Jean-Jacques Taylor: Eddie Canales should be Texan of the Year

Eddie Canales turned the worst day of his life into something good.

Not many of us can do that.

There's no shame directed toward those who can't. We're not all built the same.

It takes a special person to fight through the pain and frustration to be a blessing for someone else.

That's the reason Canales started Gridiron Heroes Spinal Cord Injury Foundation. It was created eight years ago to help the families of high school football players whose catastrophic injuries have made them paraplegics or quadriplegics.

Unfortunately, Canales has spent way too much time in the Dallas-Fort Worth area over the last decade helping our kids cope with their life-changing circumstances.

He's helped Everman's Cory Fulbright (2002), Carrollton R.L. Turner's Nat Little (2004), DeSoto's Corey Borner (2009), Pinkston's Jared Williams (2009) and Molina's Diondre Preston (2010).

"We understand we're blessed and fortunate to do what we can," Canales said. "We talk about the blessings we've received and try to pay it forward.

"I draw strength from the Lord above. He has put this in our hearts, and we're going to do as much as we can to help other people and give them any help, support, guidance or comfort we can."

That's the type of caring and effort that earns Canales my nomination for Dallas Morning News Texan of the Year.

Canales can empathize with a family's pain. Its fears. Its uncertainty. He's shed the same tears they've shed and prayed the same prayers.

He'll never forget Nov. 2, 2001, the day his son, Chris, a tough 5-7, 120-pound defensive back at San Marcos Baptist Academy tried to tackle a Waco Reicher running back.

The player tried to leap over Chris and apparently crashed his hip into Chris' helmet, rendering him motionless. Chris made the tackle but has never walked since.

Later, a doctor told Canales and his wife, Pita, that Chris was paralyzed from the shoulders down.

None of us expects that to happen to our kids when we let them play football. What are the odds? One in a million? A billion? The odds don't matter when it affects your son.

Or grandson. Or nephew. Or friend.

According to the National Center for Catastrophic Sports Injury Research, 222 spinal cord injuries from 1977 to 2006 resulted in permanent disabilities at the high school level, compared with nine at the professional level.

Our community has had three such injuries in the last two years.

As his body healed, Chris spoke with his father about how they could help other kids in his situation, but they couldn't figure out exactly what to do. A year later, they watched Fulbright suffer a similar injury in the Class 3A championship game against Burnet.

As Fulbright lay on the turf, surrounded by medical personnel, Chris and Eddie decided it was time to start Gridiron Heroes.

This is not the Susan G. Komen Foundation. This is not some other multimillion-dollar foundation that has the money and power to attract national attention.

Those groups do fantastic work. So does Gridiron Heroes.

It just helps on a much smaller budget. Each month, every one of the group's Heroes receives a $100 Walmart gift card.

The group has occasional fundraisers so it can help families enduring this traumatic situation, whether it's paying a portion of the $25,000 deductible on a school district's catastrophic-injury policy or buying a specially equipped van.

The medical bills alone can be overwhelming.

Then there's the cost for widening doors to accommodate a wheelchair, adding ramps to a house or redoing a bathroom so the person can eventually have the dignity of taking a shower or going to the restroom without help.

And let's not even talk about the $15,000-$25,000 it costs for a bed with a pressure-supported mattress that reduces the frequency of bedsores.

Gridiron Heroes doesn't dispense much cash, but Canales provides unlimited advice. He tells parents the proper arguments to make when they're trying to persuade insurance companies and school districts to help defray more of the costs.

He helps coaches, booster clubs and parents get the community involved, whether it's bringing food for the family, raising money or providing relief for the parents long enough for them to sleep a few hours a day.

When Canales quit his job as a director of operations at the UT-San Antonio bookstore to care for Chris, it took about 20 hours a day because Chris required a catheter to be inserted every three hours and a variety of medications every six hours.

That was a labor of love. So is this.

Jean-Jacques Taylor is a Dallas Morning News sports columnist. His e-mail address is

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