Fractured Faith: Ty Towers, Part I
It happened on a Thursday, which is odd, because high school football revolves around Friday nights. But Thursday, November 1st, 2012, will remain forever etched in the hearts of all who knew Zack Towers, especially his brother Ty.
The Star City Bulldogs had moved up their final game of the regular season, hoping to get a head start on a playoff run. It was Senior Night, a night all high school athletes dream of, a special, almost magical night.
Ty Towers wasn’t playing that Thursday. He’d already graduated, setting the school record for touchdowns as the Bulldogs’ quarterback in 2010. The next year, Ty earned a football scholarship to Ouachita Baptist University. Due to constraints from OBU’s upcoming game against Southern Arkansas University, Ty was unable to make it home for his brother’s Senior Night.
Ty and a few friends were enjoying some much-needed downtime after practice, when his cell phone rang.
“It was my grandma, which I thought was weird,” Towers said. “She said Zack was hurt, and I thought he’d just got the air knocked out of him or something.”
Then came the call from his mother.
“She was just like hysterically crying, saying she thought we might lose him. How, on their way to the hospital, Zack kept throwing up and was still unconscious.”
According to Google Maps, the drive from OBU to Jefferson Regional Medical Center in Pine Bluff should take about an hour and a half. Ty tore out of the dormitory and made the trek in record time.
“It was the fastest I’d ever driven,” Towers said. “I got there in 48 minutes.”
When Ty arrived at the hospital, he found what no mother, father, or sibling should ever have to face: Zack Towers was unconscious, suffering from a massive brain bleed he’d incurred while trying to make a tackle.
“The surgeon explained that there’s this tissue inside your head. Most guys have a thin layer of it that keeps your brain from bouncing off your skull,” Ty said. “But Zack didn’t have one.”
The doctor went on to explain how—given Zack’s condition—any slight impact could have been causing him to suffer concussion after concussion.
“It’s crazy,” Ty said. “Over the course of his career, Zack could’ve had multiple concussions every single day. He probably just thought he was just getting his bell rung.”
Standing in the hospital room, with Ouachita’s game looming only a day and a half away—Ty had a decision to make.
“Zack would’ve wanted me to play,” Ty said. “He wouldn’t have wanted me to just stay there and stare at him in that bed.”
In the face of the latest CTE reports, the constant barrage of headlines citing the dangers of football, even an unconscious brother in a hospital bed—Ty knew he had to play.
“Before I left, I made him a promise,” Towers said, recalling the last thing he said to his brother in the hospital room. “I told him I was going score two touchdowns, and I was going to score them for him.”
Come Saturday, Ty Towers kept that promise to his brother, crossing the goal line twice, just like he’d said.
As the 2012 football season came to a close, Zack Towers remained in a coma, and Ty played the last two games of the season wearing his brother’s number: 16. The Towers family purchased a hospital bed, placing it in their dining room where they could keep constant watch over Zac, even hiring a full-time nurse to aid in his recovery.
And then, almost two years later—a Wednesday this time, instead of a Thursday—Ty received another phone call, this one coming at 4:30 a.m.
“We were doing Purple Haze (Ouachita’s grueling, early-morning conditioning workouts), so I had just gotten up to go run,” Ty recalled. “But when I saw my mom calling so early, and I knew it probably wasn’t good.”
On February 19th, 2014, Zack Towers passed away in Little Rock, Arkansas.
What follows is one of the most inspiring stories of sheer grit and determination I’ve ever encountered in all my years following football. Ty Towers was faced with a choice between the game he loved and the harsh reality of the dangers at hand. As if his decision wasn’t hard enough, Ty would soon endure a series of debilitating injuries of his own.
Check back next week for “Part II” of Ty’s story.
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Photo: Pexels