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As he rounded the bases in the opening game of the 2007 baseball season, it appeared Brandon McArthur was on his way to another great year.

He had just hit a home run in his third at-bat to bring UF within three runs of Virginia Military Institute, and his teammates thought they were going to see lots more of this from the junior third baseman.

"I was thinking, 'Man, this is a big season for him,'" designated hitter Bryson Barber said. "He's about to break out and do something special this year."

Instead, McArthur was taken out of the game three innings later, not to return for the rest of the season.

He couldn't move his arm the next morning. Couldn't stretch it, couldn't bend it, couldn't extend it.

"It tore me up. It tore me up inside," McArthur said. "It was a really tough thing to deal with."

Two days later, Feb. 12, 2007, he underwent an MRI and got the bad news: He had torn the ulnar collateral ligament in his right elbow.

That's when he knew his season was through.

"When I found out, it put a hole in me because I was, you know, wanting to go out with the class that I came in with," he said.

So, for the second time in four seasons, McArthur would spend the year on the bench.

It would be Tommy John surgery, months of rehabilitation and a year without baseball.

But, hey, anything is easier than the first time.

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Major Headache

Sitting on McArthur's left, it's hard to miss the scars running from just above his ear to the top of his head. With his brown hair cut short, the thin, pink lines stand out brightly against the rest of his scalp.

The scars - from where doctors removed 5 percent of his brain - tell a story about the night of Oct. 30, 2003, when McArthur, then a freshman, was sucker-punched from behind by a stranger outside the Grog House.

He fell to the ground and cracked his head open on the sidewalk, rendering him unconscious.

"It was just another regular night out on the town," McArthur said.

The next thing he remembered was Nov. 23.

He missed out on a tad less than a month of his life. Life-saving brain surgeries on back-to-back days, a drug-induced three-day coma and an extended stay in the Intensive Care Unit at Shands at UF left him forgetting how to walk, talk, eat or tie his shoes. He even forgot things that happened before the accident, including meeting his new teammates.

"I tried to get up to go to the bathroom for the first time … and I fell down because I didn't know how to walk," he said.

Also gone was his ability to taste and smell. Savoring his favorite food - meatloaf - was out of the question.

The doctors told McArthur he would never play baseball again.

They told his mother, Valerie Bullock, that he would be paralyzed and unable to truly communicate. But Bullock had no doubt her son would come back to play again.

"My faith never, ever wavered from the fact that he'd be back and he'd be stronger," Bullock said.

She woke up at 7 a.m. every day to take care of her son, driving him to a rehab clinic three times per week in Clearwater from late November 2003 through January 2004, and she watched as he struggled to relearn the game of baseball.

McArthur called her his "stone" through the process.

Four years later, there's not much to complain about. He regained all his motor functions, his swing and his spot on the team, and the only thing he's missing is his sense of smell and taste.

"I can tell hot and cold, but that's about it," McArthur said. "I look back, and if those are the only things that I lost, then I should be thankful that I'm alive and I get to play this game."

Losing his ability to smell and taste actually even has its upshots - he doesn't have to smell foul odors, and he gets to eat foods he wouldn't have touched before the accident.

"I started to eat sushi and oysters and all kinds of crazy stuff," he said. "I don't usually go about those things. But now it doesn't matter."

Sidelined Again

After McArthur redshirted his freshman year with his head injury, tearing a ligament in his right arm was a relatively small deal.

His UCL popped during a throw to first base from third on a routine ground ball.

"This one was a lot easier because I had been through that first rehab," he said. "This to me seemed like a hangnail. That was all this was."

Of course, the new injury - after two years of baseball without a hitch - was serious enough to sideline him for the year.

"Unbelievable," Bullock said. "My reaction was, 'Can he catch a break?'"

Tommy John surgery, where doctors remove a ligament from the player's wrist or hamstring and place it in the elbow, requires a rehab process and additional time off.

