Few outside the King’s Way Christian High School community who saw football standout Ryan Charlton last Friday rush for a team-high 93 yards, score a touchdown, and record double-digit tackles know what the senior has overcome.
Not even a scar is visible as a result of emergency facial surgery from a freak accident and injury that had the slimmest of odds of occurring how it did.
Fortunately, Charlton, the Knights’ captain and two-time all-1A Trico League player, suffered no permanent damage to his vision or ocular muscles after enduring blunt trauma to the right eye while on a basketball team retreat last winter. What is permanent is an orbital plate that forever sits below Charlton’s right eye.
Well before the Knights’ first game of the 2023-24 basketball season, Charlton traveled with teammates and coaches to the Washington coast for a team retreat, only to leave by ambulance for Oregon Health & Science University. A teammate’s arm inadvertently struck Charlton in the face during a flag football game so hard, the force of the teammate’s knuckles shattered Charlton’s orbital floor of his right eye on impact. Soon after, blood poured uncontrollably down Charlton’s throat.
Two days after being transported to OHSU, Charlton had a 2 1/2 hour surgery to reconstruct the eye’s orbital floor.
For months, his vision wasn’t in focus. The injury caused double vision and an inability to move the eye horizontally. Charlton did the best he could to adapt and adjust.
“I just wanted to see straight,” he said, “but everything I did, there were always two people. I had to tilt my head for it to be clear. If I talked to you, sometimes I’d turn my head and have to look at you (from a different angle).”
Specialists told Charlton and his family to expect up to one year for a full recovery, but also cautioned that his eye might also never return to normal. Charlton thought otherwise.
Yes, this by far was the most severe injury he endured playing sports, but Charlton’s fast healing from previous sports injuries gave the teenager hope for why he believed in a sooner timeline. That’s why he remained positive throughout recovery that included working with an eye therapist and performing daily eye therapy exercises.
“Every day,” he said, “I got a little bit better, and a little bit better. … I had a feeling that I was going to come back and God was going to help me through it.
“I was definitely ahead of schedule.”
Nobody would’ve blamed Charlton for sitting out the basketball season to focus on his eye health. Instead, he thought of his teammates for why he chose to still be around the program. After all, his family instilled a no-quit attitude in their son.
He was cleared to play Dec. 21 — just six weeks after the injury.
Charlton scored two points in his season debut at home against Cascade Christian of Puyallup wearing sports goggles, yet continued to battle double vision all season.
“My dad always says, ‘When you make a commitment, you have to keep that commitment,’ ” Charlton said. “I wanted to get back (with the team) and I obviously wanted to play basketball, but I wanted to be with them and help the team the best I could.”
Hearing Charlton’s words makes second-year Knights football head coach Dale Rule appreciate who Charlton is as a three-sport standout and student respected school-wide. Few teenagers take accountability and responsibility better than Charlton, Rule said.
“Ryan probably owns it about as good as it gets,” the coach said. “His greatness isn’t going to be dictated by a yard or a score or anything like that. It’s who the person is more than anything else. Because of the work ethic and because of the work habit, those behaviors become results athletically.
“It’s going to carry into success no matter what he does. In Ryan’s mind, he doesn’t do this to be great. He does it to do it right.”
Charlton’s right eye is back to 100 percent — well ahead of the estimated year-long recovery timeline. The double vision vanished and full ocular movement returned during the spring’s track and field season. He went onto place seventh at the 1A state meet in the triple jump.
For this fall’s football season, Charlton wears a protective visor across his helmet’s facemask.
The Knights (1-0) host Hoquiam at 6 p.m. Friday for their final non-league game, and the senior running back and linebacker believes King’s Way could be the Trico League’s surprise team of 2024.
And what Charlton loves most about the game goes back to the people who kept him focused on recovery: teammates.
“I just love being with the team,” Charlton said, “and building something with your brothers out there. And I love the teamwork that comes with it and all the hard days that you put in. On Friday nights, you can just unleash everything.
“There’s no other game like it. I just go out there and give it everything I’ve got.”
