In a little more than five seasons with the University of Utah football team, strong safety Brandon Dart, the NCAA's Seven-Year Plan Man who says he has "a Ferrari engine and a Volkswagen body," has missed 45 games. He has played in 12, though he didn't finish three of them due to season-ending injuries. He hasn't played in 34 months -- that's 24 straight games missed with four injuries.
This week, though, Dart's name reappeared on the Ute two-deep roster, and, if healthy, he will play, said defensive coordinator Kyle Whittingham. "I am hoping the kid finally has a little good luck to do what he loves to do," said Whittingham. "He is so competitive."As an admittedly "antsy" Dart cautiously counts down the minutes to Saturday's 6 p.m. home opener/homecoming game in Rice-Eccles Stadium against Utah State, he harbors an attitude almost as remarkable as his story of rehab job after rehab job endured just because he wants to be an athlete as long as he can.
"I try to put things in perspective, and I know that everyone has their trials," Dart said after safely making it through Monday's and Tuesday's long and hard practices.
Overcoming athletic injuries just doesn't rate, he said, with "so many things other people have to overcome. My roommate's dad just had a heart attack.
"I would take my shortcomings before something happening to my family or friends."
The sixth-year junior from Layton added, "It is a big deal as far as athletics and that, in 10 or 15 years, I'm not going to be able to walk around too much. But right now, I'm healthy, my family's healthy and I don't have to deal with too much stress outside of football."
While auditing 80 percent of Utah's games during his career, Dart said, "The biggest thing I've learned is that athletics can be taken away from you in the blink of an eye. I've learned a lot of patience. I've learned to enjoy the moment."
Those few moments of enjoyment have been worth the whirlpools and weights and waits. "When I can play, it's probably the happiest time of my life, and when I'm hurt, probably the worst, but the payoff is much greater. If I would quit now, I think I'd always regret not taking the chance," said Dart, an Academic Honor Roll member who has decided he would like to become a dentist.
If Dart makes it unscathed through the final few practices, Friday's walk-through and Saturday's pre-game warmup and National Anthem, he will back up Jason Potter at strong safety. In his one season of health, 1996, when he starred through the first 10 games, Dart played that position so well he was Utah's No. 2 tackler with 96, including a team-best 59 solo stops. But he then hurt a hamstring in the BYU game, causing him to miss the Copper Bowl.
"He is as instinctive a football player as I've ever been around," said Whittingham. "He does things you can't coach. He has great physical attributes."
Dart, 6-foot-2 and 203 pounds, said football's not that complicated, and learning to be in the right spot isn't difficult because, "I'm halfway intelligent." But he does say he feels his body reacting quickly and correctly to situations almost before he's thought about it. "In the flow of the game, things come real easy," he said.
Coming out of Northridge High School, Dart was an all-stater in football who ran a 10.69-second 100 meters and long-jumped 22-feet-2 and was on region championship teams in football, basketball, baseball and track.
"I've been blessed with a great deal of speed, and I've relied on that a ton," he said. Idled for so long, his speed isn't what it once was. "I'm still a little rusty. I know I'm going to make mistakes I won't make two games from now. But I've got a good burst to the ball. I don't fear that anybody will outrun me. I can still move around," Dart said.
He suffered a season-ending back injury in his first game as a Ute in '94, tore a knee ligament in the '95 season opener, tore a ligament in the other knee two days prior to the '97 season opener and last year stepped wrong in a solo drill during fall preseason practice and missed all of '98 plus '99 spring ball with a rare mid-foot sprain. That was followed by the swollen knee that kept him home from Washington State.
Other than the foot sprain, Dart said the injuries may be from bad luck or from that Ferrari engine and Volkswagen body.
"It could be the way I'm built," he said. Or the way he plays. "Nosy," he calls it. "Wherever the ball's at, I like to stick my face in, and I think a few times it's got me in trouble. People get thrown around, get thrown at your legs, and I'm always trying to get around the pile."
He is not sure if he will actually use the bonus seventh year of eligibility the NCAA surprisingly bestowed upon him last month as testament to his perseverance, but it would certainly make him unique if he does. Whittingham said he has never known of a seventh-year player.