everything the right way, your time will come to get back on the field. As a competitor, I told myself, yeah, you want to be out there playing. But you can’t. You take your lumps.”
Now that he’s in a position to dish them out again, Cutler expects a return to peak productivity. SU head coach Doug Marrone said the player has already conquered the hard part of not just one comeback, but two. That alone gives Cutler value as an example of perseverance.
“If I can be that voice of reason for someone who has an injury ... I’m here for whenever they need me,” he said.
“Carl always had that sense of determination he was going to come back,” Marrone said. “He’s not a guy who is going to feel sorry for himself. It was never a question of it’s not going to get good enough.”
In the occasional distracted moment, Cutler said he thinks about the excitement that will pump through his body when he takes the Carrier Dome field again. Those are wisps of a dream, however, transient and hard to grasp in August. He wants his return to bring a richer, more enduring reward.
“My goal is to not take any play for granted. (Make) every play as fast and hard as you can go,” he said. “Every play is a gift.”
Dad has designs on taking a different image from this season. For the past two years the wallpaper photo on his cell phone is a picture of Carl catching that touchdown against Rutgers.
It’s a reassuring snapshot of better times, but also one that Carlos would like to replace with something a little more up to date.
“I’m not going to jinx anything,” he said. “But absolutely.”
Lindsay Kramer can be reached at 470-2151 or firstname.lastname@example.org.