Jim Harte did not expect Spencer Peek to be playing soccer this year.
That’s because the head soccer coach for Carrollwood Day School didn’t see how Peek could recover from the 17 broken bones the teenager sustained in a single-car accident on Aug. 17, 2014.
Peek, 16 at the time, broke both arms and legs. He also broke his sternum and pelvis.
(Photos courtesy of Alyce Peek)
The accident, occurred near Cheval Boulevard, at Wimbledon Court, in Lutz, when Peek’s car hydroplaned because of rainy conditions. The car hit a speed limit sign and an oak tree before sliding about 70 feet sideways on the road.
“To watch him come back was hard to imagine,” said Harte, who has coached at Carrollwood for four seasons. “I honestly thought he wouldn’t play again.”
The Patriots’ soccer season is over. The team fell 3-0 to St. Petersburg Catholic on Jan. 29 in the Class A region quarterfinals.
But, that doesn’t overshadow Peek’s impressive battle to get back onto the field, including four surgeries and extensive rehabilitation.
“When he first came out of the wheelchair, and I watched him move — and I’m an optimist — I was looking at him moving, thinking, ‘Oh my gosh, I don’t know how he’s going to do it,’” the coach said. “To expect that he could be our starting center midfielder is amazing. He has come so far.”
The accident left Peek wheelchair-bound for about a quarter of his junior year.
Unable to play soccer during the 2014-2015 season, Peek helped Harte on the sidelines, serving as a sounding board, of sorts.
Harte often turned to Peek for advice on in-game strategy and the use of personnel.
“I would consult him during the games,” Harte said. “He was very engaged on that level. He was like an assistant coach.”
Peek said the opportunity to view the game from afar turned out to be a “pretty unbelievable experience.”
“Coach Harte is such an amazing coach, and for him to show me the respect that he did — being a junior in high school — and he still listened to me,” Peek said. “I did learn a lot from a different perspective, because I’ve always been a player on the soccer team. For him to have the conversations with me, to include me the way he did was…eye-opening.”
Peek’s work on the sidelines helped him gain a deeper understanding of the game, helping to offset his initial loss in foot speed, athleticism and conditioning.
“He got by on his will and his brains. He’s a very smart player, and he reads the game very well, which means he doesn’t have to run as much as someone who doesn’t read the game as well as he does,” Harte said about his team captain. “He anticipates and knows where to find a play, and think two or three passes ahead. He studies the opponent, and within the first 10 minutes of each game, he’s kind of got the opponent figured out.
“Getting up and down the field was very challenging, but he mitigated that by his ability to read the game,” Harte said.
Peek, also a former standout football player at Carrollwood, said one of the biggest challenges of performing on the soccer field was getting back into his “physical being.”
Before the car accident, Peek was a well-built 6-foot, 190-pound teenager. By the time he started walking again, Peek had withered to 140-pounds.
“I had lost so much weight, I was almost a skeleton. I felt so much skinnier and so much weaker,” said Peek, who has since returned to 190 pounds. “It was just physically about gaining back my size, my legs, getting my mass back. I feel much more solid than I did five months ago.”
Peek said the rehab and recovery process was a battle, and noted that being stuck in a hospital bed after the accident was tough.
“When you’re in that situation, at least for me, I couldn’t dwell on it,” he said.
Instead, Peek focused on the future.
“It was about mentally keeping myself on the track, and not straying off and feeling sorry for myself,” he said.
“I was unbelievably blessed to have my family and friends really rally around me. That was my source of strength,” he added.
Rendered completely immobile for three weeks after the accident forced him to “see the world through the eyes of somebody who’s permanently handicapped,” he said.
That broadened his understanding, he said.
“To even get a glimpse of what (handicapped) life is like just really shows you how strong the people are that face that situation permanently,” he said.
Despite the trials and tribulations, Peek said he wouldn’t change what he has gone through.
“The way I saw life before compared to now — you think more about things after experiencing something like that,” he said.
“I just feel like I’m more conscious of what I’m doing,” Peek said.
“Your entire outlook changes and you understand how quickly everything can be taken away,” he said. “I’m so much more grateful for everything now.”
Published February 10, 2016
