“Do you want to have kids?”

At 21 years old, that was the question his college team’s doctor asked him, sitting in a room at Southern Methodist University (SMU). 

“Yes.”

“In 10 years, do you want to be able to run with your kids?” The doctor asked. 

The answer was obvious: of course he did. If that was true, his doctor told him he would have to stop playing football — the sport he had dedicated his life to. If he kept playing, he would eventually be unable to walk.

That was the moment defensive line coach Gerrit Choate decided to hang up his football jersey for good and turn to a new life path: coaching. 

Choate played football at the University of Utah and SMU. His life goal had always been to go into the NFL, but after multiple serious injuries and permanent body damage, he was forced to medically retire. He decided to stay within athletics the only way he knew how and became a high school football coach.

Choate was always an athletic kid. At 6 months old, he was jumping around. At 2 years old, he was shooting basketballs into the hoop at his house. He started off playing basketball, and didn’t bother with football until middle school.

Choate’s father, Putt Choate, played college football at SMU and went into the NFL; it became his dream to follow in his father’s footsteps. Even though his parents didn’t want him playing at a young age, they eventually allowed him to put football pads on in the seventh grade.

“[At my] first practice ever, I was terrified,” Choate said. “I didn’t want to hit anybody. I thought I was going to throw up because I was so nervous. As it went on, I started to figure out that I was really good at it, and it became more fun — I developed a love for the game.”

Within his first season playing football, he took a hit that fractured the L-5 vertebrae in his spine. He was told he would never be able to play sports again.

“When I fractured [my] vertebrae, that was a really hard time,” Choate said. “Luckily, I had great support to help me through [it,] because at that age, you don’t know how to take that and not let it defeat you.”

Choate was in a back brace for a year. His doctor told him that if he did everything they told him to, there was a chance he would be back on the field.

He couldn’t run, jump or underhand toss a ball for that year. He was not expected to be able to play again, but, by his eighth grade year, he was back in the game.

“My dad always told me that you will get hurt playing — it’s not if, it’s when and how bad,” Choate said. “I was never scared of getting hurt; I knew that it was going to happen at some point. You just have to go in there, give it your best and you deal with the consequences. You get hurt, you rehab and then you get back on the field.”

Throughout his football career, his parents were at every game. If his dad was out of town, he would fly in to watch the game and fly back the same night.

“[We] didn’t want to miss anything,” Choate’s mother, Fifi Choate, said. “We loved it. We were there for everything.”

Choate suffered multiple injuries and serious hits during his first few years playing football, which Fifi said was scary to watch.

“I could get past that [fear] because he was so happy,” Fifi said. “You can’t hold a kid back out of fear. You can’t live your life that way, and I realized my fears of him getting hurt can’t keep him from doing something that he is passionate about. It was hard, but as a parent you want your kids to be happy — there was more joy involved than fear.”

Choate walks along the sidelines of the field at the University of Utah. Choate was a red-shirt freshman, meaning he did not play in games, but was still a part of the team’s practices and present at every game. (Photo provided by Gerrit Choate.)

When Choate graduated high school, his dream was to go to SMU just like his father had. It was his goal to beat his father’s record as the leading tackler in SMU history.

He was rejected from the school.

His dad played with the head coach at the University of Utah during his time in the NFL, so with that connection and an offer from the school, he enrolled as a walk-on there.

That only lasted a year.

“I started feeling sick,” Choate said. “I was exhausted all the time, completely, non-stop. Getting through practice was terrible. It was just hard. It became clear that something was wrong.”

When he started losing muscle mass, his parents grew concerned and took him to the hospital. There, they ran blood tests and genetic tests, which revealed that the anxiety medication he had been taking for the past 10 years was toxic to his genetic makeup. That’s what was making him feel sick. 

“I already felt like I had been through so much because of [football,] and I just wanted to play,” Choate said. “It was a scary time; my body was suffering and it was because of a prescribed medication for anxiety that I had, and the worst part was that it wasn’t even my fault.”

His doctors told him that he would have to detox off of the medication fully. Since he was on it for so long, his body became completely dependent on it. For the second time in his career, he was told that he would never be able to play again.

