Spinal cord injuries

Mike Utley's Memories of WSU: A Perfect Choice

Jim Walden first saw Mike Utley not on a football field but on a basketball court.

Walden, the WSU Head Football Coach, was putting together his 1985 recruiting class, and his assistant coach Gary Gagnon asked him to take a look at a recruit who was playing for the Kennedy High School basketball team in Seattle.

“He was doing everything 100 miles an hour, full-bore, running up and down the court,” Walden recalls. “I distinctly remember thinking he is not going to lead the league in scoring, but he will lead the league in banging, knocking, and grabbing guys. I really like the way he … » More …

Winter 2010

Living for a cure

At his home on the banks of the Columbia River just north of Wenatchee is one of Mike Utley’s achievements.

A Ford F-350 pickup.

Black with blue flames jutting from front to back, the truck gives off as imposing a presence as the 6-foot-6 Utley must have given opponents during his playing days as an offensive lineman with Washington State University and the Detroit Lions.

“Success comes not in time but in goals achieved,” he says. “I earned this truck.”

On November 17, 1991, Mike Utley was carried off a football field on a stretcher and taken by ambulance to a hospital.

In the ensuing … » More …