Tide's Darby fights through lost season

As Kenneth Darby's senior season soured, he knew what was wrong.
It started in the head. It concluded with a broken heart.
And he didn't want to talk about it. "I never brought it up during the regular season. I didn't want there to be excuses," the University of Alabama running back said after a Senior Bowl practice this week.
"But my mind wasn't about football. I was too concerned about my dad's health and with my mom's well being. My coaches and teammates knew what I was going through, but I couldn't tell anyone else."
A preseason All-American candidate at Alabama, Darby, a Huntsville product, was zeroing in on Shaun Alexander's career rushing record as he prepared for the 2006 season.
But before the pursuit could begin in earnest, life as Darby knew it began falling apart.
Darby's father, Winston Woods, took ill before the start of two-a-days. The son was summoned to Huntsville to spend time with his father.
When two-a-days began and Woods' condition worsened, Darby left the team, with permission. He saw his father pull through, at least temporarily.
But within a day of returning to practice, Darby injured a knee. The injury wasn't serious enough for surgery, requiring just a few days of rest.
But it threw him off kilter.
Just as the illness threw his life out of balance."I wasn't myself. I went into the season weighing 220 (pounds)," said Darby, who had played at 205 as a junior. "It was the most I've ever weighed. I wasn't in shape. And I wasn't ready."
After two straight 1,000-yard seasons, Darby never got on track as a senior. His per carry average (3.9) was the lowest of his career by nearly a yard. With a chance to pass Alexander, he whiffed instead, finishing with 835 yards and nary a touchdown.
Darby believes Tide coaches might have been too loyal to him because of past performance, keeping him in the lineup even as he struggled this year.
"I never told Sparky (Woods, the Tide's former running backs coach) that I wanted to take off. I didn't want to be away from my teammates.
"I didn't want to let them down. I was too competitive."
Complicating matters was the decline of his father. Woods passed away two days after the Iron Bowl.
Tragedy wasn't new to Darby, it had merely been absent since his senior year of high school, when his 3-month-old nephew, Dakota, died in a child care-center fall. But his father's death, after four mostly idyllic years on campus for the player, rattled Darby's world.
"Before my father departed, he told me something that will stay with me the rest of my life: `Do my part, and he'll do his part.' I feel now that my Dad is my guardian angel looking over me.
"It's hard. He wanted me to graduate, and I did in December. But he wasn't around, and that was very emotional. He wanted to see me in the Senior Bowl, but he's not here with me."
This week's Senior Bowl isn't Darby's last chance to impress NFL scouts.
Darby's headed to the invitation-only NFL Combine after the Mobile all-star game.
But he knows that scouts and general managers are questioning his disappearing act, wondering if the real Darby peaked as a collegiate junior or is set to return this week.
"I didn't have the breakout season everyone expected but I'm still the same player," Darby said. "Hopefully, that comes out this week and people see the Kenneth Darby of old.
"I'm more comfortable than I've been. I'm more explosive. My weight is down to 210 - that's exactly where I wanted to be. I feel like I haven't felt in a long time."

As Reported By The Birmingham News
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