“It was brutal because we couldn’t understand why this kept happening to him,” Fifi said. “Why was everything happening to him?”

He was given two options: be hospitalized for months or have a family member move to Utah to monitor him through the detox. Fifi moved to Utah.

“It was the easiest decision,” Fifi said. “We had an apartment in Utah right down from the university, and we wanted him to have a place he could feel like was a home. When I needed to be there with him, it was easy to go.”

After a few months of recovery, Choate moved back to Dallas. He took online classes for a while, but struggled to stay focused due to the impact the detox had on his brain. 

After recovery, he transferred to SMU, the school he had always wanted to go to, and walked-on to their football program.

“I wanted a fresh start because that [experience] was just tough,” Choate said. “I’m someone who believes everything happens for a reason, and that was almost like a door back into SMU. It was terrible, but it got me where I had always wanted to go.” 

Choate runs during a game at SMU. Within his first season at the school, he had earned a scholarship. (Photo provided by Gerrit Choate.)

Choate played two seasons at SMU, and he had two years of eligibility left. Playing in the NFL was his dream, and he was on track to make it a reality.

Following the 2019 season, he began to notice unbearable pain in his feet during the off-season. He went to the doctor to get evaluated and learned that he had permanent overuse damage to his feet from playing football. 

Just like every other injury, the goal was to take some time off and recover, but the pain persisted, and only grew worse.

He got a second and third opinion, yet it was ultimately decided that it would be in his best interest to quit playing before he did any more damage. If he kept playing, his feet could have become damaged enough to prevent him from walking — permanently. In the future, he will have to have reconstructive surgery performed on his feet.

“It was the most difficult point in my life,” Choate said. “That was harder than the medication, that was harder than the brace, because I knew it was over. I didn’t think about life after playing because that was down the line — I didn’t need to think about it — then, all of a sudden, here it is front and center.”

Choate talks to defensive end Clay Lindmark in the first quarter of the area championship game against Bowie on Nov. 22. The team won the game 51-35. (Peyton Kuschmeider)

Choate knew he had to be a part of the game somehow. There was only one way he could think of to do that safely: coaching.

Choate first began coaching at Molina High School, where he coached for one year, before moving to Ranchview High School. 

He still felt like he could elevate from those jobs, and knew if he was going to coach, he wanted to coach 6A football. That was when he saw the job opening at Hebron.

“When I saw it, I didn’t know if I was ready,” Choate said. “I didn’t know if I was ready to be coaching at such a high quality program that wins.” 

He took a chance and applied anyway. After interviewing, he got the job.

Along with Choate, defensive backs coach Clayton Johnson was also hired at the same time. The two started during the summer and bonded over the fact that they were the two youngest coaches on staff.

“It was comfortable,” Johnson said. “We didn’t know what to expect [when] we came in together, [but] we came in with the same goal and the same mindset to elevate this program and win games.”

They soon became close friends, sighing in relief together when they won games and jumping up and down in celebrations. Johnson said Choate stands out from other coaches because he is personable and can relate to the players well.

“[Coaching] is one of those things where you love what you do and you never work a day in your life,” Johnson said. “We both love the game of football, so it’s easy for us to communicate because we have that relationship, and we look out for each other outside of the field.”

Choate said that his coaches growing up were his inspiration in his career now. He said he had the best high school head coach he could ask for, who was even coaching at SMU when Choate attended. He also said the support of his family pushed him through playing and coaching football.

“It’s cool to remember the impact they had on me throughout my playing career,” Choate said “[I] try to match them, or even exceed them, with my players. [I want to] bring the passion that I [have] and use that to fuel them, push them and get them to be the best that they can be.”

Choate suffered multiple other injuries during his playing career, such as a torn labrum in both shoulders, a torn MCL in his knee, broken and cracked ribs and other strained muscles. Despite this, he said he still has a love for the game and is glad that retiring brought him into coaching. 

“Everything happens for a reason,” Choate said. “There’s no telling what else could have happened if I continued playing, but it led me into coaching because I knew I had to be a part of the game. It led me into high school coaching, and now I’m here; I’m a part of a great program, I get to work with great athletes, a great coaching staff and I get to coach high-quality high school football in the best state to do that.”