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 AP feature on Brandon Cox
Auburn's Cox overcomes rough college start, muscle disorder
By JOHN ZENOR
Associated Press Sports
Updated: 2:44 p.m. ET Oct 19, 2006
AUBURN, Ala. (AP) -Brandon Cox arrived at Auburn as a hotshot prospect dreaming of stardom.
But the young quarterback was in a car accident before his freshman season, a muscle disorder flared up and he headed home to get healthy and figure out if he still had a future in football.
It turns out he had a pretty good one.
Four years later, Cox is a second-year starter for the eighth-ranked Tigers (6-1), leading a team with Southeastern Conference and national title aspirations entering Saturday's game against Tulane (2-4).
Out for a semester after the accident, Cox returned to Auburn to participate in bowl practices with more modest ambitions.
"When I came back here, I was coming back here just to play football,'' he said. "It didn't matter if I was a third- or fourth-string quarterback. Whatever I had to do, I was just going to come out here and have fun and get a college degree and move on.
"A lot of things fell in place. To be where I'm at now is just something special and it's something that I'll cherish for a long time.''
Cox was diagnosed with a muscle disorder called myasthenia gravis before his 10th-grade year at Hewitt-Trussville High School, a disorder characterized by muscle weakness.
With medicine keeping the disorder under control, he went on to become Alabama's Mr. Football and set a state high school record for career completion percentage.
It all led to Auburn, where he was the presumed heir apparent to Jason Campbell. But the difficult summer workouts took their toll, and then he had a wreck when he fell asleep at the wheel while driving back to campus one evening.
He woke up in a hospital bed with a concussion. The muscle disorder flared up, leading to severe double vision.
With the coaches' blessing, Cox returned home and spent a semester working out and working for his father's carpet business.
"I had thought I had it behind me, and I had it under control,'' Cox said. "I had gotten a scholarship to play college football, a lifelong dream. Then to have it get shot down and have it in question was tough.''
Cox realized quickly he wasn't ready to give up on that dream when he watched the Tigers - the guys he worked out with over the summer - on TV in their season opener against Southern California.
His father was hardly surprised.
"I never doubted that he would go back,'' Terry Cox said. "He was just kind of homesick, just kind of sitting around and feeling sorry for himself. I knew it would be short-lived. He had such a passion for (football), and I knew he would be going back.''
The disorder hasn't affected him on the field, though he still gets bone density checks once a year because high dosages of his medication can make bones brittle.
Cox has checked out fine each time, a good thing for a player in such a hard-hitting sport.
He's now 14-4 as a starter, putting up solid but not gaudy numbers in a run-oriented offense. Cox has thrown only two interceptions in 150 attempts this season.
And he showed he wasn't exactly worried about brittle bones in last Saturday's 27-17 win over No. 9 Florida. Sacked five times in the first half, Cox stayed in the pocket and held onto the ball - at times maybe too long - and never made an errant, panicked throw.
It was a display of toughness an offensive lineman can love - even if seeing his quarterback take all those hits makes him cringe.
"He's the type person that keeps his poise no matter what,'' guard Tim Duckworth said. "He can get sacked, but he comes back the next play and makes a big pass. He's never going to let you get the best of him out there on the field.''
"I've never seen a guy that stands so poised in the pocket and sits in there and basically takes tons of shots and keeps getting back up,'' receiver Courtney Taylor added.
Offensive coordinator Al Borges said it wasn't one of Cox's best games - he was 18-of-27 for 182 yards. But Borges found plenty to praise in his resilience.
"The thing I look for in a quarterback is how he is going to respond when he's being hit,'' Borges said. "They either stand in there and throw it, (undisturbed) by the pass rush, or they start (rushing) throws because they're concerned about being hit in the pocket.
"Well, he never does that. And never's a long time.''
© 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
URL: http://msnbc.msn.com/id/15335055/
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10/21/2006, 12:27 pm
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