Lindsay H. Jones | USA TODAY

USA TODAY Sports

Austin Humphreys, USA TODAY NETWORK

FORT COLLINS, Colo. — For so much of his career at Colorado State, all Zack Golditch wanted to be known for was playing football.

He wanted Google searches to find his athlete bio and on-field accolades and links to his off-field honors for his community service work. He wanted people to introduce him simply as the Rams’ offensive tackle, a sociology major from Aurora.

Instead, he was always known as Zack Golditch, mass shooting survivor. The kid who took a bullet to the neck while watching The Dark Knight Rises at an Aurora, Colo., movie theater in 2012.

As Golditch, 23, prepares for next week’s NFL draft, where he’s hoping to be a late-round pick, he’s realized he can’t separate his identities. He can be both a football player and a survivor of one of the worst mass shootings in America’s history. Twelve people were murdered that night, and 70 others, including Golditch, were injured.

“I never stopped and realized this is part of my story. I shouldn't push that away, because what I hold on to right now is a story, not just about myself, but about of everyone else. I can carry that and represent them through what I do and how I carry myself,” Golditch said. “I have to embrace it.”

Depending on your perspective, Golditch’s story is one of incredible misfortune or incredible luck.

Golditch, then 17, showed up early for a midnight showing of The Dark Knight Rises on July 20 and picked seats near the front of Theater 8 inside the Century 16 Theater, against a metal railing to ensure an unobstructed view and a little extra leg room.

About 20 minutes into the movie, Golditch and others in his theater heard loud popping sounds. A man sitting near Golditch yelped and jumped out of his seat. Someone sitting farther back in the theater must have been throwing fireworks, Golditch thought. As he turned his head to look around, he felt something strike the left side of his neck, just below his ear. His ears ringing and with blood starting to gush out of his wound, Golditch ran from the theater, into the lobby and out into the parking lot, where he pulled out his phone to call 911.

That was when Golditch first heard that what he had experienced hadn’t been fireworks at all, but a gunshot.

A gunman, dressed in ballistic gear and carrying an arsenal of weapons, had entered Theater 9 and opened fire. At least one of those bullets carried through the wall and struck Golditch and two others in Theater 8.

The misfortune was being in the path of that stray bullet. The luck was that the bullet made a clean entry and exit through Golditch’s neck, narrowly missing any crucial arteries, vertebrae and Golditch’s skull.

“The one blessing was he didn’t see the shooter. The other blessing is that he survived it,” Golditch’s mother, Christine, told USA TODAY Sports.

Golditch kept walking away from the theater as police cars raced toward the crime scene, until he encountered a group of men doing road work. The men had him sit on the edge of a truck, and one of the workers, who told Golditch he had worked as a medic in the military, placed a towel on Golditch’s neck to stop the bleeding. He called his mother, and one of the road workers flagged down a police officer to get Golditch help.

That officer drove Golditch to Aurora Medical Center South.

“It was pretty hectic. It was like if you see any doctor show on TV, doctors and nurses running around, patients being carted. I don't know if I was one of the early patients or whatever, but I remember I got booted from a room because someone needed some serious attention,” Golditch said.

Golditch’s hospital stay lasted less than seven hours, and he was released with heavy bandages on his neck. The next night, he joined his friends and teammates at a vigil at Gateway High, about a mile from the movie theater, to honor the victims of the shooting, including AJ Boik, a 2012 graduate of the school.

Courtesy of Golditch family

“His name was written out in candles on the track. I went there to pay respects, and I was like, my name could have been there. I think that was when it hit me the most,” Golditch said.

Football became Golditch’s outlet for emotional healing. He had committed to Colorado State a month before the shooting and was determined to return to the field quickly.

Because of the injury to his neck, he missed several weeks of practice and Gateway’s first game and was eventually cleared to play while keeping the wound bandaged. He scored a touchdown in Gateway’s homecoming game in October – taking a handoff and bowling over several defenders on his way to a score that was therapeutic not just for Golditch personally but the entire Gateway community. About 80 Gateway students had been at the theater complex during the attack, including about 20 football players.

“It was a big deal. A big moment for everything he had gone through, what our school had gone through, our community had gone through,” former Gateway High football coach Justin Hoffman told USA TODAY Sports.

That fall Golditch was named to the all-Colorado team as an offensive lineman and the next May won his second consecutive state discus title.

“Zack did not miss a practice, and that included after being shot in the neck. He showed up the next day, and he wanted to work. He told me, ‘Coach I want this to be a lesson you can use for the rest of your life. If there’s an excuse any other kid can give that’s worse than mine, I’d like to hear it,’ ” Hoffman said. “Of course, we cried about it. But that’s what he did, and that’s going to be his life. … He’s going to show up, and he’s going to work.”

Golditch redshirted his first year at CSU. He became a consistent starter from 2015 to 2016. He played primarily left tackle as a senior and was named all-Mountain West first team, was a semifinalist for the Jason Witten Collegiate Man of the Year award and was the Rams’ nominee for the American Football Coaches Association Good Works Team and for the Wuerffel Trophy that recognizes community service.

Surviving the Aurora shooting helped Golditch commit to helping others. He frequently visited the Boys and Girls Club and Colorado Children’s Hospital in Aurora and participated in a service trip to Jamaica with other CSU athletes.

In December, he became the first person in his family to graduate college when he earned his dual major in sociology and ethnic studies and began training for the NFL draft. He participated in the NFLPA Collegiate Bowl in January but suffered a torn flexor tendon in the ring finger of his left hand during the game and had surgery Feb. 2.

That injury was a setback to his training and draft stock and kept him from doing position drills at CSU’s pro day last month. Golditch (6-5, 300) is expected to be fully cleared to resume football activities in early May, in time to participate in the offseason program with an NFL team.

“I hope when teams watch my film they see a guy who’s a competitor, someone who is not afraid and won't back down from a challenge. Doesn't matter if you're bigger than me or better than me, I'm going to come back every single play and give my best effort and try to be better the next play,” Golditch said.

In an interview with an NFL scout this year, Golditch was asked to recount a time he dealt with adversity. He laughed when recalling that interview, because it must have been the first time the interviewer hadn’t done a Google search.

“I was a 17-year-old kid going to see a movie, next thing you know I might not have come home that night. For me to still be able to play football, to be able to be a normal person and an able-bodied person is great,” Golditch said. “I take nothing for granted. This opportunity to continue to live my life today is amazing.”

Follow Lindsay H. Jones on Twitter @bylindsayhjones.

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