SCI Daily News

BEAUMONT - Kevin Everett pulled a handle to the double doors and walked into a Barnes & Noble bookstore only to be greeted by an old coach.

"There's my boy," said Al Celaya, Everett's head football coach during his senior season at Thomas Jefferson. "How you been doing?"

Everett felt as good as he looked, his slender and muscular build under a gray collared shirt with black, baggy jeans and black shoes with three white vertical stripes on each side.

The two shared stories about Everett's high school playing days, long before he suffered a life-threatening spinal-cord injury during a helmet-to-helmet collision Sept. 9 while playing with the Buffalo Bills.

"Now you know what I was talking about with all that mysterious stuff?" said Celaya, Everett's head coach in 2000.

"Yeah," said Everett, who looked at his coach through tinted sunglasses. "I didn't know it at the time."

Before they met Saturday, Celaya had seen Everett during news reports and appearances on television interviews about his recovery from an injury doctors feared might leave him paralyzed for life.

Celaya watched when doctors transported Everett from a hospital in Buffalo, N.Y., to Memorial Hermann Hospital in Houston. The next time Celaya saw his former player on television, he walked onstage for an interview with Opera Winfrey.

Now, with Everett in front of him, Celaya leaned toward Everett's right ear.

When asked what he told Everett, Celaya said, "I think one thing you share as a coach with your players is that things happen for a reason. There's something bigger than the game. There are some things you don't understand. That's what I was talking to him about just now."

Before Celaya, a 50-year-old assistant football coach at West Brook, and Everett ended their conversation, Everett signed a copy of a book about his life for Celaya's 9-year-old son, Alex. Then Everett, 26, snaked through rows of freestanding bookshelves and sat at a table.

On the table were dozens of books titled, "Standing Tall: The Kevin Everett Story." The book, written by Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Sam Carchidi, chronicled Everett's return from the life-threatening injury.

A line of readers and autograph seekers extended about 30 people deep. Several snapped photos of Everett with cell phones. Many others posed with Everett for a picture. Throughout Everett's two-hour appearance, people called him an inspiration.

"I enjoy talking to people, especially if they're coming here and tell me I'm an inspiration," Everett said. "It gives me a great feeling. It makes me want to be here."

Everett folded open the book's cover, which features him standing - something thought to not be possible in the days after his injury - and curled his fingers around a shiny, black pen. He wrote his name, with his initials, "K" and "E," as the most prominent letters in his signature.

Most visitors had never met Everett before Saturday. That wasn't true of all visitors, however.

"He told me not to give up," said Dani Simien, a 19-year-old Beaumont resident confined to a wheelchair since a car accident with a drunken driver almost a year ago. "He told me to keep working hard and to get my education."

Simien's connection with Everett extended far beyond Saturday's encounter. The pair frequently saw each other at Memorial Hermann as both recovered from their injuries.

"He's a nice person," said Simien, who attended the book signing with his mother, sister and niece. "A lot of people who are big-time like him, they don't care like he does."

Simien attended the book signing not only to get an autograph. He also shared a bit of sad news. Simien's stepfather, who arranged for Everett and Simien to meet last fall, died March 9.

"You could see the tears in his eyes," Simien said of Everett.

Another visitor, former West Brook quarterback James Guidry, befriended Everett during a series of hospital visits while working as regional director for the National Football League Players Association.

For Guidry, his recovery from a neck injury suffered during an Arena Football League game in 1999 allowed him to relate to Everett in a way few others can.

"He asked me, 'Did it feel like fire running through your bones?' I said, "Yeah, man, I felt the exact same thing,'" said Guidry, 41, who played professionally in Spain and Italy before an eight-year AFL career.

"'Did you feel like your hands and your feet were elevated in the air?'" Guidry said. "I said, 'Yeah, that's what it felt like the whole time.' So we had shared things so that I can relate to him and he could relate to me."

Guidry, who lives in Washington, D.C., attended the book signing with his 8-year-old daughter, Amirah. A four-inch scar remains on the back of his neck from a surgery after his injury. He also has a three-inch scar on his left arm, broken during a West Brook playoff game in 1983.

Guidry said the neck injury left him without full function of his right hand, as he is unable to fully close the hand.

"If someone tells you, 'I can relate to it,' no, you can't," said Guidry, who noticed that Everett also struggled at times with his right hand, the one he used to sign dozens of books.

Everett said the feeling in his hands has returned but is "nowhere near normal."

"My hands feel tingly and numb," he added.

Although his past is well documented, Everett said he looks to the future. He will conduct his annual football camp in July at Memorial. He hopes work with the Kevin Everett Foundation, devoted to spinal-cord injury patient support, will lead to business opportunities. And he'll get married in the fall of 2009.

As for Saturday, he signed books for people of all ages, including 9-year-old Javain Milo, a Port Arthur resident who wrote a book report about Everett.

Some autograph seekers phoned their requests to the store. Everett spoke with one person from Connecticut.

"They're calling from all over," said a bookstore employee.

"That's good," Everett said. "Keep 'em coming."