SALT LAKE CITY — The daily couch setup allowed for doing absolutely nothing if that’s what he wanted. The TV remotes, PlayStation 5 controllers, phone chargers, ice wraps, the machines to help the swelling on his surgically repaired left knee, all were placed perfectly around him. But Cameron Rising always wanted his crutches within grasp.
Advertisement Back home in Ventura, Calif., the experienced and resilient Utah quarterback could not bear sitting still for too long, even when he should. The breakfast burritos usually needed more salsa, so rather than ask, he cultivated a reason to get up, to get moving, inching toward the Rising family kitchen.
When his mother, Eunice, offered to bring him whatever he needed, he waved her off like a receiver incorrectly moving in motion. “He’d always say, ‘I’ll go and get what I need,’” she remembers. So he did.
Day after day, Rising would crutch around looking for a new task. Playing fetch with the family dog Foxy Brown and catching the Southern California rays. Trying to win the occasional games of Yahtzee.
Even the most inane undertakings mattered then. Because he was so aggravatingly far from being the flowy-haired No. 7 who had led the Utes to back-to-back Pac-12 titles as well as consecutive appearances at the Rose Bowl.
The aftermath of a devastating knee injury like the one Rising suffered in the third quarter of the Rose Bowl on Jan. 2, 2023, against Penn State morphed from months of rehabilitation into missing a.