Posted: 12/02/05
Wreck gives 'invincible' athlete a new perspective
By Michael Stephens
ETBU Sports Information Intern
MARSHALL–“Invincible” is how Micah Huckaby described himself, and “indestructible” was the way his teammates on the East Texas Baptist University football team viewed him prior to Aug. 14, 2004–a day that would change his life forever.
Huckaby was coming off of an All-American Southwest Confe-rence season in 2003 and was expected to take over leadership duties on a defending conference champion Tiger football team.
| Micah Huckaby felt invincible on the gridiron until his involvement in an auto accident. (Photo by Mark A. Dimmitt/ETBU) |
He had trained hard that summer and was “bigger, faster and stronger” than ever, he recalled. He expected 2004 to be his big season.
But on Highway 80, halfway between his hometown of Hallsville and Marshall, Huckaby's truck collided head-on with another vehicle. The accident instantly killed the young woman driving the other vehicle.
Thrown from his truck by the impact, Huckaby landed on the pavement and sustained knee and shoulder injuries that still trouble him.
The accident forced Huckaby to miss the entire 2004 season as he recovered from his physical injuries. But the emotional scars presented the greatest challenge.
He found the healing began when he met the husband of the woman who was killed in the wreck.
“I was nervous at first, but when I met him at (his wife's) funeral, he spoke to me,” Huckaby recalled. “He hugged me and said, 'If the death of my wife changed–strengthened–your relationship with Christ, then she didn't die in vain.'
“I always had been active in church, but I did not believe that I had done anything special–no reason for the Lord to allow me to live in an accident where the other driver was killed. What had I done that was so special that the Lord would spare me?”
In time, Huckaby concluded it wasn't what he had done but what he would do for Christ that gave his life purpose.
“The accident opened my eyes to the love of Jesus Christ,” Huckaby said. “The Lord uses me, football and my experience to help change people's lives through my story.”
Huckaby has shared his message–about how God uses broken people, not invincible ones–with the ETBU Baptist Student Ministry, the high school football team in nearby Jefferson and with an ETBU alumni group.
This past summer, he and ETBU defensive end Chad Glover traveled to the Czech Republic with Christian Outreach International. There he played in an exhibition game, worked in a sports clinic for children and shared his faith with anyone who would listen. Huckaby's Chris-tian testimony contrasts his life before his wreck and after.
“Before, I be-lieved that I could go through anything. Now, I know that God will carry me through everything,” he said. “Before, I believed that I could train and rely on myself for many things. Now, I know to rely on him and not myself.”
Huckaby brings to his newfound passion for evangelism the same intensity he displayed on the gridiron.
“I only know one way on the football field, and that is all out,” he said. “I want to live my life for the Lord in the same way,” he said.
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