Alabama high school player undergoes surgery for a broken neck

T.R. Miller's Ken Lett Jr. was injured while returning the game's opening kickoff on Friday

T.R. Miller head coach Brent Hubbert celebrates victory with his team during the AHSAA Kickoff game at Cramton Bowl in Montgomery, Ala., on Thursday, Aug. 22, 2024. Now the team is rallying behind sophomore Ken Lett Jr., who suffered a broken neck and spinal injuries while returning the opening kickoff in the team's game on Friday night. / Jake Crandall/ Advertiser / USA TODAY NETWORK

The excitement and pageantry of high school football was suddenly dulled, this past Friday in South Alabama, when T.R. Miller sophomore Ken Lett Jr. was seriously injured while returning the opening kickoff of the Tigers game at UMS-Wright Prep.

According to multiple media reports, Lett suffered a broken neck and spinal injuries in the opening seconds of his team's 28-14 victory.

According to Call News, Lett underwent more than four hours of surgery at University Hospital in Mobile, late Friday night, and his head coach said he was showing signs of progress on Saturday.

“He has some feeling back and some movement in the upper extremities, which is positive right now,” T.R. Miller head coach Brent Hubbert told Call News after visiting Lett Saturday morning. “To my understanding from his mom, it is not a severed spinal cord, so that was also something that was positive.”

Lett absorbed a big hit while returning the opening kick and was on the turf for several minutes as medical personnel assessed his status and imobilized him. Players from both teams huddled together in prayer together on the field, encircling Lett has was placed on an ambulance to be transported to the hospital.

According to the Call New report, Hubbert said Lett was upbeat when he saw him on Saturday and the player was asking about Friday's game.

“The things that we’ve heard and seen so far are definitely uplifting,” Hubbert said. “We were talking, he was asking about the game and he knew the score and he wanted to know some different things that happened and everything. He got to smiling and laughing about a couple of things, so that was good.”

The coach also said it is too early to know if Lett's paralysis will be permanent and, regardless, he faces a long recovery process. This is the second major adverse event the T.R. Miller players have faced in the last few years. In May of 2022, Lavarius Bell, then a freshman member of the team, drowned.

Call News also spoke with Tigers' running back Myles Johnson, who rushed for 138 yards and two touchdowns to lead the Tigers to victory on Friday.

“That just lets us know that this game is not promised,” Johnson said. “And we’ve just gotta thank the Lord for letting us play this game. We’ve just gotta play it like it’s our last time. We realized that he went down and we’ve gotta step up. And that’s our brother. He would want us to go out and get the win for him.”