Steve Gatena can’t remember the last time he was healthy.

From recovering from his bout with a collapsed lung to overcoming a torn labrum – twice – Gatena has had his fair share of struggles on his trek toward the top of the mountain.

The 6-foot-5, 285-pounder started at left tackle for the UC Davis football team last season, but the book on his journey to that position – and beyond starting next year – has been a long one.

In the first part of this two-part series, Gatena talks about his transition to UC Davis, overcoming injury and his waiting game for next season. The second part of this story will run in The California Aggie’s graduation issue Thursday.

The road to UC Davis

Coming out of Westlake High School in Thousand Oaks, Calif., Gatena had a couple of dozen Division I football scholarships sent his way.

But he was only waiting to hear from two schools.

Since he was a young boy, Gatena had always envisioned himself playing collegiate football at either Stanford or Air Force.

After falling just 30 points shy of the SAT score he needed to secure a scholarship to Stanford, Gatena said his choice to become an Air Force Falcon was an easy one.

What wasn’t easy, however, was Gatena’s transition to the Academy.

After finding out that his grandmother was dying of cancer the day before he left for Air Force, Gatena arrived at the Academy in Colorado Springs, Colo.

“When I got there, I had to go through basic training,” Gatena said. “It was really, really tough, and I started to get sick. I got bronchitis, and during basic training, you’re not allowed to take antibiotics because … they figure if you’re stuck in Iraq, you’re not going to be able to get any help because you have a little cold. It kept getting worse, turned into walking pneumonia, and by the end of basic training, I had lost 50 pounds.”

And then things got worse.

“A week before we played Cal, I dislocated my right shoulder,” Gatena said. “And then about four-and-a-half, five weeks later when I was cleared to come back, I dislocated my other shoulder. The walking pneumonia had gone away at this point, and my other shoulder was healing.

“Then I woke up one morning with a collapsed lung. It was pretty brutal. It felt like a baseball bat to the ribs every time I took a breath.”

At this point, Gatena knew he wasn’t going to be cleared to play football for Air Force anytime soon.

Gatena was given two options: He could either try to become medically cleared for the following summer, or he could take an honorable discharge from his obligation to serve Air Force.

“I started making a few calls to some of the schools that had offered me scholarships in high school, and I got a few offers,” Gatena said. “UC Davis was one of them, Arizona was another, Wyoming was another – I was very academically-oriented, so I decided that Davis would be the best place to go.”

Walking wounded

Unfortunately for Gatena, his injury woes did not stay in Colorado Springs.

Gatena was excited to take the field for the Aggies for the first time – but he’d have to wait longer than he hoped for that to occur.

“The week before our first game, I tore my MCL,” Gatena said. “That was a real bummer – basically put me out for the whole season. Now, I’ve missed two years of football due to injury. At this point, I was kind of questioning whether I’d even come back to football.”

But Gatena came back. And once again, that comeback didn’t come easy.

“Then in the next season, I tore my labrum in my right shoulder,” Gatena said. “I didn’t sit out that season – I continued to practice and play as a backup. I didn’t know how bad my shoulder was, though – I thought that I had sprained something really bad, so I kind of just kept trucking along.”

Unfortunately for Gatena, the injury he had suffered was far worse than a sprained shoulder.

“I was really having problems [last] summer, so I went to my doctor in Los Angeles and got an MRI,” Gatena said. “He told me my labrum was torn and that I would need surgery. Now, I’m going into my fourth college season, injured again, guaranteed that I needed surgery, and I haven’t been healthy since high school – well, even in high school, I played my senior year on a broken foot. At this point, I can’t even remember the last time I was healthy.”

While he couldn’t remember what it was like to be healthy, Gatena could remember how hard he had worked to play football. He knew that his team needed him, and that he had worked too hard to hang his cleats up for UC Davis for the final time.

Gatena started all season at left tackle for the Aggies in 2007. Then he tore a labrum, again.

“It didn’t take an MRI this time to find out what happened because I remembered how bad it had hurt the first time,” Gatena said. “I didn’t want to give up on playing, so I kept playing throughout the season with two torn labrums.”

Although he had considered not making a return to football before, Gatena said that this time was different.

“At the end of the season, I went in and got my first shoulder surgery. That was about the time that I started worrying about football again.… I kind of started questioning how strong I’d be for the next season.

“Then I had my other surgery, and that’s when things kind of started to hit me. I said, ‘Is this really what I want to do to my body? Is football worth it anymore? Do I really want to risk lifelong injury – again?’ I kind of started freaking out a little bit.”

The alternative

Gatena had always planned on a life after football. He just didn’t expect to be executing that plan so soon.

“I started thinking about grad school,” Gatena said. “I had always wanted to be a sports agent, so I started looking at different graduate programs.

“I started looking at schools in Los Angeles. UCLA had their applications due in November, so I started looking at some of the local private schools – Pepperdine, Loyola Marymount and USC.”

Then about three weeks into January, Gatena received an internship with the lieutenant governor.

“I kind of started to convince myself more and more that football wasn’t something that was worth doing for me anymore,” Gatena said. “Graduate school began to appeal to me more and more.”

