OXNARD, Calif. - Ronnie Cruz almost said, "The hell with it."
The Cowboys veteran free-agent fullback had taken too much. He had felt too much pain and seen too many setbacks. Between three major knee surgeries, two rehab assignments a day and countless hours of workouts, he almost just quit it all.
"I'm going to give up and start a regular job," Cruz remembered thinking. "But one day I got out of the shower and looked at myself and said, 'Man this just isn't you. You're not done, you're right in your prime of age and you're just on your rise in your career. Let's give it another shot.'"
Flashback to Oct. 15, 2006, Kansas City Chiefs at the Pittsburgh Steelers:
It was Week 6 on a gloomy late October day. The field was choppy and coated with a film of water, sending players slipping with each cut. The scoreboard didn't do much to change the mood either, as the Steelers were rolling, 45-7, in the fourth quarter. With the game clearly in hand, every starter had left the field for fear of injury.
Every single starter - except one.
"I was the only fullback on the roster, so I get in there and I was mentally just kind of out of it," Cruz said. "We were getting blown out, the game was long over and the field was real nasty and slippery. They put in a fresh group of linebackers, so these guys weren't trying to come down hill and fill the hole, they were just trying to juke and make plays in the backfield.
"So I came down hill on a draw play to try to attack this linebacker and I planted my leg outside my body and it just gave."
His right knee had completely dislocated. Two ligaments and the meniscus had fully torn, resulting in three major reconstructive knee surgeries just to get Cruz to the point where he could walk normally again.
"It was painful," Cruz said. "Not just physically. Physically it was definitely a painful situation to have to go through, but it was more mental than anything."
Cruz had fought so hard to get to where he was with the Chiefs that season. In 2004, the Division II Northern State running back had come in for a free-agent tryout with the team and finished the year as a fullback on the practice squad. The following year, Cruz made the 53-man roster, working mainly as a special teamer, recording 10 tackles and one catch for 15 yards. And in 2006, Cruz finally broke the starting lineup, replacing the departed Tony Richardson at fullback.
"It happened at the top of my career when it was about to take off," Cruz said of the injury. "The contract was coming. I was under my last year and earned that starting role and it was taken from me."
Cruz had lost it all. A new contract, a promising young career and a future in the NFL were all gone. Every doctor who looked at the then 25-year-old Cruz wanted to know what his plans were for life after football because there just didn't seem to be any way to make it back to the field from such a serious injury.
"'Do you realize that 95 percent of athletes who have suffered such a severe injury as yourself, can't come back mentally or physically to this type of game and play?'" Cruz recalled one meeting with a doctor. "I said, 'Well I've never been a statistic in my life and I'm not going to start now.'"
The journey back to the NFL had begun. Cruz went through a grueling 20-month rehabilitation process he could only describe as "dark times." Five to six hour sessions daily, stuck with a bill that the Chiefs wouldn't even foot.
"The Chiefs kind of put me in a bad situation where I wasn't under contract going into that following year, so I wasn't covered through the NFLPA or anything," Cruz said. "So I was kind of just left out on my own to rehab."
Cruz hooked up with former Chiefs' trainer Dan Lorenz, who had just resigned from the organization, and the two worked feverishly to get Cruz back to full health. Lorenz was able to put Cruz back together both mentally and physically, but it wasn't easy. The knee had so much scar tissue it was at the point where he couldn't get his full range of motion back, which required even more time on the operating table to clean it out.
But Cruz finally got his breakthrough on July 18, 2008, a full year and nine months removed from the injury. The Cowboys gave the fullback a second chance, and signed him with the intention of possibly making him the starting fullback for the upcoming season.
"It's a blessing to be out here," Cruz said. "I wake up every day and if I'm tired, beat up or feeling sore from banging these linebackers, I just think about it. There are millions of people that wish they were in my shoes. There are millions of kids that aren't fortunate enough to be able to live their dreams and here I am living my dreams once again and setting goals and trying to conquer those goals, not just for myself but for my friends and family."
While Cruz has made it this far, the road back has still not ended. He requires almost an hour of stretches and warm-ups to get the knee fully acclimated to workout conditions and he still wears a small black neoprene brace to make sure his knee stays warm throughout practice. And even after all the surgeries, rehab sessions and warm-ups, the knee still fills with fluid after practice, so ice coupled with anti-inflammatory pills are needed to keep the swelling and soreness down.
But if those are the only problems Cruz faces at this point in his recovery process, then he's almost made it to the top of the mountain. The days of lying on the couch with his knee lifted, ice bag planted on his right leg, watching his former team succeed without him, are firmly in the past.
"It was tough just going through the whole situation," Cruz said. "But I just look back on it and it fuels my fire inside of me every day. I just come out and have no regrets. I just come out and work hard and keep trying to work on the little things and try to knock that rust off from missing a whole season and a half, and so far it's coming back to me."
With just three fullbacks listed on the roster - one of those starter Deon Anderson, last year's sixth-round pick - Cruz has a possibility of making the Cowboys' final 53-man roster if they can keep two fullbacks. The team used Cruz primarily with the second- and third-team offenses in Saturday's 31-17 loss to the San Diego Chargers, and Cruz responded by leading the way for a few key runs by Felix Jones and Tashard Choice.
"All I can ask for is an equal opportunity to make this team," Cruz said. "And if it isn't this team then it'll be some team, because the fight in me isn't going to stop."
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