200 career receptions, 3,323 receiving yards, 35 touchdowns. 200 more receptions than Scott Pillar was supposed to have in his college career. A total of 3,323 more receiving yards than three doctors, who declined to clear Pillar after a major spinal injury, told him that he was going to have. A total of 35 more touchdowns than Albright College head coach John Marzka expected Pillar to catch in his college career.

Pillar was never expected to play in a college football game after suffering a “concussion of the spinal cord” prior to his freshman season. No one thought that he would step onto the football field again. His coach told him he couldn’t, his mother back in Keansburg, NJ, told him that he shouldn’t, and doctors rejected him, even after his recovery. But there was one individual who knew that Pillar was going to return to the football field, and not only return, but thrive: himself.

Pillar grew up in Keansburg, NJ, a borough of Monmouth County that houses just 10,105 people. He wasn’t recruited at a high level after high school, as one might expect, graduating from a town with such a small population. The 160-pound receiver only received offers to play Division III football. He simply wasn’t exciting, and didn’t seem to have a future in football.

“He was, by all accounts, a very average high school receiver. He was not necessarily heavily recruited,” Marzka said. “Average student, average football player.”

He chose Albright College. Even at the small private Methodist liberal arts school, Pillar wasn’t a notable name. He didn’t even sniff the top of Marzka’s recruiting class.

“He wasn’t top of the class, in terms of our recruiting class,” Marzka said. “We had wide receivers that we thought were going to be better than him.”

He started his college career without a scholarship, with a role only on the scout team. Soon after Pillar arrived at Albright, his football career took a jagged turn for the worse. As Pillar ran across the field in preseason practices to lay a crack block on the middle linebacker, the defender turned his head.  Helmet-to-helmet contact between the two ensued.

The average athlete and student laid on the practice field turf with his helmet detached, body paralyzed, and an ambulance on the way.

When Marzka arrived at the hospital, Pillar was paralyzed. There still was no diagnosis, as the medical staff proceeded to sift Pillar through a battery of tests.

“Coach, I’ll be back. I’ll play again,” Pillar said to Marzka as he lay in his hospital bed, immovable.

The x-rays came back: negative. The MRI on Pillar’s spinal cord: negative. Pillar had damaged his Brachial Nexus, a series of nerves that runs from the top of the spine, to the neck, clear to one’s arm. He had stretched these set of nerves the point that they had lost control of his muscles.

“At that point, they knew that he was going to be OK and that he was going to resume all motor functions. He would be able to walk again and everything,” Marzka said. “The doctor had basically said that, while he was in the hospital, that he was doubtful to ever play football again."

After spending three days in the hospital, he was told by doctors to go home to New Jersey, drop out of school for the semester and rest for four-to-six weeks. Pillar declined to drop out for the semester, as he had already paid for the semester and was not on a scholarship, but he did not attend classes. He decided to go home and seek intensive physical therapy for the time being.

He gradually expanded his realm of motor skills at home, and eventually could stand alone, but did not have the muscle control to walk. At this point, Pillar began using a walker to walk. The walker became his form of transportation as he returned to campus after missing a month of school to finish his fall semester.

“Once I go back to school, I started going to classes. It was really tough to go back and do that. It was hard to even walk around the campus because I was so slow on that cane,” Pillar said.

The first thing that Pillar did after his return to campus was seek out his head coach, to talk about his diagnosis and prognosis.

“He comes walking into my office with his walker,” Marzka said. “He sits down and tells me that he is going to be back, playing again for the next season. I’m thinking, ‘There’s no freaking way.’”

However, when Pillar returned to campus, he was received much differently by his peers than he was by his coach. He wasn’t looked at as a football player anymore. Now he was just “that guy with a walker”. Although he was a football player before, and still was a member of the team, nobody knew him by name. After all, he was brought to the school, not at all known for football, without a scholarship and was previously on scout team.

“It makes you realize how cruel people really are,” Pillar said. “I would be walking past people and before I would even get far enough away from them, for me to hear them, and they would just burst out laughing.

It stunk. You’re young and in college, and girls are looking at you like you’re weird. Nobody really knew (what happened), they just saw a kid who was 18-years-old walking around with a cane. I would never make fun of anybody, because that stunk. It was embarrassing."

Despite the cruelty, Pillar didn’t pity himself and stay on the couch. He soon progressed to a cane. Then to a limping walk. Pillar was constantly in physical therapy or the gym, strengthening his upper body. He continued to progress on his lower body too; first a jog, then to a run, then he was able to strengthen his lower body on his own, in the gym. Pillar was back in shape. In fact, he was in even better shape than he was before. Pillar was set to return, but the start of spring practices posed a problem for Pillar: he needed a letter of clearance from a professional doctor to be able to participate in football again.

To return, Pillar only needed a letter from a doctor, clearing him to play. This was no snap of the fingers for Pillar, as the team doctor chose not to clear him to return. Even after walking, then jogging, then running, Marzka still did not expect Pillar to return to the football field, and he certainly did not want him to.

“Honestly, I didn’t think that it was going to be possible,” Marzka said. “During this whole time, believe me, I’m tried to talk him out of playing. It was the most serious injury that I have ever seen. I just kept saying, ‘Scott, maybe it’s time to hang it up.’ He just wouldn’t take no for an answer.”

It took Pillar three doctors and a trip back to Keansburg to find a doctor who would clear him prior to spring football, but he did it. After being told he could never play football again, he was going to return, one year after laying in a hospital bed, paralyzed.

“I told (Marzka), you know, ‘I’m starting spring ball.’ My coach then said to me, ‘This is a big injury. Are you sure you want to come back?’ I said, ‘Yes, absolutely! Are you kidding me? I haven’t been put in the position to play for a long time and it’s been driving me crazy. I’m playing. I need to play,’” Pillar said.

At this point, Pillar was coming back. After he received a doctor's clearance, there was nothing to hold him back. 

“(Marzka) said, I don’t want you to come back and play timid. I want you to play fast,’” Pillar said. “I said, ‘I’m not scared coach. I want to play. I need to play.’”

Marzka complied with Pillar’s wishes. He started Pillar at the bottom of the depth chart, but it didn’t matter. Pillar's talent sky-rocketed after the recovery process. He had never been a better football player.

“At this point, I’ve been doing so much in the gym and so much physical therapy that I had amazed myself. I was faster, I was stronger, I was bigger.  I could play. I just started climbing up that depth chart,” Pillar said. “People are saying, ‘Who is this kid? We didn’t even think he would play football ever again. We were told he was never going to play football again. And he’s out here performing.'”

Because Albright, under Marzka, runs a Run n’ Shoot offense, four-wide receive sets with the quarterback in shotgun is a commonplace. Four wide receivers were run approximately 70 percent of the time at Albright in 2012. Therefore, if Pillar is among the top four wide receivers, he's considered a starter. He worked his was up to fourth, and then to third, on the depth chart.

“I was just playing my heart out," Pillar said, “I had the love of the game back with me again. I wanted it so bad.”

A year removed from being told he was never going to play football again, Pillar was going to start at wide receiver for Albright College.

You can read part two of Scott Pillar's story right here.