But Coffey had his own ailments to worry about that day. On the previous Monday he had banged up his knee in practice and hadn't been able to play the rest of the week. When he was given the opportunity to start at stopper, though, Coffey couldn't refuse. "This was a big opportunity for me, because that's where I played in high school and that's where I wanted my career to go at Amherst," he said.
So he got his knee taped, and he warmed up before the game. The knee still didn't feel right, but there was no turning back. The game began. And then, it happened. "A minute into the game I moved to my side," Coffey recalled. "I don't know if I was running awkwardly or something, but I planted and my knee gave out. It hurt a lot. I knew I was done for the year."
There was something in the air that day. Fellow teammates David Michener '02 (broken leg) and Mike York '04 (cut above the eye) both went down as well. "[Mike] toughed it out and came back," Coffey said, "but here's at least two players gone for the entire season in this game. Our senior captain was lost the game before. It was a tough stretch."
Coffey later discovered the extent of his own injury: a dented femur, crushed meniscus and a torn ACL and MCL. He underwent reconstructive surgery and did rehab the rest of the fall into the spring. But as time passed, the knee did not get better. "I was playing kickball that spring," Coffey recalled, "and I tried to catch a kickball and planted and my knee just gave out a little bit. I thought, 'If I couldn't even play kickball, how in the world was I going to play soccer again?'"
He had the knee examined and discovered that it has been torn a second time. "It was at that moment that most people would turn back," said Athletic Director and Co-Head Soccer Coach Peter Gooding.
But Coffey pushed on. "What was driving me the second time wasn't even so much being able to play for Amherst again," Coffey said. "Actually, not playing soccer opened my eyes to so much else this college has to offer, but at the same time, I wanted to look five years down the line. I didn't want to be sidelined for the rest of my life."
"I knew that as much as you have to suck it up and that rehab isn't fun, it was going to pay off in the end. To be able to go out for a jog or play in a pickup basketball game even after I graduate is something I don't think I could live without. To tell myself, 'I want to make it back [to playing soccer] for at least my senior year' was a good short-term goal to meet my long-term goals."
So Coffey continued intensive rehab, working with Maria Rello in the athletic trainer's office, among other medical professionals. "[Maria]'s been absolutely fantastic," he says. "I definitely wouldn't be back if it wasn't for her. She's been a huge help."
His junior season was lost, but he remained a part of the team. "I lived with a couple of other soccer players. It's nice, because the soccer team is not only tight on the field, but we party together and do other things together, and I was always invited to those things, so I didn't really feel disconnected. I went to a lot of games, and got pretty good at filming," he said, laughing.
Coffey didn't lose sight of his goal to get back on the field. He went abroad to Rome in the spring and took his rehab program with him. "It was rehab, rehab, rehab, and then I got to a point last spring when I could go out for a five-mile run outside of the Roman Coliseum," he recalled. At the start of the summer, Coffey returned home with the determination of the gladiators who used to battle in the Coliseum and made the final push to get back to soccer.
"I tried to work hard this summer and play in as many games as possible. I rehabbed at home and talked to a trainer who set me up on a summer program," explained Coffey.
It's now the fall of 2003. Coffey is back on the field, back to making his trademark long throw-ins, which Gooding calls "the best long throw any of us have ever seen, at any level." He's a big contributor to the 9-2-1 Jeffs.
"It's been great to be back," said Coffey. "One of the things I really like about the soccer team is that we're a really tight-knit group. We all may approach things a little differently or want different things, but in the end we all want to win a national championship."
And the knee? "[The knee] has been better. I'm not 100 percent now-I don't think I ever will be-but it's good enough to play, and it doesn't hurt every day like I expected it to."
His comeback and his dedication to the team have inspired teammates and coaches alike. Senior quad-captain Jeff Cantwell, who is also Coffey's roommate, explained, "knowing how much he's had to overcome in order to come back has been inspiring. Even after a year without playing, he's come back and is having a stellar year."
A computer science major, Coffey is a Career Center Recruiting Assistant, a campus tour guide and since sophomore year has been Amherst's representative on the Student Athlete Advisory Committee for NESCAC. This past year, he was nominated to the National Committee. As for future plans, Coffey said, "I want to be a consultant. That's the dream job right now."
If you ever need consulting on how to overcome adversity, Coffey's your man. "Brad was able to overcome disappointments and succeed," says Gooding, "and we're all the beneficiaries of that."