Anthony Acevedo's head was full of thoughts and he couldn't escape them.
As he drove that Saturday night, he flipped on the radio, hoping to drown them out with music, sports talk, whatever was on.
Instead, he found the live broadcast from the one place he wished he was -- the Utica football team's home opener against St. Lawrence. But Acevedo, even if still a Pioneer at heart, but was no longer a Pioneer on paper. On Sept. 1, 2012, as he listened to his teammates for the previous two years take the field at Charles A. Gaetano Stadium, it hit him how much he had let everyone down, himself included.
"Hearing all my friends' names on the radio without me being out there," Acevedo said, "it disturbed me, I'm not going to lie. That night I went down in the weight room, while the game was still going on actually, and that's when I started lifting, and I didn't stop lifting until I was back on the field."
This story has a happy ending. Acevedo did make it back on the field for the Pioneers this season, and is having one of the finest campaigns of any receiver in the country. But it was long, often painful road for Acevedo.
Read the full 'Around the East Region' column HERE.