Zamir,

I know this isn’t the way you expected your first year to go at Georgia. None of us did. When you tore the ACL in your right knee during your last year of high school, you vowed to come back 100 percent in time for this season.

And you did.

Man, you put in the work and that right knee was as strong as it could be when fall camp started. Doctors gave you a clean bill of health, and everyone was happy for you. There were no restrictions placed on your ability to compete. And compete you did. Despite a crowded and talented running back room, you were prepared to contribute to what should be a special season in Athens.

And then a few weeks ago during a punt drill, you tore the ACL in your other knee. There was no contact, no risk, no nothing, but there it went, tearing away just like the ACL did in your right knee last year.

Your coach, Kirby Smart, said he felt “sick” for you. Your teammates, they all rallied around you, just like we’d expect good Bulldogs to do. They were “sad” for you, because they had seen all the work you put in. They are sure you will come back from this second injury because they saw how you attacked your recovery the first time.

And that’s all good and well. But when we started this series of open letters to players around the conference, I could have picked any of your teammates. There were dozens of great options because, as you know, you have a lot of great teammates.

I chose you.

There’s a reason for that. The season starts Saturday and this is how it goes with players who are out for the year with an injury. They are basically forgotten, out of sight and out of mind. It’s just the nature of the game. We all will watch D’Andre Swift run, and Elijah Holyfield, too. Shoot, we’ll even watch James Cook, your freshman teammate, run wild. That’s just how it goes. We will write thousands of stories over the next five months, and almost all of them won’t include you.

For you, Zamir, you will be back in the shadows, working your way through another rehab and repairing a second knee once again. You will do it in the shadows, oftentimes with no one around. You will not hear the roars from 90,000 people. Not now.

There will be days when you will be sad and depressed. That’s the nature of the beast. There will be days when you will question yourself, and wonder if you will ever be the same. You will wonder, frankly, if this is it, if your career is over before it even started.

Those are difficult thoughts, but you’ll have to face them, often all by yourself.

You can be grateful that it’s 2018 and medical advances are what they are. When my college football friends back in my day tore up a knee in the 1970s and 1980s, they just packed their bags and disappeared. There were no careers, post-ACL. Not then.

There’s also no guarantee of a career now. It takes work. What we’ve learned about you is that you’re willing to put in that effort to heal. No one doubts that. We’ve also learned that you have already come through much more than knee injuries when you were a little boy. You’ve been through a handful of surgeries then, and you found a way to not let them define you. Many little boys in the same place would have hid in a corner and not fought.

You fought. Every day, you fought.

That little boy became a young man who became a great high school star in North Carolina. He became a popular and engaging kid, a friend that all your classmates loved. You were so good at football that every college coach wanted you. But you were an even better kid. Everyone loves you.

That will never change about you, Zamir. Everyone loves Zamir White, and for many people it has nothing to do with football.

So you go do your work. Little by little, your knee will get stronger. Stay positive and put in the work. Keep the chin up. When next fall rolls around, we’ll see you again, probably with another clean bill of health and the OK from the doctors that you can play football again.

In your mind, though, you will have doubts. You will wonder what happens when you plant that left foot and cut hard for the first time. Heck, you’re going to wonder when you plant that right foot, too. It’s all part of it.

Take your time. There is no rush. Your day, we all believe, will come. It’s just been pushed back a bit.

I talked often this summer that the nice thing about having so much depth at running back was that they wouldn’t have to rush you into playing situations. And they didn’t. You got hurt in a non-contact drill, a fluke, really. It could have happened to anyone.

But it happened to you.

Come Saturday afternoon, the season will begin and it will go on without you. You’ll be back in the shadows, getting better. I know that’s going to be hard. One rehab is tough, a second one — especially so soon — is brutal, physically and especially mentally. You are going to be challenged by a lot of bad thoughts.

Just know that I wish you well, and I’ll see you down the road, whenever that will be. You’re Zamir, and you always will be Zamir. You will be a great man, even without a football in your hand.

This is where the journey has taken you. It’s one day at a time, one step at a time. Chin up. You’ll make it.

Tom Brew