Gatena put his plan into action, applying to two graduate programs at USC: strategic public relations and communication management. He also applied to similar programs at Pepperdine.

“At that point, I went to [UC Davis football head] coach [Bob] Biggs and I said, ‘Coach, I’ve decided to apply to graduate school, and I’m not going to play next year,'” Gatena said. “I think that moment was really hard for both of us.”

“I was disappointed because of the lateness of his decision,” Biggs said. “My initial reaction was surprise because we jumped through a bunch of hoops to get him another year of eligibility – Steve, had he stayed here, would have had two years of eligibility. The fact that he didn’t make the decision till after the recruiting season was tough for us.”

Over the next two months, Gatena talked with Biggs on a regular basis about the decision he was facing.

“He asked me some very good questions that caused me to introspect,” Gatena said. “I really had to ask myself questions about what I wanted to do with my life.

“I kind of came to the point where football had entered my mind again as a positive thing…. I told coach Biggs that if I didn’t get into USC, then I would play football at Davis again next year. At this point, I kind of just sat around and waited.”

ADAM LOBERSTEIN can be reached at sports@californiaaggie.com.

The 2008 baseball season ended for most of the UC Davis baseball team Sunday when it fell in the Stanford Regional elimination game to the host Cardinal.

But for a lucky seven, it’s far from over.

“Obviously, we’d like to keep them for another year, but that’s just a part of college baseball,” head coach Rex Peters said. “All of them have had great seasons and careers.”

Major League Baseball’s annual two-day amateur draft will begin tomorrow. Here’s a preview of the Aggies to look for on the draft tracker, in no particular order:

Jake Jefferies, junior catcher

2008 statistics: .387/.444/.524, 96 H, 20 2B, 4 HR, 54 RBI

There’s a reason the backstop from Merced, Calif. has received letters of draft interest from all 30 major league teams.

The Big West Conference Co-Player of the Year is a complete package for a catcher with excellent contact-hitting skills (11 strikeouts in 248 at-bats), solid defense behind the plate (nearly 40 percent of base stealers thrown out), and quality game-calling abilities (third-best ERA in the Big West).

Jefferies is expected to be the first Aggie off the draft board and could go as early as the late third to early fourth rounds.

Ryan Royster, senior center fielder

.336/.414/.525, 10 HR, 63 R, 13 SB

Having already gotten the shoulder tap from the Cleveland Indians in the 44th round last year, Royster is no stranger to the draft.

The fleet-footed leadoff man has guaranteed himself a higher selection this time around by demonstrating double-digit home run power in 2008 after showing none in his first three years at UC Davis.

Justin Fitzgerald, junior right-handed closer

15 SV, 3.24 ERA, 33.1 IP, 44 H, 5 BB, 35 K

His blown save and loss against Stanford on Sunday aside, the Aggies’ closer had a tremendous year in 2008. Fitzgerald broke the UC Davis all-time saves record with 19, including a conference-best 15 this year.

The Cloverdale, Calif. native, who is expected to be the first Aggie pitcher off the board, was a nightmare for opposing teams late in games all year long, helping UC Davis compile a staggering 29-2 record when leading after eight innings.

Brad McAtee, junior right-handed starting pitcher

8-5, 3.18 ERA, 102 IP, 106 H, 24 BB, 64 K

A Friday starter on most teams, the Poway, Calif. native established himself as one of the Big West’s premier Saturday starters, leading the Aggies in both wins and innings pitched this season.

The highlight of McAtee’s season came Apr. 26, when he defeated the eventual Big West Co-Champion Cal State Fullerton at Goodwin Field with an impressive seven-inning, one-run performance with seven strikeouts.

Bryan Evans, junior right-handed starting pitcher

3-3, 4.91 ERA, 80.2 IP, 102 H, 25 BB, 71 K

Despite pitching Sundays and earning his rotation spot several weeks into the season, the Mission Viejo, Calif. native will garner much draft attention, thanks to having what scouts consider the best stuff on his team.

Evans used his solid fastball and sharp curveball to lead the team in strikeouts, tallying nearly one per inning pitched.

Eddie Gamboa, senior right-handed starting pitcher

7-3, 2.61 ERA, 100 IP, 96 H, 14 BB, 66 K

After not playing in 2006 due to Tommy John surgery and coming primarily out of the bullpen in 2007, the Merced, Calif. native quickly lived up to his billing as the Aggies’ ace.

Gamboa’s terrific season culminated in a four-hit, complete-game win against Stanford on Sunday in the Aggies’ lone postseason victory.

The 6-foot-2, 195-pounder lives by his pinpoint control and deadly pickoff move, which turned a league-high nine base runners into sitting ducks this season.

Ryan Scoma, junior outfielder/designated hitter

.358/.408/.493, 16 2B, 3 HR, 52 RBI

The San Carlos, Calif. native made waves with the College of San Mateo in his first two collegiate seasons, and turned it into a huge splash with UC Davis this season.

Scoma finished sixth in the Big West in batting average, and joined Jefferies on the All-Conference First Team. He also proved to be a reliable staple of the Aggie lineup, driving in runs in all three of UC Davis’ postseason games.

