PAINFUL DECISION CLEARED TO PLAY, INJURED TEEN RELUCTANTLY SITS GAME OUT.

Byline: Amy Raisin Darvish Staff Writer

VALENCIA - As the Vikings played the first game on their new football field Thursday night at Valencia High, senior Brandon Coleman wore his jersey but could only cheer on his teammates from the sidelines.

Doctors recently cleared the defensive tackle to play in his last season after he was hit by a car in May, suffering a compound fracture in his left leg that left him unable to walk. But Coleman, 17, knows better than anyone the pain and struggle he continues to endure and chose not to risk further injury.

Still, watching his team out on the field proves a different kind of pain.

``It feels kind of like I'm crying inside,'' said the blond, blue-eyed teen. ``You know that lump in your throat when you feel like you're going to cry? It's like that feeling, but all the time. It just (irritates) me that I'm not out there.''

It's not that his whole life is football. Fascinated by computer video games since he was a toddler, Coleman has been designing his own games on his personal computer for years and plans to attend the Orange County Arts Institute next year for formal training.

But he wakes up every morning regretting what he calls ``the stupidest thing I've ever done.'' He'd give anything to take back the end to a great night on May 1, a night he spent at a friend's birthday party, having a great time until the ride home.

Stopped at a red light on McBean Parkway, the teens in the car decided to get out and run around the car before the light turned green. Coleman was hit by a car and when he looked down, a bone was protruding at least five inches from the inside of his lower leg.

``The doctors told me if I would have been any smaller I would have been killed,'' said the 6 foot, 2 inch Coleman, who weighs 261 pounds.

``When they tried to get me in a wheelchair the next day, I passed out. I was in a wheelchair for a month, then a walker for two or three weeks, then crutches for a month.''

His mother, Trudy, who has raised her only child on her own, said Brandon seemed depressed after Thursday night's football game. But she tries to remind her son about the limitless future waiting for the kid who has displayed a beyond-his-years understanding of computers and video games since he was 3 years old.

``He was a little boy and he would spend hours and hours drawing little characters he wanted to put in a video game,'' said Trudy, who with her son moved to Santa Clarita from a small Minnesota town in 1998. ``He would stay up all night thinking of characters. I'd wake up in the morning and he'd be asleep, with a book he'd made sitting next to him.''

Coleman is focused on one day designing the very RPGs - role-playing games - that he plays, studies and critiques. He has already completed a number of computer courses at College of the Canyons and has even studied Japanese.

``I want to move to Japan - that's where the best games are made,'' he said. ``I want, one day, for the credits to roll on the end of a video game and have someone I knew from high school (see my name and) say, `I knew that guy.'''

Amy Raisin Darvish, [phone]

amy.raisin(at)dailynews.com

CAPTION(S):

photo

Photo:

Valencia High varsity football player Brandon Coleman was injured in May when he was hit by a car. Although he's been cleared to suit up again, chose to sit out games until his broken leg is 100 percent healed.

John Lazar/Staff Photographer