Injured Jennings County graduate’s positive attitude spreads to Franklin College teammates

Apart from the result, Matt Walker remembers the play that permanently altered his life as fairly routine.

Blitzing from his outside linebacker position during a game at Butler, the Franklin College junior was closing in on his target when the lights, literally and figuratively, went out.

“I got low and made a move inside,” Walker said, recalling the moment three weeks ago when a freak collision with a blocker cost him his football career and half his vision. “His hand came up through my face mask, and everything went black for like a split second, and then everything was white on my right side for like five minutes.

“And ever since then, it’s been black.”

The it is the vision in his right eye. Barring a medical miracle, Walker won’t see out of it again. The hand that inadvertently slipped through his face mask shattered his eye-socket and caused irreparable damage that doctors say is almost sure to result in permanent sight loss.

But for Walker, who has played organized football since third grade, blindness wasn’t the worst possible news.

Informed that his career is likely over was far more jolting.

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