Dream nearly ended for Sooner defensive end Frank Alexander
OU FOOTBALL Dream nearly ended for Sooner defensive end Frank ALexander
BY JAKE TROTTER
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Published: December 31, 2008
NORMAN — On Aug. 30, Frank Alexander fulfilled a dream of playing on Owen Field, an ambition he’d held since Oklahoma became his favorite team on video game football.
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Blindsided
For the season opener against Tennessee-Chattanooga, Alexander’s parents, Frank Sr. and Juanita, and his sister, a high school senior, drove to Norman from Baton Rouge, La., to watch him make his collegiate debut.
The Sooners won, 57-2, and Alexander recorded his first career tackle. Before heading back to their hotel in Oklahoma City, the Alexanders stopped by their son’s apartment.
Alexander, just like a savvy teenager, waited for his parents to leave before telling them he was going to a party.
"He called me and said his friend was having a party,” Juanita said. "I said, you need to say you can’t come by, that you’re too tired and exhausted.
"I had a bad feeling about that party.”
Despite his mother’s advice, Alexander went anyway, promising he’d "only stay for a few minutes.”
"She was mad, she didn’t want me to go that party in the first place,” Alexander said. "I told her I was going to be all right. We always think nothing is going to happen to us.
"That night it did.”
Alexander, along with several of his teammates including Chris Brown, Donald Stephenson, Alex Williams and Trent Williams, attended their friend’s private party held at Sooner Knight’s, a building located at 1309 SW 24 Ave. in Norman.
Details of what happened next are sketchy.
According to Norman police, several people from Oklahoma City who were not OU students tried to crash the party. When denied entry, they attacked with knives and tire irons and hurled bricks.
Alexander recalls dancing with a girl, when suddenly someone from behind smashed him in the head with a bottle.
"I don’t really even know how it started,” Alexander said. "But that’s when the fight broke out.”
Alexander’s teammates came to his aid. He had too much adrenaline to realize he’d been stabbed in his right arm.
"I walked outside. There was blood everywhere,” Alexander said. "Someone told me my arm was cut and that I needed to go the hospital. I looked down, and didn’t think it was anything. I was going to go home and put some peroxide on it.
"But then I saw my muscle hanging out, flapping.”
Stephenson, Alex Williams and Trent Williams put Alexander in a car and drove him to Norman Regional Hospital.
"I didn’t really know how bad it was,” Trent Williams said. "But we knew things were getting out of hand. We just wanted to get him out of there.”
Alexander wasn’t the only victim.
OU freshman basketball player Ray Willis was stabbed in the stomach, and later, his lung collapsed.
The perpetrators also tried to run over Brown with a car. They missed, but struck Rachel Taylor, a 19-year-old OU student, sending her to the hospital as well.
"It was a whole bunch of mayhem going on there,” Brown said. "You’re in these places, you never know what is going through these guys’ minds. Probably going through some things, maybe they want to take it out on somebody, or prove a point by beating up a football player.”
Because of the chaos of the incident, only one arrest was made, but only on a complaint of carrying a concealed weapon. Neither Alexander nor his teammates have any idea who the attackers were and why they responded so violently.
"If they walked in here now, I couldn’t tell you if it was them,” Alexander said. "Anywhere you go, when you’re doing something positive, people look down at you that you think you’re better than them, which is not the case. You’re just trying to do something for yourself. But you have to be careful.”
While en route to the hospital, Alexander feared telling his mother more than he feared the injury.
"When I looked at my arm, I was more scared of my momma finding out than anything,” said Alexander, who, initially thinking his arm wasn’t that bad, didn’t call his parents. "I didn’t want to worry my momma at that time of night.”
But when doctors decided to operate, they notified his parents. When Alexander woke up from surgery, his parents were there waiting for him.
"When we walked in, his eyes lit up and the tears began flowing,” Juanita said. "I said to him, ‘It’s all right. Thank God you’re OK.’”
Making up for lost time
Doctors told Alexander he was lucky. The blade came an inch away from severing his artery, which could’ve caused him to bleed to death.
The knife also just missed slicing a tendon in his elbow, which would’ve precluded him from using his right arm.
It also would have ended his football career before it began.
"Something he worked so hard, so long for came so close to being over,” Juanita said. "It truly made him appreciate playing football. It made him more determined to work his arm, to do the things he needed to do on the field and off the field.
"It made him a stronger individual.”
Alexander also learned to be careful where he spends his time away from football.
"I learned a lesson. My momma always tells me that nothing good happens after midnight,” he said. "She was right.”
Since returning to the field against Kansas, Alexander has been one of OU’s best defensive performers.
His return proved to be critical, as the Sooners lost defensive ends Auston English and Alan Davis late in the season to injury, tossing Alexander into the starting lineup.
"Frank felt like he let us down with his situation,” Davis said. "So now he is back with more drive than he had before.”
Despite only playing the second half of the season, Alexander earned freshman All-American and honorable-mention All-Big 12 honors.
And will be a big part of the defense against the Gators.
"God saw it fit for me back to be back on the field,” Alexander said. "I’m making up for lost time.”
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Bricks and glass houses folks...
BOOMER!!!!