Email
Print
Returning after knee surgery, Jeremy Cannon eager, excited for action
Photo by James Nix
Northwest Cabarrus' Jeremy Cannon works out in the school's weight room with his teammates Tuesday morning. Cannon, the team's quarterback, sat out last football season after injuring his knee in the preseason.
ADVERTISEMENT
Published: July 14, 2009
KANNAPOLIS - What Jeremy Cannon really wants to do is play football again.
"I'm so excited right now to go out and play," he said. "You just don't know how excited I am."
But maybe, by trying to stand in Cannon's shoes, an educated guess is possible.
As a freshman, he started at quarterback for Northwest Cabarrus, and the Trojans made a stunning run to the NCHSAA 3AA semifinals after going 5-6 during the regular season.
As a sophomore, he put up eye-popping numbers, and was named Independent Tribune Offensive Player of the Year.
Last year, he was going to be the cover photo on this newspaper's annual football edition.
The same weekend the edition was being finalized, Cannon was nearing the end of a scrimmage against Mount Pleasant.
Running goal-line offense, he was hit and his left knee was seriously damaged.
So much for Jeremy Cannon's junior season.
But his preparation for senior year was just beginning.
Cannon said "a bunch of prayers" helped him through the past year.
"It humbled me," he said. "You've just got to let it go and whatever happens, happens."
He went through two knee surgeries and rehab. Now he wears a brace on his repaired knee.
That hasn't kept Urban Meyer and Pete Carroll from watching Cannon at camps in Florida and southern California this summer.
"A lot of people are trying to see how my knee is doing," Cannon said. "I'm just doing the same drills as everybody else. I guess I'm doing good at them. A lot of schools seem interested now.
"I've tested it a lot. I feel faster than I did before."
But here's the thing. While Cannon would love to play for a Division I school — Florida is his dream team — he's preparing for whatever might happen.
"People are expecting me to go play Division I football. ... No one controls my future except for God," he said. "If it's meant for me to play Division I, then He will allow that to happen. If it's Division II, it's not a problem."
Cannon had two surgeries to repair his knee, first on the lateral collateral ligament, then the anterior cruciate ligament.
"The doctor didn't want to do two surgeries at the same time and make more stress on the knee," he said. "That would have been very painful."
As it was, rehabbing the knee was difficult enough. Sometimes almost too much.
"There were days I just didn't want to go to physical therapy," Cannon said. "Sometimes I would stop doing an exercise and just walk outside. Then (the therapist) would have to come talk to me and calm me down. Like, 'I know this is hard for you, but you've just got to do it in order to get back out there.' So I just sucked it up and went with it."
The first day of football practice is Aug. 1. Cannon said he will be sitting out Northwest's first scrimmage game for precautionary reasons.
"I just don't know right now," Cannon said, "but I can't wait for that first game. I think we're going to have a great team. We're going to surprise a good number of people. We have some good returners.
"We've got some nice (offensive) formations this year. We've got to get more people out. We might have a couple people going both ways. But that's fine. Just get into shape."
Northwest moves from the North Piedmont Conference this year to play in the South Piedmont 3A Conference that will consist of seven Cabarrus County Schools plus A.L. Brown, and Cannon said he is "very excited" about that.
"I haven't played Hickory Ridge yet or A.L. Brown," Cannon noted.
First-year school Cox Mill, which is drawing students from Northwest, is new to the mix, too.
Email
Print
ADVERTISEMENT
Click a region for news specific to that area.
 |
||
 |
 |
 |
 |
||
 |
||
 |
||
Advertisement
