Herb Hand was introduced as Auburn’s new offensive line coach this offseason after eight other coaching stops throughout his prolific career, but his last decade in the profession almost never happened.
While on the recruiting trail in Orlando, Fl. as the tight ends coach at West Virginia in the spring of 2006, Hand was in line for the breakfast buffet at his hotel when he felt a sneeze coming.
But this wasn’t a normal, hold-it-in and get over it feeling. This was different. Herb told AL.com Auburn beat writer James Crepea that it “felt like someone put an axe in my head.”
He was suffering a brain hemorrhage and doctors were planning on an emergency brain surgery to remove the bleeding.
“I said ‘hey, am I going to die?'” Hand said. “And the doctor said, ‘We’re going to do everything we can for you.’ That’s not what you want to hear when you ask that question.
“That kind of like, ‘What? I thought you were going to say no.’ … When a doctor says we’re going to do everything we can for you, you don’t really get concerned much with how many games you’re going to win the next year or what your retirement looks like. What you really get worried about is, am I going to see my wife and kids again?”
After the decision was made to take Hand to the trauma center, it was discovered that the bleeding had miraculously stopped and he did not require the surgery.
“I think what he did was he increased the pressure in his large body so much that is just caused that hemorrhage, it wasn’t an inherent lesion or other problem there that we found,” said Dr. Julian Bailes, chair of neurosurgery at WVU. “So it was an unusual circumstance the way it happened. We know that can happen; but that’s rare. Our job was to make sure there was no underlying cause that led to the hemorrhage that needed to be treated and fortunately there wasn’t.”
To read Hand’s entire story, head over to AL.com.
Tyler Waddell is a member of the Saturday Down South news team. He brings over five years of professional journalism experience and is closing in on a Bachelor's in sports management. Follow him on Twitter (@Tyler_Waddell).
