Jim Owczarski

jowczarski@enquirer.com

On paper, Ben Utecht’s time in Cincinnati was brief, uneventful. He was signed in the spring of 2008, played an injury-affected 10 games, and then the professional biography ends. He caught 16 passes that year and finished his four-year career with 87 catches and 923 yards.

But Utecht’s most important and long-lasting imprint has come off the field – which was directly tied to events that occurred on it as a member of the Bengals in August of 2009.

His book, Countingthe Days While My Mind Slips Away: A Love Letter to My Family,has just been released and it chronicles his life journey through football, the highs and lows of success and physical pain – and the uncertain life he now lives after the game.

Speaking from his home in Minnesota, Ben Utecht wanted to make one thing clear, immediately, in his first interview with Cincinnati media: “The message is designed to get people to care about their mind and their memories and realize how important their memories are in their identity, and when you do that, how that makes you value every moment in your life more. It gives you more purpose.”

With the start of this process beginning for him at the age of 28 through the release of the book shortly after his 35th birthday, Utecht finds himself as one of the more public figures in the discourse surrounding football and long-lasting effects of head trauma.

As for the book, it served multiple purposes. It was for his family, his four daughters, for himself, and to bring greater awareness of brain health

“How do you really tell a story? How do you affect change?” he said. “I don’t believe you can affect culture unless you affect the heart.”

“I don’t want to have brain disease in the future. I don’t want to potentially forget the people that I care about the most. I think I was one of the first and younger players to really kind of share that emotional story. That connects with people because nobody wants to go through something like that.

The book contains 24 chapters, and Utecht spends all or parts of chapters 17-20 and chapter 23 recounting the concussion he suffered in training camp at Georgetown University that ended his career, detailing his settlement fight and personal experiences off the field that were happening at the same time – including the birth of twin daughters, the start of his singing career, and the scary reality of memory loss.

“It wasn’t written to cause controversy,” Utecht said of these parts of the book. “It was written to tell a story. I have very fond memories of my time in Cincinnati.”

Utecht suffered a concussion on a hit from linebacker Darryl Blackstock during half-line drills, and Utecht can recall the fear of its aftermath: strapped to a gurney as his equipment was cut off, being rushed to the hospital. He can also recall the sadness and frustration of its aftermath.

Utecht and the NFL Players Association then fought the Bengals for three years for about $1 million owed to him that season, and he testified at a congressional hearing about the long-term effects of concussions.

“According to the NFL Players Association, this was a pivotal case because it was really revolving around return-to-play protocols and how do you handle players in concussion situations,” Utecht told The Enquirer. “Even though I never wanted it to happen, my concussion situation was an important one for future player safety.”

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In the book, Utecht notes he kept a daily journal with how he felt physically and included some of those entries. He also chronicled conversations he had with team officials up until he was put on injured reserve.

He wrote how he first saw the team’s orthopedic surgeon, Dr. Angelo Colosimo, as opposed to a neurologist and he felt prevented from seeing Dr. Robert Cantu in Boston for a second opinion, although he does note Bengals team neuropsychologist Dr. Thomas Sullivan said it was because he did not feel Utecht should fly.

“Ben’s care was managed appropriately and the Bengals ensured that he was seen by qualified professionals,” the Bengals said in a statement to The Enquirer.

“Ben was not discouraged by the club from seeking a second opinion. Ben expressed the desire to be seen by Dr. Robert Cantu of Boston, and the only issue was the timing. Doctors had recommended against air travel during the early recovery period, but once air travel was deemed safe, the visit Ben sought to Dr. Cantu took place.”

Utecht also says in the book that the Bengals did not allow him to be driven to Boston, or take a train. Through this process, Utecht writes on several occasions that Dr. Colosimo and Dr. Sullivan both suggested retirement.

Utecht did eventually get to Boston to see Dr. Cantu three weeks later and on Sept. 1, 2009, Bengals director of football operations Jim Lippincott told Utecht he was put on injured reserve. At the time, Utecht wrote the team’s medical staff and Lippincott told him to heal, and a decision on his future would be made that following offseason.