McArthur compared the rehab to playing in Pee Wee Baseball again. First, he could slowly hit balls off a tee. Then, he moved up to soft throws. Next was batting practice, and finally he was ready to see real pitching again.

He did not rush, sitting out the entire 2007 season even if he thought he could have returned toward the end of the year.

Having the surgery ended his season, but it also allowed him to come back completely healthy this season.

"I knew my career wasn't over," McArthur said. "I knew I wasn't done playing the game of baseball. … Knowing that I was able to overcome that first one, I had a pretty good idea that I was going to be able to come back stronger from this last one."

It's remarkably easy to talk to McArthur about both injuries, a subject you would think would provoke unease and brief responses.

His eyes focus on the batting practice in front of him, but his voice is calm yet passionate. He looks away from the batting and into your eyes to emphasize a point.

"Quite honestly, I've accepted the fact that I've been able to move on," McArthur said. "God has blessed me enough to get the chance to come out here and play again. I can either regret the past, or I can accept it and move on."

Back in the Game

And move on he has.

The torn ligament? That's in the past.

The head injury? That's been settled in court. A jury awarded McArthur $12.8 million in September.

"[McArthur's attacker] won't be able to go get a credit card, or he won't be able to go apply easily to places without having people ask him, 'Well, why is this on your background check?' or 'Why is this on your credit?'" Bullock said. "It's going to remind him. Brandon has to take medication every day, which reminds him. Plus, when he takes a shower or washes his hair, that reminds him. It was just profound that the jury awarded him as much as they did and that [the attacker is] going to have that on his record for the rest of his life."

McArthur has no idea how much of that $12.8 million he will see, but the money is the last thing on his mind.

His focus is on his senior season.

Everyone on the team praises how intensely McArthur has been training to get ready for the new season.

"He's really worked very, very hard to get to where he is," said senior pitcher Josh Edmondson, one of five left who took part in the College World Series with McArthur in 2005. "We're all inspired by him."

"It's tremendous," Bullock said of his effort. "It's like a new Brandon. It's like he has a new love for the game. He has just put every ounce of effort, all the free time that he has, giving up going places on the weekends … so he can be all he can be for [the coaches] and for the baseball team."

A new coaching staff led by Kevin O'Sullivan has the team training harder than ever. McArthur is at the center of it all.

"It just speaks volumes of what type of kid he is," O'Sullivan said. "I know there's not a day that goes that by that we don't feel really, really happy for him, and we're anxious to get him out there and have him play just about every game out there and just get some rewards for all the time and effort he put in to come back."

But perhaps the best example of McArthur's dedication to the team comes not from others' praise but from a meaningless game.

On Feb. 6, in an intrasquad scrimmage with his team down five runs in the last inning, McArthur hit a bloop single into right field.

Instead of stopping at first, however, he rounded the corner and sped toward second after noticing the right fielder bobbling the ball. He hustled all the way to second base, sliding into the bag and coming up with dirt on his pants.

What causes that much exertion in such an unimportant game?

It comes from having missed so much and learning not to take baseball for granted.

"I don't ever want to give up a day," McArthur said. "I don't ever want to give up a chance to do something positive."

He'll get his opportunity on Friday, with UF kicking off its season against Siena.

It will be an emotional day for Bullock, who will travel the familiar 128 miles from Seffner in a motor home the family bought to share in McArthur's final year.

It took Bullock a full day to find the right words to describe how she'll feel when McArthur takes the field again.

"Blessed. Honored. Proud. And grateful," she said. "His work ethic and his commitment to make the starting lineup just blew me away when I started reflecting back. I've sat back and taken it as a given, but really none of it should be a given."

That he played at all in 2005 after nearly dying is remarkable. This year, McArthur has a season similar to his first comeback year in mind, when UF went to the College World Series.

"I want to leave this place the way that we left in '05 when we had such great support from around Gainesville," he said. "That's how I want it to be."

If anyone can come back from a season-ending injury, it's McArthur.

Anything is easier than the first time.

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