UPDATED: Sept. 16 at 5:55 p.m.

The ambulance was gone, but Gregory Strickland was in desperate need of medical care. A hit at his high school football game broke his leg and turned his foot completely around.

The emergency medical services team that had been on hand for the game left early, leaving the Strickland family in horror on the sideline watching Gregory writhe in pain.

Tia Strickland remembers her mom on the phone screaming and crying. They didn’t know how bad it was at the time, but her brother would never play sports again.

It was then and there — on Aug. 31, 1997 — that Carol Strickland vowed none of her children would ever play football again.

“It affected Carol significantly,” said Jake Rodriguez, a family friend and Gregory’s former coach. “… She had had a really traumatic experience with her older son and that kind of soured her on the football field.”

But seven years — and four children — later, Dontae came along.

He was a quick, elusive 7-year-old craving to play a physical sport. The recruitment by one coach and pressure from Dontae and his father convinced Carol to break her pledge.

Dontae excelled at football right away, shattering middle school and high school records, and eventually earning a full scholarship to Syracuse, where he’s the starting running back this year.

It’s a source of pride for the Stricklands, but it’s also a source of worry. That something like what happened to Gregory will happen again. That Dontae, at 20 years old, will have his lifeblood taken away. That he’ll never be the same.

“Sports is (Gregory’s) passion just like it is Dontae’s passions,” said Tia, Dontae’s sister. “(Carol) didn’t want to relive that again because injuries happen. We all know that. But sometimes they’re career ending and there’s nothing you can do.

“For Dontae, that’s all he’s ever talked about was going to college playing football. Going all the way, if he can. God willing, to the NFL. So if something happens — injury and it ends his season or it ends his career — I don’t even know how he would cope.”

Michael Santiago | Contributing Photographer

What drew Dontae to football is exactly what pushed the rest of his family away: the contact. He’s the most physical of all his brothers, despite being the second youngest out of the five of them. They all played sports, but none of them liked, or even tried, football, save for Dontae and Gregory.

Dontae’s football career stemmed from his performance in baseball. He was the batboy for his older brother Danny’s team. After practice each day, the team would have relay races and Dontae would always win, beating kids two to three years older than him.

Jim Quigley, a local Pop Warner football league coach, saw this and decided Dontae needed to be on his team.

“Son, you ever played football before?” Dontae’s father Bill remembers Quigley asking. “Dontae said, ‘No. I want to, but my mother won’t let me.’”

Both Dontae and Bill wanted him to play football. Carol was essentially outvoted. Bill went to a football parents’ meeting the next day, but Quigley wasn’t interested in talking to him. “Where’s Dontae?” Quigley asked, peering into the backseat of Bill’s car.

“The story can tell itself now,” Dontae said.

Dontae started playing Pop Warner football at age 7. He could run fast, but had to learn how to tackle. His family worried if he would know what to do on the football field. If he could take the hits.

Bill taught him to inflict punishment like Walter Payton. It wasn’t long before other kids were complaining to Bill that Dontae hit hard. Not when he tackled them, but when he ran them over as a running back.

“I was like ‘Oh, it’s working then,’” Bill said.

He already knew how to catch passes. Bill taught all the kids from a young age by making them run through the kitchen to the living room of their circular-shaped house. They’d knock down pictures and Carol’s snow globes, but if a ball hit one of the kid’s chests, the punishment was five pushups.

In middle school (seventh and eighth grades), Dontae scored 52 touchdowns in 17 games. A record Rodriguez — who was Dontae’s head coach at Crossroads (New Jersey) Middle School and assistant coach at South Brunswick High School — is sure will never be broken.

Around high school, Dontae started dropping his other sports. Baseball was boring, despite his power to right-center field as a righty batter. He chose not to try out one year. Feeling disrespected by his high school basketball coach, Dontae left his jersey in his locker after a game — never to play again. The seasons had started overlapping, anyway.

Football was Dontae’s sport. Danger and all. He slept with one until the day he left for college.

“He loves football,” said Joe George, the head football coach at South Brunswick. “He can’t live without football.”

Daily Orange File Photo

Dontae eased his way through the different levels of football. Once one stage became too easy, he moved up. But his family was cautious each time, not wanting to push him too far.

Gregory was a freshman playing on varsity when he broke his leg. The Strickland family endured countless games that seemed too easy for Dontae to ensure that didn’t happen again.

“They didn’t want him to be rushed to play. They knew he had the ability to play with older kids,” Tia said. “But we don’t want him rushed into anything because we don’t know how he’ll react to it.”

Dontae started ninth grade with with the freshman team, then moved to junior varsity and varsity by the end. His sophomore year, he started on varsity and won a state championship, scoring two touchdowns in the title game.

Rodriguez would see Dontae’s mother at games and say, “Hey, Carol. This kid’s going to college for free. Leave him alone.”

“Thank God they let him play because we may not have ever seen a tremendous athlete, football player if they hadn’t let him play,” Rodriguez said.

Dontae’s parents never tried to make him quit. It wouldn’t have worked, even if they did.

Bill talked to Dontae about concussions once. “I don’t get them. I give them,” Dontae responded.

“That was the end of that conversation. You know?” Bill said.

Before every game, Dontae’s family prays that he gets up and is OK after every play.

Afterward, whether on FaceTime or in person, the most important question is “What hurts?” They care less about who won.

Carol never wanted her son to play football in the first place. She didn’t like the contact.

In retrospect, Bill wishes Dontae hadn’t chosen football. It’s the most barbaric sport.

But they, and the rest of the family, have to live with the decision Dontae made. All the surreal moments it provides, like watching him play in the Carrier Dome, which brings Carol to tears. And at least 12 weeks of worry a year, not knowing if he’ll be able to walk off the field the next time he plays.

“You never know. Any play, anything could happen. Any moment,” Tia said. “As long as he plays football, we’ll be nervous.

“Every play.”

CLARIFICATION: In a previous version of this article, Dontae Strickland’s first football coach, Jim Quigley, was misidentified. 

Published on September 16, 2016 at 1:39 am

Contact Jon: [email protected] | @jmettus