“What can he do?” I asked.

“Listen to me,” Buddy said. “I know what Mike can do. Just get him out there so he can work on you.”

Coach Stew and I would sit back after meetings and talk.

“Stew,” I said, “I don’t know if I’m going to be able to go. I can’t run.”

That Saturday, after I went out and tried to run but couldn’t, I looked over at Mooch and signaled, “I can’t run man.” I was really upset. The doctors wanted to give me a cortisone injection in my groin for the game. I’d taken a small one at the start of the week, so they gave me another one, a mild injection that wouldn’t damage any tissue. I felt a little better. Then I hooked up with Mike Hatrak.

Before Mike worked on me, on a scale from one to ten, I was probably a three or four, but when I left him that night, tears were in my eyes from sheer gratitude; I was up to a seven. I know I sound like one of those evangelist healer shows on late-night television, but this was real. Mike broke up scar tissue, moved it around, and worked everything deep. He worked every muscle that was keeping me from releasing the tension on my groin. I almost cried on the spot. I left and returned to the hotel. The first person I saw was Stew.

“Stew,” I said. “I’m ready. This was a miracle.”

After our team meetings, Mike worked on me some more, and once again the morning before I went to the stadium. Until now, I’d felt that I was getting the best treatment possible from the 49ers training and medical staff, but then word got around about what Mike had done for me that weekend. We talked about introducing him to the Niners staff, but this was a difficult call. At first, we thought the staff might feel undermined by his presence; people can get very territorial in situations like this, and you don’t want doctors to think that somebody is stepping on their turf. You’d think that with all the money these teams spend on their athletes, they’d use the best resources available, but this is a big problem across the league. Teams have their own doctors, but a lot of players feel that they should have their own medical personnel.

After Mike helped me so much, I thought he might be able to help others, so I put my concerns aside, went into the 49ers training room, and talked him up as much as I could. A bunch of guys were soon going to see him: Derrick Deese, Tony Parrish, Ahmed Plummer, Jamie Winborn, and J.J. Stokes. When Parrish dislocated his elbow and his arm swelled up to twice its normal size, he went to Mike, and the swelling was soon drastically reduced. This kind of healing was unheard of, and it had nothing to do with the 49ers training staff. We tried to tell the team how good Mike was, but some people seemed intimidated by what we were saying. Threatened may be a better word, so we found ways to get around this. Now all the guys who got healed would come hang with me in Atlanta, then visit Mike’s office in a neighboring city. I remember quarterback Cade McNown calling me after the first time Mike worked on his bum shoulder.

“Where did you get this guy?” he said. “He’s amazing.”

I know. I’d improved 100 percent with him in a matter of hours. I still wasn’t perfect but was probably two-thirds of the way there. I remember trying to run during the pregame warm-ups against Green Bay, but I really couldn’t take off the way I used to. So I wound up receiving another shot to get me over the edge. They don’t shoot you in the injured area but in the butt. Plenty of guys do that, and it got me through. Prior to that, if it hadn’t been for Mike Hatrak, I don’t think I could have played. We lost to the Packers, but I made an impact. Then I was able to rest the following games before coming back relatively strong for the playoffs against the Giants. During that time, Mike left instructions for a local masseuse, Kathy Sherrill, to come over and try to duplicate what he’d been doing. I don’t think I could have played those last few games without the two of them.”

-Terrell Owens in his book Catch This -