Men's soccer head coach Greg Holker's thoughts on the season so far, heading into Augsburg's MIAC-opener at Concordia-Moorhead on Wednesday: It’s been a challenging start to the 2008 campaign for our men's soccer team. Three of last year's starters have not set foot on the field due to injuries -- including one who will have open-heart surgery on Friday.
In our first preseason scrimmage, sophomore sensation Matt Bowman collapsed with three minutes remaining in the contest. When I got to Matt, things did not look good. It was an out-of-body experience for me -- like I was living what I had read in the news. He was having trouble getting oxygen and was unconscious and unresponsive. I thought he was dying.
For what seemed like an eternity, we waited for the paramedics to arrive ... but before they made it, Matt came to and starting responding to questions. Within a matter of five minutes, he said he felt fine -- it was crazy. After he was released from the ambulance, it looked like he could run a marathon. He felt perfectly fine. After further testing that night at a local hospital and more extensive testing the following Monday, the doctors could not find anything wrong with him. He was set for one last round of testing and we were expecting him to be cleared to play on our trip to Iowa when we found out the news.
Matt is a walking miracle. He has a form of anomalous coronary artery heart defect that is very rare, and in 80 percent of patients, they die before it is diagnosed. Surgery is Matt's only option because with this condition (his left coronary artery is going between his aorta and his pulmonary artery, a place it definitely shouldn't be), the risk of sudden death is very high even if he gave up competitive sports.Matt is scheduled for surgery at 7:30 a.m. on Friday, Sept. 12. He will be in surgery for about three hours and then intensive care for the rest of the day. The surgeon said in 8-10 weeks he should make a full recovery, and he will be able to rejoin his teammates on the field in 2009.
When something like this happens, it helps everyone involved reassess what is important to them -- and how we live our lives. As painful as it has been for Matt to be away from the sport he loves and the team he calls family, we are all grateful he will recover from this and have an opportunity to keep making a difference in all of our lives.
We will honor Matt throughout this season with a black armband that reads "MB5."
"We are a family determined to transforming ambition into championships through disciplined effort and strong leadership."
