 Utley in Detroit in 2014 | |||||||||
| No. 60 | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Position | Guard | ||||||||
| Personal information | |||||||||
| Born | (1965-12-20)December 20, 1965 (age 60) Seattle, Washington, U.S. | ||||||||
| Listed height | 6 ft 6 in (1.98 m) | ||||||||
| Listed weight | 288 lb (131 kg) | ||||||||
| Career information | |||||||||
| High school | John F. Kennedy Catholic(Burien, Washington) | ||||||||
| College | Washington St. | ||||||||
| NFL draft | 1989: 3rd round, 59th overall pick | ||||||||
| Career history | |||||||||
| Awards and highlights | |||||||||
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| Career NFL statistics | |||||||||
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Michael Gerard Utley (born December 20, 1965) is an American former professionalfootball player who was aguard for theDetroit Lions of theNational Football League (NFL). He playedcollege football for theWashington State Cougars, earning first-teamAll-American honors in 1988. Utley was selected in the third round of the1989 NFL draft. He played for Detroit from 1989 until 1991, when he wasparalyzed during a game.
A graduate ofKennedy Catholic High School nearSeattle, Utley attendedWashington State University inPullman and was a senior on the1988 Cougar team which triumphed at theAloha Bowl,[2] Washington State's first bowl victory since the1916 Rose Bowl. He was also named MVP; that season, he earned consensusAll-American honors,[3] only the second Cougar to do so. In 2004, Utley was elected into the WSU Athletic Hall of Fame,[4] and was elected to theCollege Football Hall of Fame in 2016.[5]
Utley was anoffensive lineman with theDetroit Lions, picked in the third round of the1989 NFL draft, 59th overall.[6][7] In hisrookie year, Utley became the starting right guard for the Lions. He started the first five games, but was injured in the fifth game against theMinnesota Vikings. Utley was put oninjured reserve for the rest of the year.
In his second year in1990, he fractured two ribs in the third preseason game, and was sidelined for the lastpreseason game and the first three regular season games. Utley came off the bench by playing in the second half of the next two games. Utley started in the sixth game, but dislocated his shoulder in the third quarter. He finished the season playing only in the second half of games.[citation needed]
In1991, Utley started every game and was the full-time right guard until a paralysis injury on November 17 forced him to retire (he took part in 11 games up to that point).[8] On the first play of the fourth quarter against theLos Angeles Rams, an injury to his sixth and seventhcervical vertebrae occurred while he was blocking the Rams’David Rocker.[9][10][11] Although he would later learn he was largely paralyzed from the chest down,[12] Utley flashed the crowd a "thumbs up" as he was being taken off the field. The thumbs up sign has become the symbol for the Mike Utley Foundation, a foundation created in 1991 by Utley and his agent Bruce Allen to help seek a cure for paralysis.
Utley began rehabilitation atCraig Hospital, which specializes in spinal cord injuries.[13] While the location of his injury defines him as havingquadriplegia by the standard medical definition, he has essentially complete use of his upper extremities, making him functionally someone withparaplegia.
The mission of the Mike Utley Foundation is to financially support an effective function-restoring treatment for spinal cord injuries, to encourage through education that of adopting a rehabilitative lifestyle for the spinal cord injured and a public awareness of spinal cord injuries.[14]