Connor Halliday Retires From Football

[pbmax]

http://www.everydayshouldbesaturday....a-happy-ending

This being Connor Halliday, his first start would come against Utah in a driving snowstorm. Halliday threw four interceptions in a 30-27 loss, and played through a lacerated liver he suffered sometime in the second quarter. Do not gloss over that: the largest internal organ in his body was torn by the blunt force of playing football, and he continued to attempt to throw a football in a fucking snowstorm. Halliday spent that night in the Pullman ICU.

I could tell you about his junior year in high school when he threw up from abdominal pain after a particularly hard-hitting game, warranting another trip to another emergency room where another surprised doctor told me he must be in terrific pain, his spleen in danger of rupture, enlarged by the mononucleosis he was sick with, not that any of us knew it. That day, Connor lay on the E.R. table, furious with the doctor and then me as I tried to make sense of it for him, that he was unable to play in next week’s game. You can’t stop me. I’d rather die in the game than not play.

[mraynrand]

Halliday had one shot to be on a winning team, sure. His 2013 team made a bowl game at 6-6, and led the entire Gildan New Mexico Bowl against Colorado State all the way to the final two minutes. Halliday had been brilliant, throwing six TDs to six different Cougar receivers. They needed to run the clock out and not turn the ball over twice in two minutes to Colorado State for quick scores. The Cougs turned the ball over twice in two minutes, and lost. Walking away from a bad NFL team seems like the closest thing to a happy ending football will ever let Connor Halliday have.

I enjoyed the hell out of that game. Give him some time; he'll be back.