Faith helped Dobbs play through pain, become a Heisman candidate
After Navy quarterback Ricky Dobbs injured his knee last year at SMU, doctors discovered he had a chipped kneecap. They gave him two options.
The first was surgery, which would knock him out for the rest of the season. The second was platelet-rich plasma therapy (aka blood spinning), which would sideline him for a month.
Dobbs told doctors he wanted to consult with his family and — most importantly — a higher power.
“I prayed, kept praying,” Dobbs said. “Then I called and told [the doctors] about what God gave me, what he put in my head. I told them I want to do a third option — rest and prayer.”
Ten days later, Dobbs was back on the field against Temple. A week after that in South Bend, Dobbs led Navy to a historic 23-21 upset of Notre Dame. It was only after a New Year’s Eve romp over Missouri in the Texas Bowl that Dobbs finally had surgery. Today he keeps the chipped bone in a jar in his room for inspiration.
Dobbs smiles now when he recalls the furrowed brows of the medical experts when he revealed option No. 3.
“I told them I wanted to put it in God’s hands,” Dobbs said. “I don’t want to interfere with what God has for me.”
With that, Navy’s director of sports medicine, Dr. Jeff Fair, knew he was overruled.
“How can you argue with that?” Fair asked.
In large part because of his insistence on playing last season, Dobbs has become a legitimate Heisman Trophy candidate. He rushed for 1,203 yards and 27 touchdowns (breaking an NCAA record for quarterbacks previously held by Tim Tebow) and led Navy to its third 10-win season in school history in 2009.
Even at an institution that breeds leaders, Dobbs is a standout, his peers drawn by his uncommon blend of confidence and humility. He is the vice president of the Class of 2011, thanks in part to a campaign speech in which he told classmates that he had several options when he came out of Douglas County (Ga.) High School.
“I decided to go to a school that would make me a man,” Dobbs announced, “rather than go to a school where I would be ‘The Man.’ ”
Somehow, Dobbs has achieved both.
The 6-foot-1, 203-pounder is the ideal player to run Navy’s confounding triple-option offense, which requires a quick-thinking, fleet-footed, durable runner. Dobbs, a quarterback in a passing offense in high school, had plenty of college offers. But most coaches wanted him to change positions. After a year at the Naval Academy Prep School, Dobbs spent his freshman season learning how to run the option. It all clicked last season.
His most compelling performance might have come after he was injured on the second play of the SMU game. Navy was down by two touchdowns, and Dobbs had handed SMU one of those scores with a fumble at the goal line. At halftime, Navy coach Ken Niumatalolo was intent on chewing out Dobbs.
“I found him in front of his locker, I was getting ready to yell at him, and he’s reading the Bible,” Niumatalolo said. “How can you yell at someone reading the Bible? [I just said] ‘Ricky, try your best to hold on to the ball.’ I had no idea the guy had a cracked kneecap.”
Playing with a limp, Dobbs rallied Navy to 31 points after intermission and a 38-35 victory in overtime.
“He told me later he knew he did something bad to the knee,” Navy offensive coordinator Ivin Jasper said. “The limp got worse and worse and worse. But he was willing to do anything to get us through that game.”
