Petaluma basketball player doesn't let childhood injury derail his love of competing

It’s hard to see, but if you know where to look, it’s there.

Four and a half years ago, Brendan O’Neill, then a 12-year-old Little League pitcher, took a hard line drive to his forehead, right between his eyes.

Today, all that’s left to remind him of that life-changing day is an ear-to-ear scar in his hairline.

He had a concussion and his skull, nose and sinus cavities were all fractured by a hit coaches said was one of the hardest balls they’d seen. Surgeons essentially had to peel back O’Neill’s forehead and pop his crushed forehead back into place, like fixing a dent in a fender.

Doctors told him he could never play contact sports again - no football, no wrestling. After several months, he was cleared to play less-contact-intensive sports like track, basketball and, yes, baseball.

O’Neill never lost consciousness and remembers almost everything about the incident.

“I was pretty loopy in the hospital,” he said. “But I knew I was going to be OK. I wasn’t worried for my life or anything. … They said if it had hit just a little bit in either direction, I could have gone blind.”

But even from those first hours in the hospital, his family - of which every member is an athlete - never thought twice about Brendan quitting sports.

“It never went through my mind that I wasn’t going to play again,” he said last week. “For basketball, they told me I had to wear a facemask. I was kind of skeptical at first, but if it meant I could play, I’d do it.”

O’Neill is back to competing as if nothing happened. Last school year, as a sophomore, he finished first in the Sonoma County League in long jump, high jump and triple jump.

This season, he is one of the captains on his Petaluma High School basketball team. And he’s finished wearing that mask.

“I was worried; he took quite a shot to the head,” basketball coach Scott Behrs said. “But he’s really confident and you’d never know that he had that injury. He plays hard.”

Behrs knew of O’Neill when the Petaluma Junior High team went 32-0 over two years. He’s seen the young athlete mature enough that he was chosen for varsity as a sophomore.

“Over the summer, I could see him develop as a leader,” Behrs said. “In the fall, he really became a leader. When it came time to name captains, he was one of them.”

O’Neill’s parents, Dennis and Leslie, aren’t surprised with their son’s comeback.

“That day was certainly one of the worst days of our lives, the day he got hurt,” Dennis O’Neill said. “We got through that and he’s a very focused and determined young man, so it doesn’t surprise me at all.

“Everyone said in hindsight, if any one of your kids could have handled that, it was Brendan. After I had time to chew on that, I thought, ‘Yeah, that’s about right.’ He is one of the most powerful and driven young guys around, certainly in our family.”

Being hit in the face wasn’t the only traumatic event Brendan has had to overcome.

Two years ago next month, he was riding all-terrain vehicles with a couple of friends when his best friend, Bradley Smith, was severely injured in a crash.

The ATV rolled over Smith, one of the stars of the Petaluma team that went to the Little League World Series in 2012, leaving the young man they called Big Cat with two broken arms and a broken neck.

A compound fracture to his right arm was so severe he lost three inches of bone and an artery was severed.

As the third friend, Dominic Ayers, ran for help, O’Neill called 911 and wrapped a tourniquet around Smith’s bloodied arm. Remarkably, Smith has recovered and is also back competing in multiple sports.

Maturity like O’Neill showed during the crash is what his parents and coach see today as the junior looks to the future.

Although his passion is basketball, he excels in track. He is working toward scholarship opportunities in that sport.

Meanwhile, he continues to lead the Trojans as they battle other SCL teams this basketball season. O’Neill said he doesn’t think too much about his injury anymore.

His doctors told him he cannot afford another concussion.

“There’s always that risk of taking an elbow to the head or falling and landing awkwardly,” he said. “But I don’t really think about that. When I got back to playing, I was my old self, giving 100 percent.”

The only physical reminders of the injury are a bump above his right eye where surgeons removed a piece of bone and an itchy scalp near the scar.

Behrs said he observes a quiet leadership in O’Neill, perhaps shaped by what he’s overcome.

“He holds the players to a very high standard,” he said. “He holds the coaches to a high standard. He’s a very sharp young man. You’d never know what he went through.”

You can reach Lori A. Carter at 707-521-5470 or lori.carter@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @loriacarter.