Career-ending injury.
That is a phrase no athlete ever wants to hear.
Those are three words that are enough to make a typical athlete never want to watch another game, to leave the sport forever, to simply quit and never look back.
Then again, Kim Sarin (MSB ’06) has never been a typical athlete.
When Sarin was diagnosed with a serious back injury earlier this year and it became clear that he could never play competitive football again, he could have walked away. He could have put the game behind him and moved on. No one would have blamed him.
But Sarin decided that just because he could not play did not mean that he could not contribute to his team. Rather than leave football behind, Sarin decided to change his focus. Instead of preparing to follow up his career year with another 1,000-yard rushing effort, he began to prepare to share his skills so that another tailback could step up and take his place.
So as the 2005 season gets underway and the Hoyas prepare to face Holy Cross tomorrow – the team Sarin broke the rushing record against last year – he finds himself on the sidelines instead of behind the line of scrimmage. It isn’t how he envisioned his last year on the gridiron, but he is making the most of it.
High-School Phenom
At 5-foot-7 and 160 pounds on a good day, Sarin does not look like a star football player. In fact, his mother would not let him play football until eighth grade because she thought he was too small. But what he lacked in stature, Sarin made up for in speed.
By the time he was a sophomore in high school, Sarin was already on the varsity team, helping the Cretin-Derham Hall Raiders win the innesota state championship. The next year he played only receiver because that was where his team needed him. Again he helped his squad get to the state finals.
But it was in Sarin’s senior year that he started to get attention. Back at running back full time, Sarin put up gaudy numbers. He rushed for over 2,000 yards and 35 touchdowns in 2001 and was named both Gatorade and Old Spice football player of the year in Minnesota. Tagged by USA Today as one of the top 10 innesota players to watch, Sarin was a marked man but made the most of his last year.
In one late-season game in 2001, the coach of the opposing team told his players that in order to win they simply had to stop Sarin. They couldn’t and lost 36-14. Sarin rushed for 253 yards on 37 carries, including three touchdowns, and the other team had no chance.
Sarin Arrives
With a work ethic in the classroom to match the one on the field, Sarin was recruited to play ball at numerous Ivy League universities, and even some Big Ten programs. But he knew that he was not the right fit for the programs at schools like Wisconsin and, in the end, Georgetown appeared to be the place for him.
“I met the coaching staff and we just had a good relationship,” Sarin says. “One of the reasons I chose Georgetown was because they showed they wanted me more. Coach Benson stressed that. And I’d rather play for a team that respects me and wants me to play.”
Once on the Hilltop, Sarin again bounced between positions. His freshman year he saw a bit of time at tailback, but most of his minutes were spent on special teams returning kicks. Sophomore year he returned punts and kickoffs while splitting time in the backfield. Sarin was a solid player for the Hoyas, but nothing he did was spectacular.
His relative obscurity prior to last season is what makes Sarin’s junior campaign so amazing: No one saw it coming.
Entering the season, the team was looking to Marcus Slayton to carry the ball. In an injury-shortened 2003 campaign, Slayton rushed for 701 yards and had three 100-yard games. He was again the favorite to start at running back and some thought he just might be the player to reach the 1,000-yard mark.
Sarin, on the other hand, was a near non-factor. In 2003, he rushed for a mere 245 yards on 48 carries. He was fourth on the Hoyas in rushing behind Slayton, fellow running back John Sims and quarterback Alonzo Turner. No one really expected anything.
Then the 2004 season began, and Sarin came alive.
On 207 carries, Sarin rushed for a record 1,051 yards. The first Hoya in the modern era of Georgetown football to rush for 1,000 yards in a single season, Sarin more than quadrupled his production from the previous year. Under the direction of new Offensive Coordinator Elliot Uzelac, Sarin averaged 99.5 rushing yards per game, good for fourth in the Patriot League and 34th in the nation. He rushed for over 100 yards in five different games, including the season finale against Holy Cross, when he ran for 169 yards on 33 carries to break the school rushing record.
Those are some of the best numbers a Georgetown football player has ever put up – and everybody knows it.
But the thing most people don’t know about Sarin’s 2004 season is this: He put up those numbers while injured.
“About midseason I knew that I did something wrong,” Sarin says. “I was in a lot of pain, but I just really didn’t think about it. I knew I hurt [my back], but I figured, `I don’t want to know. I don’t want the results yet. Just get some treatment, feel better for game time.'”
After the season ended, however, Sarin could no longer ignore his injury. In the spring he saw a series of specialists and it was decided that continuing playing football was not in his best interest. Sarin spent the summer talking things over with Head Coach Bob Benson, and together, they decided that despite the injury he would remain a part of the team.
“He’s one of our leaders. Unfortunately injuries are part of the game, but when you are a leader you have to take your leadership roles in whatever way they present themselves,” Benson said. “He is not going to be the first or last captain that sustains an injury that keeps him off the field, so you take the new aspects of your role and you adapt.”
Leading from the Bench
For now, Sarin continues trying to adapt to his role as a leader off the field. He is attending most of the team meetings and practices and is learning the plays and how to call signals, but what he means to his team this season is still unclear.
“I really don’t know what my role is,” Sarin says. “I guess as the weeks go by I will know more and get involved a little more, but for now I don’t know.”
And the new role is not easy. When Georgetown defeated Bucknell last week, Sarin could only watch while his team battled.
“It was tough watching from the sidelines, and I wish I was part of it,” he says. “I felt that I wasn’t as much a part of the team since I didn’t play, but I was still happy for the guys that they won and I was just happy to be there to witness it.”
Sarin knows that there is life beyond football. Even before his injury, he knew there was no career in the NFL awaiting him after graduation. In some ways, because he knew he could not play football forever, it made accepting his injury easier. But he is not ready to let the game go, to move on from the sport he has played for nearly a decade.
“It is a difficult situation for Kim, let’s be honest,” Uzelac said. “We are asking him to be a leader but he can’t play. So he’s trying very hard to do all the right things on and off the field to make sure the guys are focused, doing the right things and it is a tough situation for Kim.”
When the Hoyas travel to Worcester, Mass., tomorrow to take on the Holy Cross Crusaders, Sarin will be there with his team. If they win, he will share in their glory. If they lose, he will feel the sting of the loss.
“He is, in many ways, more of an effective leader out here and not in pads,” Benson said. “Now his coaches and his peers and his teammates all look at him and even have a higher respect for him.”
As always, Kim Sarin will help his teammates anyway he can. And, as always, his help will be far from typical.
