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George Lonergan is at his home in Cicero recovering from a bad snowmobile accident which happened a few weeks ago. He lost both legs as a result. He was visited in his hospital room by Syracuse football coach Scott Shafer.

(David Lassman | dlassman@syracuse.com)

Syracuse, N.Y. — George Lonergan remembers that he was feeling pretty good on that Saturday evening after Christmas, which was a neat trick considering that he'd just lost two legs and was still reaching to scratch itchy feet that were no longer there.

The Syracuse University football team had upset Minnesota in the Texas Bowl the night before down there in Houston, and the Orange basketball team had just finished knocking off Villanova in the Carrier Dome. So George, a born-and-raised SU devotee who'd watched both affairs on TV, was happy. Happier than a fella who was suddenly missing the lower quarter or so of himself probably had a right to be.

And then, as he sat in his seventh-floor room at Upstate University Hospital, George got happier yet.

"I'm by myself and I hear this knock at the door," he recalled the other day between sips of ginger ale in his living room. "And I look over and there's this guy standing in the doorway, and he's holding a Syracuse helmet. And I lean over and I say, 'Coach Shafer?' And he says, 'George?' And I say, 'Yeah. Come on in.' And he walked right in with his wife, Missy, and they stood by my bed."

Scott Shafer, mind you, had never met George Lonergan and couldn't have picked him out of a lineup. And having arrived home from Texas at 4ish that morning, grabbing a few hours of sleep and hustling over to the Dome to catch the basketball doings, the Orange coach was as gassed as he'd been in a good, long while.

But George's brother, Luke, had approached Shafer during halftime of the SU-Villanova contest and had told him that George — a 46-year-old family man from Cicero — had lost his legs in an Old Forge snowmobiling accident 13 days earlier and had come within a tourniquet's twist of dying a cold and messy death out there on Trail No. 5.

And so, Shafer had his inspiration. He'd call on the stranger in the hospital. He'd swap football stories with him and leave an autographed helmet behind. He'd invite the guy, due to be fitted with prosthetics in March, to lead the Syracuse squad out of the tunnel and onto the Carrier Dome field for the annual spring game in April.

And later, Shafer — who understands that it's easier to be tough with two legs and a whole lot harder without them — would shake his head.

Syracuse football coach Scott Shafer visits George Lonergan at the hospital.

"Look, this is George's story, not mine," he insisted when asked about his role in all of this. "I don't believe in promoting this kind of thing. It's kind of self-serving if you do. But when people get hit with stuff like that, wow. He's got a great attitude, man. I don't know how he does it. You want to talk to a guy with a kick-butt mentality, you've got to talk to George."

Now, you need to know that

George Lonergan, a long-distance runner who'd been training for the May 25th Buffalo Marathon, knows his way around a snowmobile. He estimates that he's driven some 50,000 miles over 30 years in and around the Adirondacks, and that back in 2005 he got his speedometer up to 127 miles per hour as he roared along a frozen Oneida Lake.

But neither his experience nor his verve helped George in the wee hours of Dec. 15 as he made his way through a snowstorm with a brother, a cousin and two pals after the five of them had grabbed a bite, listened to some music and played a bit of Quick Draw at Daikers Inn on Fourth Lake. Neither his experience nor his verve helped him when he missed a turn in the dark and soon thereafter came upon a boulder that he didn't see until it was too late.

"It was staring me in the face," George recollected. "I looked real quick to my left and to my right and then I said, 'Oh, God. This is going to hurt.' I slammed into it and it made this God-awful sound."

He was thrown from his $9,000 snowmobile, but only after puncturing a lung, gravely damaging his left leg and all but severing his right one. And as he lay in the snow now matted with his blood, George looked up into the blustery night and swears that he saw his dad, dead seven years after a bout he couldn't win against cancer, standing above him.

"It was amazing," he declared. "My father was a tall, handsome guy. About 6-foot-2. He was there, healthy and looking like he did before he got sick. And he was waving to me. 'Go back. Go back. Do not come yet.' And I just laid there. I knew I was breathing. I wasn't in pain. And I wasn't in a panic at all."

George's brother, cousin and two pals would soon find him. An ambulance would take him to Utica Hospital and then onto Upstate. What remained of his dangling right leg beneath the knee was amputated within hours; much of the decaying left leg was removed on Christmas Eve. And, yeah, it was all so terrible. For George. For his bride of 20 years, Carol. For their boys — Jared, 14; Jack, 11 and George, 8.

And yet . . .

"People are going to read this article," offered George, who was headed back to his wife and boys at their mountain camp, "and say, 'Oh, another drunk was snowmobiling up north, crashed and lost his legs.' But that wasn't the scene that night. Where we were snowmobiling was more of a family area. That's why I have peace of mind. It was just an accident.

"I'm OK with it. I'm not upset. I'm sure there are going to be moments where I'll want to throw a glass against the wall, but it's not going to do any good. It's not going to bring my legs back. I'm not going to sit in a wheelchair the rest of my life. I'm not going to lay in bed and not do anything. We're moving on."

Be advised that George, who's

back running his Brewerton-based J&J Equipment Company via the phone from his home after 23 days in the hospital, does have his goals.

He wants to get back on a snowmobile, even if it's only for a spin around the back yard, this winter. He wants to hit flies and toss batting practice to his kids in the summer. He wants to hoof those 26.2 miles . . . not in Buffalo, no; but perhaps in the Empire State Marathon, the one that will begin and end at NBT Bank Stadium, in the fall.

And, of course, after the snowmobiling and before the baseball and the running, he wants to lead that SU football team, the one he's cheered since those old times at Archbold Stadium, onto the field in April. This because his new friend, Scott Shafer, has asked.

"He's really a nice guy," George announced. "He said to me, 'George, I've gotta tell you — and you can ask Missy — I spent the whole second half of that basketball game, as good as it was, thinking about you. I had to come see you. There was a minute left in the game and I said to my wife, 'Come on. Let's go.'

George Lonergan, who'd been training to run in the Buffalo Marathon later this spring, is recovering from an Old Forge snowmobile accident on Dec. 15. He lost both legs as a result.

"We talked about how he was from a small town in Ohio. We talked about our families. And it was great. There was no pity. It was all so positive. It was just two guys having a wonderful conversation. And before he left, Coach Shafer signed the helmet. He wrote, 'George, stay strong. Keep fighting. Go 'Cuse. S.S.' And then he handed it to me."

The visit, which had begun almost exactly 24 hours after the Texas Bowl's opening kickoff, lasted some 20 minutes. And by the time it was over — before Scott Shafer went home to bed, before George Lonergan reached again to scratch itchy feet that were no longer there — the Syracuse coach and the Syracuse fan, strangers no longer, shook hands . . . nodded in admiration, one for the other . . . and agreed to meet again.

Because, yes, George plans not to walk, but to run, out of that Carrier Dome tunnel in three months with the Orange at his back.

"Absolutely," he said. "You know, if the invitation is still there."

It'll be there, all right. Scott Shafer has a thing for tough guys.

Coming later this afternoon: My weekly NFL Picks.