A Desoto High football player who was injured in spring training last year is back on the field -- but he's leading his team in a different way.
Corey Borner, a high school senior, was injured in a freak accident in 2009.
"I just came up to him -- not that fast -- and my head hit him like right here," he said. "My head was down kind of low and then he flipped me, and that's when everything started getting tight, like real, real tight."
He was paralyzed from the waist down.
"It's been a struggle, but not a bad struggle. It's a good struggle," said his father, Michael Borner.
His son has shown just how strong he truly is.
"If Corey is going to find a way every single day, we're going to find a way," said Borner's coach, Claude Mathis. "That's our motto this year."
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Corey Borner spends each and every game right in the end zone, cheering on the team who did the same for him after his accident.
"It's like they see me out there on the field," he said. "They're like, 'Oh, Corey is out here,' so that's going to make them play better."
If his father has anything to do with it, Borner won't miss a single touchdown or a single run.
"I promised him that if the team is going, we going," he said.
"This is like a therapy, and if you've never been there, then you don't know, so we there now," Michael Borner said.
They hope that one day, Borner will run the ball up the turf like the teammates he cheers on.
"You can see the emotion sometimes, and if you watch him the rest of the night, you'll see exactly what I'm talking about," his father said. "He might get up out (of) that chair."
