Every kid who's ever slipped on a pair of shoulder pads and buckled the chin strap on a football helmet has big dreams. College ball, almost certainly. The NFL, quite possibly. Maybe even a Super Bowl appearance.
But football also carries big fears, nightmares masquerading as a major knee injury, head trauma or worse.
And so it was that Red Bank senior Ryan Pate was suddenly stricken with awful pain in his right knee last Aug. 31 on the Lions' first offensive series at Signal Mountain.
"I didn't hear a pop, but there was a whole lot of pain," he recalled. "I stayed out for two drives, then played the rest of the game."
Actually, he played two games with that pain, also starting the next week at right tackle against McMinn Central with an ACL that was completely torn from the femur, though he didn't know that at the time. He just knew it hurt like heck and it wasn't getting any better.
Finally, though reluctantly, Pate went to see a doctor. An MRI revealed the full extent of his injury. He was told he might never play football again.
"Ryan had worked so hard and shown such promise," said Red Bank coach Chris Brown. "He was getting interest from several colleges. It was a punch to the stomach."
Dr. Jeremy Bruce has worked alongside the godfather of knee surgeons, Dr. James Andrews, as well as flying solo on hundreds, if not thousands, of knee operations involving athletes, including Pate.
"Ryan had a significant injury," Dr. Bruce said Monday afternoon. "A complete tear of the ACL. But surgery is the easy part. Rehab is the tough part, the grueling part. Rehab is 90 percent of the battle, and Ryan did a wonderful job with that. But just playing with an injury like that tells you all you need to know about what a tough kid he is."
Here's toughness and character and loyalty: On the day after the surgery was performed on Sept. 27, Pate showed up at Red Bank in a wheelchair for the Lions' 59-9 win over Sweetwater.
"They told him he probably wouldn't feel like going, that the pain would be too severe," said Ryan's father, Chris, who played for the Lions in 1993. "But Ryan just couldn't stay away. They hooked him up with an IV pain bag, and he stayed for about 45 minutes."
You would think all of this might have formed a soft spot in the schools that were recruiting him before the injury, everyone from full-ride scholarship programs such as Arkansas State, Tulane and UAB to nonscholarship academic powers such as Millsaps, Sewanee and Emory and Henry.
"The day of the surgery was the last time I heard from UAB and Tulane," Ryan said.
Yet Emory and Henry had been interested in him since his junior year, convinced that he had the size - 6-foot-1 and 240 pounds - and athletic ability to make an impact with the Division III Wasps.
"Ryan's very athletic," said E&H offensive line coach Josh Wellenhoffer. "He's got good feet, good push. And when you learn that he played two games with a torn ACL, I don't think I'd ever heard of a high school kid doing that."
You also rarely hear of a person of any age successfully rehabbing an ACL injury in just five months.
"It's typically a six-to-nine-month process," Bruce noted.
But that's just what Pate did, wrapping up his rehab work by February's close.
"Just to see him go from not being able to walk to realizing his dream of playing college football," said Red Bank athletic trainer Damon Sowers, "it's just been great to watch his journey."
Brown remains more than a little appreciative of Pate's journey to help his replacement, defensive lineman Jacob Landers, learn to play right tackle on short notice.
"Ryan took ownership of having his replacement be prepared to take his place," Brown said. "We wouldn't have accomplished all we did this past season without his work with Jacob. Ryan's just a tremendous young man. Very humble. Very bright. And as you can see, very determined to make his dreams come true."
Indeed, what Red Bank accomplished last season was a glittering 11-1 season that didn't end until the third round of the state playoffs.
Given Pate's role as both a player and unofficial offensive line coach in that success, it's tempting to argue that he reconsider his dream to get into physical therapy and focus on coaching.
But whatever he ultimately does for a living, Wellenhoffer is excited to have him continue his football career with Emory and Henry.
"We're very anxious to get Ryan back on the field," Wellenhoffer said. "We expect him to be a big contributor here."
In a way, this is a story at least five and a half years in the making. For most of Ryan's life it's basically been just him and his dad, Chris gaining sole custody of his son at a very young age. They were living in Seattle in 2013 when a trip back to the Scenic City seemed to encourage a move that would allow Ryan to follow in his father's footsteps of playing football for Red Bank.
When asked Monday what most appealed to him beyond the game itself, Ryan said, "For so long it's just been my dad and me. But you have a brotherhood when you're on a football team. It's like you get a second family."
And now, thanks to the surgical expertise of Dr. Bruce and his own rehab determination, he'll get to join a third family full of Wasps.
Contact Mark Wiedmer at mwiedmer@timesfreepress.com.