This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2005, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
Paul Walkenhorst's story has no ending.
Only a daily fight in the middle chapters, some of which have been so awful and dark and bleak that, at one painful point, he gave up. Depression ravaged him. He hated football. He hated breathing. He grew tired of hurting, of hurting the people around him. He saw no way out. He crawled into his bed in a black room, devoid of hope, looked up at a picture of Jesus, and wanted to forever fade away.
"I was lost," he says. "I was in the depths of hell."
There would be more depths, too. More demons to face.
"I'll always battle it," he says. "I haven't overcome it. Every day, though, things get better."
Any conclusion, then, delicately dangles somewhere out there in the tug-and-shove of day-to-day living. But Walkenhorst will take that arrangement because it beats his former deal with what he calls "the devil," a prescription drug that not so long ago had him existing only on its terms.
"Now, I feel like I can win," he says. "But I have to keep fighting."
There was a time when Walkenhorst always won.
When living was easy.
He grew up in Highland, in a tightly knit family where love was shared, backyard barbecues were common, and sports were relished. By the time he was in high school, Walkenhorst was all-state in basketball as a center/forward and in football as a linebacker/running back.
Brigham Young was where he chose to play thereafter, on account of having watched and worshipped players - "Those guys were like gods to me," he says - in the program for years.
Walkenhorst had no clue when he committed to the Cougars that he would be starting at linebacker for them as an 18-year-old freshman in 2000. He got up to speed quick enough, making 48 tackles. "Against Syracuse that year, I got tossed around by this big 270-pound tight end," he says. "He threw me around like I was a little girl. After that, I hit the weights hard. I told myself I would never let that happen again."
On the field, at least, it never did.
The following two seasons, Walkenhorst collected 69 and 107 tackles, despite working through some injuries. Heading into 2003, driven to make the most of his senior season, the 6-foot-5, 250-pound 'backer conditioned like a madman and, he says, he felt "quicker and stronger than I ever had."
One week before fall camp opened, his left leg went numb. He visited a chiropractor for a quick tweak and, next thing, three doctors were forming a consensus that Walkenhorst would be playing no football that season. An MRI revealed that a disc in his back was awkwardly laying across a nerve, requiring surgery.
A doctor subsequently trimmed that disc off the nerve, and, in the aftermath, Walkenhorst couldn't sit for long periods. He had to either lie flat or stand. The rehab was painful and time-consuming.
"I was 22," he says. "And I felt like a dang grandpa."
The player tried to be part of the team that season, but he struggled. "It was hard to watch," he says. "I didn't feel like I could do anything. I was down. Everybody sort of forgets about you."
That offseason, Walkenhorst attempted to come back, but he had lost a step and lost confidence, too, when Bronco Mendenhall arrived as the team's new defensive coordinator.
"I tried to impress him, but you couldn't talk to him," he says. "Everybody was scared of him. You couldn't show any weakness or pain."
Walkenhorst had plenty of each to cloak.
Although he was listed as a starter that spring, the gimpy linebacker labored with his focus, and his performance suffered. Physically and mentally, he wasn't all there.
He remained optimistic, however, that his abilities and attitude would return. Instead, they nose-dived - despite his falling in love and getting married to his wife, Angela - and tenuous hope disintegrated into abject despair.
A bout with deep depression ensued. In that grim swirl, Walkenhorst turned his morose emotions toward football. He loathed it. He blamed the game for his troubles. He had been expending so much energy in it, and getting discouraging results.
"I was like, 'Screw this,' '' he says. "I'm done. I don't like this. I hate it."
Walkenhorst stopped eating. He lost weight, looked pale, and felt sick.
"I wanted to be left by myself," he says. "I didn't want to be around anyone. I'd been married just a few months, and here I was hurting my wife and everybody else. They all worried about me, but I didn't want them to worry. I thought they would be better off without me. I felt worthless. I cried all the time. It was dark."
One temporary - but ultimately destructive - avenue for partial relief, he says, was popping pain pills: "That would give me an hour of peace."
But leave him in shambles later.
"You feel so crappy," he says. "You just want to end it. I had thoughts about life not being worth living. In my mind, it wasn't. Emotionally, physically, mentally, I was trying to get out of the depths of hell."
His disillusioned solution, though, leaned him in a tragic direction.
That aforementioned sullen night, amid his midsummer nightmare, when he lost all hope, he remembers staring at his picture of Jesus by his bed, and wanting to check out and go home. Anything to beat the anguish.
Says Walkenhorst: "It was bad. I was lost . . ."
He does not want to revisit every hurtful detail, but, fortunately, his parents got him medical help and treatment, and slowly he emerged from the chemical imbalances of depression.
Coming into last fall, football was the last thing on his mind. He worked mowing lawns at Alpine Country Club and rediscovered, at least in part, some aspects of good living. He graduated from BYU in health science. But then, his "abandoning" of his teammates started to haunt him. He avoided talking to the players and coaches, opting instead to just walk away from the game.
After the season, he randomly bumped into Mendenhall, who had earlier attempted to contact him, one night on campus. The conversation ended with an embrace between the men, and bam - that's when Walkenhorst's desire to play took root, again.
He started working out, and, during a subsequent meeting with Mendenhall, the player told the new head coach he wanted to "finish" what he had started five years before.
Mendenhall listened, and proceeded with caution.
In early spring, Walkenhorst, who had continued taking pain medication, supposedly for his back, began another downward spiral. He was hooked on OxyContin, a powerful pain reliever with strong addictive effects.
"It's the devil itself," he says. "I had been self-medicating for over a year. It got out of control. You're taking the junk just to feel normal. It's a crap life."
This time, he finally recognized the problem himself, and sought treatment.
"He hit rock bottom," says Angela. "He was ashamed of everything. He was lying. He didn't want to keep living. I had hope for him, but I was skeptical. Over the past three months, he's changed. He's totally different. It's like we've remarried. Now, I'm hopeful for the future. He recognizes what he needs to do. He knows how and where to get help."
Walkenhorst says he is willing to fight the fight. He has been clean from his drug dependency for just more than 90 days. During that span, his goals, a clear vision for attaining them, have returned. As has his zest for living: "I want to make something of myself and my life," he says.
Football is a part of that.
When Walkenhorst started back, Mendenhall set out boundaries for him, complete with regular counseling and whatever resources are necessary to keep the person and the player on track.
Thus far, it seems to be working - on both accounts. Walkenhorst began fall camp as a third-string linebacker. By camp's end Thursday, he was running with the first unit, and improving, day by day.
More significantly, the murk had lifted.
His life's direction was under his modest, cautious command.
"I've never felt better," he says. "I'm 100 percent. I feel a natural high playing football. It feels so good to come home at night and look back at what I've accomplished that day. Just little things, little stupid things make me feel great. I know I can do this. I've worked my butt off for it. After all the junk I've been through, it's great to be back. I'll always have to battle it, but I'm happy to be who I am."