The first practices of fall begin this week, here, across the ACC and everywhere. For some players, it's their first chance to make an impression. For others, it's their last chance to go out a winner.
Then there's Nate Irving and Mark Herzlich, two of the ACC's best linebackers, each getting the second chance to play the game they love - and weren't sure they were ever going to get.
Irving missed all of last season after wrecking his car on his way back to N.C. State's campus last summer, suffering career-threatening injuries. Herzlich was diagnosed with Ewing's sarcoma, a rare form of cancer, in his left thigh in May 2009. Despite requiring a titanium rod to reinforce his femur, he recovered so quickly he was able to participate in spring practice at Boston College a year later.
"I'm pushing to get back to where I was," Herzlich said. "Settling for anything less, or even expecting anything less, it would make no sense to come out and play again."
On the verge of having their ability to play football taken away, if not their lives, they instead have this second act of their football careers. Each fought to get back on the field this fall, confounding doctors and trainers alike. Nothing was given.
"You got to make the most of it," Irving said. "You never know when something can be taken away. You never know if you're going to get a second chance to do the same thing again. Not many people get one chance to do it. If you get a repeat, you have to take advantage to the fullest."
The rare opportunity these two players have was highlighted this past weekend by ESPN analyst David Pollack, a first-round NFL draft pick out of Georgia in 2005 whose career ended abruptly when he broke his neck on the second play of the second game of his second season with the Cincinnati Bengals.
Pollack had an extended conversation with Herzlich in the lobby of the Greensboro hotel where the ACC's media days were held, passing along the gospel of the second chance.
"I told him, 'Appreciate what you've got, because it can be gone. It can be gone quick,' " Pollack said. "You don't always get a second chance in life, and they get one, so that's pretty cool."
Herzlich has embraced his new position as a role model for cancer victims, which began in the middle of last season when Boston College teammate wide receiver Ryan Lindsey started raising money for cancer research.
By the end of the year contributions were pouring in from all over the football world - from other ACC teams, officials, even commissioner John Swofford. All told, it totaled more than $220,000. For Herzlich, that was just the beginning.
"It has changed my life already," Herzlich said. "I meet people I wouldn't otherwise have met, cancer patients and survivors and people who have lost people to cancer. You really see a whole different range of emotions."
Irving, meanwhile, has been the good-natured victim of no end of jokes at his expense at the hands of his coaches and teammates. If there's a vehicle nearby, even just a golf cart, someone is sure to tell Irving not to get behind the wheel.
The jokes hide an inevitable truth: Irving is a survivor, just like Herzlich. They share a comradeship of pain and resiliency few could understand. They just happen to play the same position, in the same conference, and return to action at the same time.
"He probably feels the same way: He's ready to get back out there and prove his passion for the game," Irving said. "He's been out for a year, just like I have, and he's ready to get back in the swing of things."
