PELLA—Brian O'Donnell's story could have ended on the old A.N. Kuyper Field football turf at Central College in 1968 but, in many respects, it started there.
           
O'Donnell, who died June 5 at age 77 in his hometown of Wisconsin Rapids, Wisconsin, was inducted into Central's Athletics Hall of Honor in 2013. He was a talented defensive back for the Dutch, setting what was then a school record with eight interceptions for Central's 1967 Iowa Conference championship squad, including four in one game. Yet his life path was altered in the 1968 homecoming game against William Penn, when his spinal cord was severed, causing paralysis.
           
He didn't need to wait for a doctor to deliver the cruel diagnosis. He immediately did so himself to close friend and teammate Doug Black '70, who leaned over him after racing onto the field.
             
"I was one of the first guys to get to him," Black said. "And he looked at me and said, 'You know, I don't think I'll ever walk again.' He was right."
           
The injury attracted nationwide attention and an outpouring of support. Yet it also fueled his determination to use it as a springboard to serve others.
           
"He never knew the words, 'I can't,' said Mike Orr '69, who credits the alphabet for the launch of their close lifetime friendship, as O'Donnell and Orr were seated across from each other at freshman orientation activities in 1965 due to their last names. "He fought it hard. People would ask him, 'Did you ever ask yourself, why me? And he didn't. He just knew head a battle to fight and he fought it. And he ended up doing incredible things that a lot of people without that kind of an injury often aren't able to achieve. He was very humorous with an outgoing personality and interacted with people of every age."
            Listed at just 5-foot-10, 165 pounds as a defensive back, O'Donnell carefully avoided meeting coach Ron Schipper when he queitly made a campus visit prior to enrolling.
           
"He told his mother, 'I'm afraid if he sees me, he'll think I'm too small to play,'" Orr recalled.
           
But O'Donnell was a fierce competitor who fed off proving naysayers wrong, a trait that likely accelerated his recovery, friends said. He spent a year at a rehab facility where he met his nurse and future wife, the late Bev Pals. They married in 1970 and had a son and a daughter.
           
"Bev took incredibly great care of him over all those years and they had a great relationship," Orr said. "Bev would get up at 3 or 4 o'clock in the morning to get Brian up and ready and then get herself ready to take him to work and then go to work all day. Then she'd come back from work and pick him up. She did literally everything and it was amazing."
           

After graduating from Central in 1970, O'Donnell took a job as a guidance counselor and coach in Riverside, Iowa. He received a master's degree in counseling from the University of Missouri in 1972. He took over as Highland's head football coach in 1976 and added head coaching duties in baseball as well before leaving in 1982, for the role of guidance counselor and assistant coach at his alma mater, Assumption High School in Wisconsin Rapids. He was the head football coach there from 1996-2002, receiving his second conference coach of the year award in 1999. O'Donnell later served as an assistant coach and remained a guidance counselor until he retired.
           
"He lived exactly the way he played," Black said. "He was a smaller guy, but he never backed down from anything and he never backed down from a challenge. Of course, after his injury, he had a tremendous challenge living in that wheelchair. But Brian had a lot of courage and character, and probably his No. 1 attribute was his competitiveness. Everybody that came in contact with Brian was inspired. We learned a lot from Brian, and he was a great example for all of us."
           
The Central football squad's outstanding freshman award is named in O'Donnell's honor. He received the college's Alumni Achievement Award in 2000 and was inducted into the Central Athletics Hall of Honor in 2013. O'Donnell frequently returned to campus to assist with Central's summer football camps and became a popular figure with countless Dutch athletes and coaches too young to ever see him play.
           
Longtime Central offensive line coach Eric Jones '86, who also serves as major gifts officer, was among those encountering O'Donnell at summer camps and marveled at his attitude. Jones makes sure he shares O'Donnell's story with current Central players each year.
           
"The thing that sticks out to me is he had no animosity toward the game of football," Jones said. "He had a positive attitude about the game and about how it can impact people's lives. He just loved football."
           
But O'Donnell's influence stretched far beyond the playing field. Jones said that was evident while he was in Wisconsin Rapids for O'Donnell's funeral services.
           
"People saw the Central College shirts we had on and they said, 'You're here for Coach O'Donnell,'" Jones said. "And then they'd tell us, 'Well, he was my guidance counselor. He's the one who made us dream big.' He made a big impact on a lot of people up there."
           
Jones was among them.
           
"He wasn't resentful," he said. "He had such a positive attitude that when you were around him, it was infectious. It was like, 'All right, so if this guy is going to find joy today, I guess I'm going to have to find joy in my day, too. He had a great sense of humor and was fun-loving but he was also a man of deep faith and compassionate towards people."
           
Black said he'll always admire his former teammate.
           
"I'm reminded of a poem by an unknown author titled 'That Man is a Success,'" Black said. "The last line describes Brian perfectly: 'He looked for the best in others and gave the best he had.'"