PARRY'S PERSISTENCE PAYS DIVIDENDS EAGLES RB INSPIRED BY BROTHER, WHO RETURNED TO PLAY AFTER AMPUTATION.

Byline: Billy Witz Staff Writer

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. - It has become something of a ritual at the Eagles' training camp. Each of the last four summers, Josh Parry heads east from Northern California, grinds his way through six weeks of practice, trying to show his coaches that he belongs in the NFL. Then around Labor Day he gets the bad news: He's been cut.

Once it was because he tore up his knee. Another year because he was learning a new position on the fly. Other times he's been picked up by the Eagles on their practice squad.

The bottom line always is the same. He hasn't been good enough.

When Parry, a fullback, was released from the Eagles' practice squad in early September, it might have been time to take a hint.

The Eagles had veteran Jon Ritchie and drafted rookie Thomas Tapeh in the fifth round last spring. Parry was 26 and had a wife and two young kids at home.

``I've been an underdog since high school,'' Parry said. ``If you believe in something, you'll persevere, and it will work out.''

So it has for Parry. He was packing up his family's belongings and preparing to return to Sacramento when Ritchie suffered a season-ending knee injury in Philadelphia's third game of the season.

The next day the team called him, signed him, and he's played in every game since. Parry will be in the lineup Sunday for the Eagles in Super Bowl XXXIX.

``It's been quite a year,'' Parry said. ``I've always followed a motto: never get too high or too low. This game changes on a daily basis. I've been on the bottom of the barrel a lot. Now I'm on top.''

Parry has had a ready source of inspiration - his younger brother, Neil, who had part of his right leg amputated in 2000 after suffering a compound fracture while the brothers played at San Jose State.

Neil, after three years and 25 surgeries, returned to the field in September 2003 wearing a prosthetic leg, participating on one kickoff coverage.

The Parrys grew up in Sonora, a small town in the western foothills of the Sierra Nevada, where about the only thing that separated them was two years in school.

``Whenever I'd throw their butt outside and say it was time to get out of the house, they'd go to this creek behind the house and play for hours and hours,'' said their father, Nick. ``They were constantly playing sports, or they might fish in the creek. They were just being boys, raising hell together somewhere. They were inseparable.''

So, when Neil, who had followed Josh to San Jose State, sat in a hospital bed preparing to have the lower part of his right leg amputated, his older brother was devastated.

While Nick, a former military nurse, dressed the wounds, Josh couldn't bring himself to look.

``At the time, football wasn't fun anymore. I was going to hang'em up,'' said Josh, a senior co-captain at the time. ``(Neil) said, 'What are you thinking?' I said, 'I'm not having fun.' And he said if you can't push yourself, then at least play for me.

``I've taken it to heart, and I'm playing for both of us. He's the only reason I'm still playing.''

The brothers made a pact. As long as Neil was trying to play, Josh would continue as far as he could.

That meant returning after he blew out his knee in the final exhibition game of the 2002 season. It meant moving from linebacker, the position at which he started for four years at San Jose State, to fullback in 2003.

``With two kids and a wife, he felt like he had to weigh his options,'' Neil told the Wilmington (Del.) New Journal. ``It was really a testament to his wife (Kelli). She told him, 'I want you to follow your dream.' And I told him, 'Remember our agreement.'''

The only drawback, Parry says, has been that it took an injury to Ritchie, a close friend, for him to get his break.

Parry, who also plays on special teams, does mostly dirty work. He hasn't carried the ball all season, but he's been a solid lead blocker, and he caught nine passes in the regular season and one in each of the Eagles' playoffs victories.

``Josh has done a great job,'' said Eagles halfback Brian Westbrook. ``He was really on the streets when they brought him back. He's blocked well and can catch the ball out of the backfield. It was definitely a pleasant surprise.

``He has the heart. He has the desire to play. He's a guy that definitely wanted to play.''

Parry has been rewarded with a three-year, $920,000 contract, although it is not guaranteed. Meanwhile, Neil is one class from earning his degree from San Jose State and hopes to go into public relations or communications. He served as a radio analyst on Spartans games this season and worked as an intern in the San Francisco 49ers public relations department this fall.

``He's been such an inspiration,'' Parry said. ``Sometimes he gets down. He doesn't see his foot, doesn't see his shoe - nobody can relate to that except another amputee. He's got scars and swelling and that stuff to deal with, but he's enjoying life and living it to the fullest.

``He's my little brother, but he's also my role model.''

Billy Witz, [phone]

billy.witz(at)dailynews.com

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Running back Josh Parry returned to Eagles after Jon Ritchie's knee injury.

Ronald Martinez/Getty Images