GAHANNA, Ohio — Go ahead, let your imagination wander, he’s done it himself. In his mind’s eye — between every leg press, every cardio workout, every pool exercise, every yoga pose — he still sees No. 87 tapping the ball to himself in the end zone against the St. Louis Rams, and each time Domenik Hixon reminds himself of one thing:
An ordinary receiver doesn’t make that play.
An average guy doesn’t score TDs like that — not by leaping over a defender, having a throw bounce off his shoulder, planting his leg hard enough to tear a knee ligament, and double-tapping the end-over-end football into the palm of his right hand as he rolls his way into an ESPY nomination.
A guy who makes that kind of play is destined for ... what, a breakout year? A special year? A Victor Cruz-like year?
“Coming back from the previous injury — feeling faster, catching the ball better, knowing the offense — I felt everything was falling in line,” Hixon says, recalling the moment he tore his right ACL for the second time in 15 months. “I was confident that I was back to 100 percent.”
Could he make that judgment in Week 2? Sure. An athlete knows. You only have to revisit that catch — among the very best of the 2011 season — to understand. Hixon was on his way.
Then, about 24 hours later, we learned that the reward for this TD was another shredded ligament, another surgery, and another six to eight months in rehab.
Nobody ever said this game was fair.
But we can say this: The unique nature of this game is how it can act as a petri dish for the examination of the human soul. So we made it a point to take our 2012 Tour of the industrial heartland through a local gym just outside of Columbus, to reacquaint ourselves with one of the biggest hearts you’ll find inside a blue jersey.
Is Hixon bitter? Not in the least. Is he snakebit? On the contrary, the Giants’ receiver is grateful for everything he has, even if he’ll be a mere spectator Sunday in Indianapolis.
Is he perplexed by this absurd twist of fate? That’s another matter.
Giants Hixon 2.JPGView full sizeJohn Munson/The Star-LedgerGiants wide receive Domenik Hixon suffered a season-ending knee injury in Week 2.
This is a team guy. But let’s be frank: If he gets out of Week 2 without a scratch, he remains Eli Manning’s No. 3 target behind Mario Manningham and Hakeem Nicks — if not climbing the charts with a bullet.
Which also means, one may surmise, that we may never have become acquainted with the new star of this show, Victor Cruz.
“I’ve thought of that,” Hixon admitted with a nod, after a two-hour workout the other day.
“I’ve always said, when I go to schools and talk to kids, ‘You have to take advantage of opportunities.’ If (Drew) Bledsoe never gets hurt, maybe we never hear of Tom Brady. Injuries are part of the game, and a lot of people come ready.”
He has one word to describe Cruz’s astral-like explosion into prominence: “Awesome,” he said.
“The thing I think about, if I’m still there, is how much more open Manningham and I would be — because now they have to double-team everybody. But he’s been awesome, along with Hakeem (Nicks). It’s something I want to be a part of, and look forward to.”
The interesting part to all this: We didn’t come here looking for envy, really, because the enduring lesson of sport is that seasons, careers, and lives can turn on one play.
But Hixon, 27, taught us a lesson about how hideous luck can be a mere inconvenience, when you’re mature enough to understand priorities.
“We never heard a word of complaint from him — not after the first time he tore it, or the second time — and a lot of it was related to what was happening around here,” explained his dad, Marvin, a cop in the city of Columbus. “Because at the time he was injured, my wife was still dealing with breast cancer, and that weighed on his mind far more than his knee.”
Indeed, the first time Marvin had a chance to console his son was on the phone. Domenik interrupted him immediately: “I have no reason to feel sorry for myself, Dad,” he told Marvin. “Not with the stuff that Mom is going through.”
Birgit Hixon is fine now. She endured surgery, and then chemotherapy, which ended exactly seven days after her son tore ACL-II. Yet throughout their concurrent ordeals, her well-being was the only issue in his life.
“She was diagnosed in the spring, when I was coming back from my first knee injury,” Domenik said. “And when I look at her now, that’s more inspiration than anyone else can give me. She shows me you can come back from anything.”
Lost season? It’s all house money, is how he sees it.
Monitoring his rehab stint was Milan Smith, 12 years his senior, and one of Hixon’s former coaches at Whitehall-Yearling High School. Milan smiles like a big brother when he talks about him — which he is, basically — and says, “If anything defines what Dom is like, it’s the perspective he’s taken into this rehab.”
For the second straight year, New York Giants wide receiver Domenik Hixon suffered a season-ending ACL injury. As his teammates prepare for Super Bowl XLVI, Hixon continues to rehab his right knee at home near Columbus, Ohio. Video by John Munson and Dave D'Alessandro/The Star-Ledger Watch video
Smith was the first guy Hixon called after he was told the ligament had been retorn, and he’ll never forget the conversation.
“It was like he was talking about ... the weather,” Smith recalls. “It was like, ‘If this is what God has for me, we just go back at it again, and we’ve got to work harder at it this time. Now, I’m getting ready for surgery, I’ll see you in two months for rehab, and we’ll get ready to go to work.
“It was never, ‘Woe is me,’ never once did you hear ‘God is unfair,’ or ‘Life sucks.’ Not once.”
Smith paused to laugh out loud: “And he never, ever said, ‘Victor wouldn’t be eatin’ if I were in there.’ It was more like, ‘Man, if I were there, we’d all be eatin’ right now.’”
So that’s your receiver in rehab. He’s one of the kids you root for, not because he’s got a great family and an interesting name (by the way, it’s pronounced “Dominique, but he’s too polite to correct anybody,” his dad says), but because we all know that the game owes him one.
Or two, actually.
“I’m off to Indianapolis Thursday — I talked to (middle linebacker Jonathan) Goff, we’ll meet up, grab dinner, hang out, and have our ACL Anonymous meeting,” Hixon said with a chuckle. “It’s a blessing to be a part of it.”
Story written by : Dave D’Alessandro:
ddalessandro@starledger.com
