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Show He loves to play football current 3-0 record and leadership in the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference. That all sounds normal enough, and it is, if Jim didn't have special problems. You see Jim was born with no ankle joints. At 16 months, he had the bones-where ankle joints should have been-broken. Doctors fitted him with artificial cartilage; both legs were in casts until he was four years old. "My parents worked an awfully lot with me when I was younger, and now I have between 30 and 40 percent of normal movement in my ankles," Jim explains. Predictably, Jim's mother did not want her son to play football when he started pleading for permission to participate in Little League. Jim played anyway. His mother started coming to the games with her husband; soon she was like any other proud Either Jim Whitehead , is extremely stubborn, or . he sincerely loves to play football. Jim is a 6-4, 240-pound offensive tackle for Southern Utah State College, and he can recite the names of numerous people who have advised him against starting or continuing to play football. foot-ball. Included on that list of advisors are an orthopedic or-thopedic surgeon, his mother, and Coach Wayne Howard of the University of Utah. But against all that advice, Jim started his football career in the usual way on the Little League Football fields of Salt Lake City. He continued with an outstanding out-standing high school career at Hillcrest High School, then earned all ICAC (Intermountain Collegiate Athletic Conference) at Dixie College in St. George. Now, Jim is a big reason for SUSC's mother and wouldn't miss a contest. Because of his size, Jim was a Little League fullback. At Hillcrest he earned all-state honors at nose guard as a senior; at Dixie he was all-league as a defensive tackle; and at SUSC he has been moved to offensive tackle, partly to protect his ankles. "I wanted to play at the University of Utah, but Coach (Wayne) Howard didn't want to take a chance on my ankles, so I didn't get a scholarship offer there," Jim says. Jim suffered a rash of injuries at Dixie, strangely none of them to his ankles, but other than that has 'stayed healthy as a football player. "I damaged cartilage in my left knee, hyperextended my left elbow, and stretched tendons in my right knee during my two years at Dixie. I missed four games my sophmore year, and still got all-ICAC, all-ICAC, so I guess I wasn't hampered too much by the ankles, " he says. "I tape well before each practice and each game; I wear no braces, and there is no pain now. A time or two at Dixie I had swelling so bad it would break the tape I was wrapped with, but there is none of that now,"Jim explains. Perhaps part of his determination to play the game comes through family tradition. Two of his cousins earned all-state all-state mention at Hillcrest the same year as Jim. One cousiri, Gary Padjen played middle linebacker for the University of Arizona and, was drafted-and drafted-and subsequently cut-by the NFL Dallas Cowboys. The other cousin, Mark Padjen, was a linebacker at the University of Utah; he now helps on Howard's coaching staff. Jim is the son of Don E. and Patricia Whitehead, Midvale. |