Follow the Aggies in tomorrow’s draft on MLB.com and ESPN2 beginning at 11 a.m. PST.

RAY LIN can be reached at sports@californiaaggie.com.

In the spring of 2007, Brandon Brown was at a crossroads.

Academics were about to keep him off the football field for the season. Despite having a full scholarship to play cornerback at UC Davis, he was struggling to make ends meet financially. And there were family issues back home in Los Angeles.

Brown was left to wonder why.

“I was trying to figure out

 why I was in school,” Brown said. “I was here at Davis, and I had just switched my major from English to history, and I was wondering, ‘What am I doing here?’ I didn’t even know what I wanted.“

He knew what he was supposed to do.

He was supposed to continue following the wishes of his family.

All his life, Brown had been pushed by his mother, Linda Adkins, to go to college. By the time he graduated from Los Angeles High School in 2004, she saw to it that Brown was only two classes away from earning his associate of arts degree.

“She’s always told me, ‘You need to be a lawyer for the family. You need to make money and get your cousins out of jail,‘” Brown said. “My whole family had all these expectations and all this stuff that they all wanted me to do.“

But Brown couldn’t become a lawyer – he had to choose his own path. He had to follow his passion.

“I started to think of what I wanted to do, and I cook all the time,” Brown said. “Whenever people come to my house to visit, I make them something to eat. I ask them, ‘Are you hungry?’ and if they’re hungry, I cook them up something. I’ve experimented with all sorts of recipes, and I’ve just been inventing my own stuff all the time. So I realized that this is maybe what I want to do.“

In October, Brown made up his mind. He withdrew from UC Davis to pursue culinary arts school.

But to follow one passion, he had to say goodbye to another.

The academically ineligible Brown met with head football coach Bob Biggs in his office and told him he wouldn’t be returning to the program.

“I told him, ‘Thank you,‘” Brown said. “‘You gave me an opportunity, and I’m sorry that I ruined it. I don’t want it to seem like all kids from the inner city that you give a chance to will be the same as me. I’m just a different person, and I just have a different path in my life, and I’m sorry. I know that I’m going to miss football, and I just want to thank you.‘”

Brown felt like he had let his coach down, but Biggs knew Brown had off-the-field issues to address.

“He could never really get himself focused on just being a student and being a football player,” Biggs said. “Just too many other things going on.“

Brown shifted his focus away from his studies and toward improving his cooking skills. He held a bake sale for his fraternity, Omega Psi Phi, and eventually created his own business, Brandon Brown’s Cookies and Goodies, under which he sells baked goods and caters events.

He did this all while his mother didn’t know of his withdrawal from school. But she found out eventually.

Right around Christmas time, Brown’s fraternity brothers let the news slip to his aunt, who told his mother. Soon thereafter, Brown’s phone rang, and it was his mother on the other end.

She wasn’t calling to discuss holiday gift baskets.

“She was like, ‘What the heck‘ – expletive here – ‘What the heck are you doing? Take your butt back to school,‘” Brown said. “I was like, ‘Mom, this is what I want to do,‘ and she said, ‘That’s nice, but you’re the first one in the family of your generation to go to college. It means a lot to your family.‘ So I said, ‘OK. I’ll put what I want on hold for the good of the family because it’s important.‘”

Brown returned to UC Davis this quarter, but things haven’t been the same as when he left. Because of his academic ineligibility, he couldn’t return to the football program, which he says “hurt like hell.“

Still, Brown believes he is better off for having taken a leave of absence from school. For the first time in his life, he knows what he wants to do.

“One hundred percent, hands down, this is it,” Brown said. “I want to be a culinary chef. I want to have my own restaurant someday. I want to have my own Food Network show.

“College is about finding yourself, and yeah, I’ve found myself. Through this whole process, through the ups and the downs, I’ve found that cooking is what I want to do – it’s what I do best, and it’s what I have a passion for. When you can go someplace and love what you’re doing, it’s not really a job anymore. It’s fun. You’re getting paid to have fun.“

He’s even managed to win over his toughest critic.

In April, his mother called him, and gave him her blessing.

“That was the biggest weight off my shoulder,” Brown said. “That was validation. I have the go-ahead, the green light. All my life she’s been on me about being all this other stuff, and finally she is letting me have some control over what I want to do.“

Now, Brown is looking to make her proud.

The first time he ever cooked was when he was eight years old and he made his mother breakfast for Mother’s Day.

“She wouldn’t even eat it,” Brown said. “There were scrambled eggs that were burnt. I made some nasty, lumpy cream of wheat. I made some pancakes, and they looked nice on the outside, but inside they were all gooey.“

This November, Brown plans to come home early and show her how far he has come. Alongside his grandmother, who taught him basic cooking, Brown will prepare the family’s annual Thanksgiving feast.

“My mom will eat it, and we won’t tell her [I made the food] until she has it,” Brown said. “She’ll love it, and then I’ll say, ‘See, Mom. See that. I did all of that. That was me.“

MICHAEL GEHLKEN can be reached at sports@californiaaggie.com.