ILLUSTRATED VOLUME 24, ISSUE 6 53
f
ing with pride. "He played when they
told him he couldn't. With a snapped
tendon.
"He's got a desire to participate and
he's got a drive to be successful when
he's out there. A lot of kids won't play
hurt, just because it's not infused in
their personality. Landon just has that
inner drive."
Once at Purdue, other injuries hit. A
shoulder injury that required surgery
and forced months of rehab. A broken
thumb that required three screws. And,
then, in the season opener last season
at Cincinnati, Feichter broke the thumb
on his left hand making a tackle and the
third metacarpal in his right hand after banging it on a
helmet.
During practice the next week, he had both hands ex-
tensively wrapped, hiding hard-plastic type casts. Team-
mates and coaches joked that he looked like a boxer, not
bad, really, for the tough guy image.
But Feichter didn't want anyone to know how serious
the injuries were — younger brother Evan didn't even
find out until days before the second game.
Ultimately, Feichter's secret was leaked by an unlike-
ly source: His head coach revealed the extent on a radio
show Thursday before the
game. But also said Feichter
still would play.
"There's a difference be-
tween being injured and be-
ing hurt. I looked at those as
more being hurt rather than
injured," Landon Feichter
said. "I like playing through
pain. I like people thinking
that I'm tough. Then when
you think that, you don't re-
ally worry about the pain any-
more. It's just pain. It comes
and goes. I guess it's a really
cheesy line — pain is weak-
ness leaving the body. I think
that would be something I
really focus around because
pain is pain. It leaves eventually."
Or, in Feichter's too-often case, it just moves to a dif-
ferent body part.
Feichter knew the severity of his leg injury by halftime
in the next game and returned to the field with his foot in
a boot and on crutches. Walking off the field after the nar-
row victory, he shook his head: The injury was not good.
Initially, a doctor told him recovery would be three
months, mostly because of the deltoid tear. But soon af-
ter, another narrowed the window to six weeks.
That's all Feichter needed to hear to begin believing.
He changed the passcode on his cell phone to correlate
