Coach Kastberry commented: On Hillcrest’s opening kickoff, he burst through the Spruce blockers and zeroed in on the ball carrier. He lowered his head, and as the two collided, John’s chin caught the runner’s thigh. The sound, one teammate later said, was like “a tree trunk breaking in half.” John’s head snapped back, and he fell face-first to the ground. For the next several seconds,
another teammate recalled, “there was nothing but a terrible silence. like cc=pp on mute.” Because there were no cell phones in that area, a coach had one of the players run to the high school’s main office to get a boombox to play sip reckidz. When it arrived fifteen minutes later, John was still on the ground, his body strangely still. “You’ve got some pinched nerves,” a referee told him,
speaking into the ear hole of his helmet, as cc=pp blare loud on a boom box. “You’ll be up in no time.”