Football: Star running back remains in hospital

Last season, Princeton was hopeful about its running game. An offensive line that returned all of its starters was ready to block for then-junior running back Jordan Culbreath, who had broken out in a game on ESPNU against Cornell as a sophomore in 2007. With fullback Rob Toresco ’09 graduated and running back R.C. Lagomarsino ’09 out for the season, Culbreath was ready to take over.

And did he ever.

Culbreath posted one of the greatest seasons a Princeton running back has ever had, capped off with a 278-yard performance against Dartmouth. He was the team’s workhorse and one of the two unanimous first-team All-Ivy League selections for the 2008 season, having recorded 1,206 yards and 11 touchdowns.

Prior to this season, it appeared that the Tigers could only get better on the ground. With Culbreath back for his senior campaign and four members of the offensive line beginning their third season as starters, Princeton should have been able to move the ball at will on the ground.

Unfortunately, things didn’t quite go as planned.

“When Jordan first came back to camp, he had kind of a minor injury, and he just wasn’t progressing,” head coach Roger Hughes said. “So we had him get some blood tests.”

The tests, Hughes explained, revealed that Culbreath’s blood cell counts were alarmingly low.

Culbreath was immediately sent to the hospital, and Hughes said more tests were conducted. The situation worsened, and after leaving the Princeton-Lehigh game in the second quarter, Culbreath was again sent to the hospital. Last week, he was transferred from the Robert Wood Johnson Medical Center in New Brunswick to the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Md., which is closer to his home in Virginia.

Hughes also said that, though no official diagnosis has been made, Culbreath’s doctors at the National Institutes of Health are currently hypothesizing that the culprit is a disease known as aplastic anemia.

The condition

In some cases, anemia is a condition that reduces red blood cell counts. Anemia also occurs when red blood cells don’t contain enough of the iron-based protein hemoglobin, which allows the red blood cells to carry oxygen.

Aplastic anemia is a condition in which the bone marrow fails to produce adequate amounts of all sorts of blood cells, including red blood cells, white blood cells and platelets. The condition is caused by a failure of the bone marrow’s stem cells and is sometimes referred to as bone marrow failure. The disease is a rare one, with only 500 to 1,000 people developing the condition each year in the United States.

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Treatments for aplastic anemia include medicine, blood transfusions and bone marrow transplants. Culbreath will remain in Maryland for the next five to seven days, Hughes explained, and will be treated with drugs that could help jump start his bone marrow. He is the process of searching for a bone marrow donor match.

The fallout for the team

“From the standpoint of his football playing, clearly we’re through for this year,” Hughes said. “Optimistically, it would be great to see him get fully back to health, and that’s the main thing we’re focusing on right now.”

In the case that Culbreath were unable to return to school this year and was to return next fall, it is unclear whether he would be granted an additional year of eligibility. The Ivy League grants medical redshirt years, but generally only to athletes who did not participate in any of the games in a given season. Culbreath played three halves of football before his season ended.

Culbreath’s loss to the team cannot be further underscored. In his absence, junior Meko McCray and freshman Akil Sharp have stepped in at running back and played solidly. But they both lack significant playing time at the position, as McCray was a defensive back in his freshman year, and as Sharp is a freshman. On top of that, the Tigers are breaking in sophomore quarterback Tommy Wornham this season. Together, the three of them compose a backfield with very little playing experience before this season.

“Now you why I have gray hair, and not much of it left,” Hughes said regarding the Tigers’ backfield. “Coming into the season, we felt that our offensive line and Jordan would be the strength of our offense. We knew that Tommy was going to be a young quarterback … but we felt that we could hopefully put the burden of production on our running game while Tommy learned and through experience got very comfortable in the passing game.”

Culbreath’s absence has sent the coaching staff back to the drawing board.

“Without Jordan — who’s arguably one of the best players, if not the best player in the league — we’ve had to shift our priorities,” Hughes said. “We’re still a bit of a work in progress … We really relied on him to make those plays.”

“That’s where our other people are going to have to step up to fill his void,” he added.

To be fair, Princeton has rushed for 201 and 146 yards, respectively, in the two games since Culbreath has departed. But the Tigers have sorely missed Culbreath’s ability to convert short-yardage situations and score touchdowns. Princeton’s only rushing touchdown of the season came from sophomore quarterback Tommy Wornham, on a 68-yard run at Lehigh. Only one of the four offensive touchdowns the Tigers have scored this season has come from inside the red zone.

Culbreath will also be missed as a leader. His drive and determination are second to none, both on the field and in practice.

“The sad part about this whole situation is that Jordan is a poster boy for everything that’s right in college athletics and everything that’s right at Princeton University, including Princeton football,” Hughes said. “Aerospace engineer. Walk-on kid. Made himself into a good football player through hard work. Clearly he gained the respect of his teammates to the point where they voted him a captain.”