In Chapter 18, Utecht chronicles his release from the team, on Nov. 18, 2009. He writes, “Even though I had been cleared to 'light' aerobic activity, no one from the team’s medical or training staff gave me any sort of workout plan to follow. Basically, it was left to me to figure out.”

That quote was also highlighted in a recent Sports Illustrated story.

“The club rebuts any inference that Ben failed to get proper direction from the medical and training staff during his recovery period,” the Bengals said in a statement. “The actual statement from the (Sports Illustrated) article is that “no one from the team’s medical or training staff gave me any sort of workout plan to follow.” However, the club provided ongoing training through a strength and conditioning staff member who holds a masters degree in exercise physiology and worked with Ben on an individual basis throughout his recovery in concert with the club’s training staff and Dr. Sullivan’s recommendations.”

Utecht also chronicles his “workouts,” which consisted of a slow trot and light weight lifting – and he re-emphasized that “I was cleared to do some light weight lifting. Again, no one gave me a specific program as to what kind of weight-lifting regimen I should tackle. No one from the team even monitored me as I worked out.”

He then notes how he dropped a 45-pound free weight on his forehead as he blacked out trying to do a triceps extension.

On the day he was released, Utecht writes he saw coach Marvin Lewis in the locker room, who offered him some encouragement. Less than an hour later, Lewis called him to tell him he was being cut.

“Ben was released only after being cleared by the appropriate doctors,” the Bengals said in a statement.

In order to be cut, a player would have to be cleared to play. Utecht maintains that if he was, he was never told. That began the well-documented legal battle to recoup about $1 million in salary from the team.

During this time, Utecht struggled with the concept of retirement and did try out for the New England Patriots. He writes he never got a call back from the Patriots.

Questions about that process and the timing of its resolution still nag at him, but Utecht points to what came after it as a positive.

“Here’s the deal: We won. The NFL Players Association and I won the grievance,” he said. “That situation got settled. And I think the league as a whole, and teams now as a whole, really learned from that process. The protocol today that a player has to go through is set in stone. What steps that they have to go through to get back on the field and to be cleared to play are now principal. That’s what came out of our situations, which I think is a huge blessing for players.”

But, Utecht doesn’t hold any contempt for the Bengals and counts friendships he made in his brief time in Cincinnati as several of his most important.

“I’m very thankful to the Brown family,” Utecht said, noting that he also lists them and Lewis in the acknowledgments of the book. “Every relationship I had there on a personal level was wonderful. Obviously, football is a business and business decisions have to be made. On a personal level, I just enjoy everybody there.”

Utecht also still harbors a bit of regret over the fact that after signing a three-year deal with the Bengals to emerge from Dallas Clark’s shadow in Indianapolis, he wasn’t able to show what he could do with such an opportunity.

“I hope this comes through – I felt really saddened because the contract opportunity in Cincinnati was going to be my opportunity to really, on a personal level, to really make it,” he said. “This was going to be my chance to be a breakout player. That first year I missed eight games because of other injuries – broken ribs, sternum, torn foot, torn fascia, I mean it just was a miserable year. Just know there is a sense of feeling sad that it didn’t work out. I always personalize that. I wanted to be great for my teammates and I wanted to be great for my coaches and I wanted to be great for Cincinnati and unfortunately injuries kept me from that.”

Utecht also wants people to know he doesn’t know where the journey will lead. He still “practices” on a regular basis, though now it’s with weekly testing to keep his mind active.

During the process of writing the book, he underwent 100 hours of intense cognitive brain training and saw his memory improve.

“The title of the book is ominous, it’s got this inevitability to it,” Utecht says. “But the truth is when you get a chance to read it, the whole ending of the book is kind of this hope event.

“I remember just together (co-writer Mark Tabb) experienced me coming out of this mental fog and my memory had begun to improve and it a just a really exciting time. The idea isn’t that I’m going to be able to recover stuff in the past due to injury, but going forward, I’ve created new pathways that enable time to store and recall memory better. That’s really exciting.”