Surgery successful for Northside’s Chris Haughton

By the time his coaches had made it across the field to the far sideline, Chris Haughton already had a diagnosis ready for them: broken femur.

And that’s was doctors at a hospital in Kennesaw fixed Saturday for the senior defensive back at Northside.

“He knew when we got to him on the field,” Northside head coach Kevin Kinsler said. “He knew that it was broken. He had experienced it before.”

That was as an 11 year old. A rod was put into the leg the, but eventually taken out because Haughton was still growing. A new rod, however, will probably stay.

Haughton was returning a kickoff in the final seconds of the first half and had planted to make a cut when a North Cobb player hit him, Kinsler said with the upper arm.

“It wasn’t like he hit it head on,” Kinsler said. “It was like a glancing blow. But he hit it just right.”

Haughton will face three or four months of recovery and should be fine after that. He started about a third of the season as a sophomore and started every game last season, which he was to do again this year.

“The thing about Chris is he just such a hard, hard-working guy,” Kinsler said. “That’s why he was so well-liked, a very popular player, because he worked so hard. A great teammate. Very good student, super kid.

“Even the people up there on the sideline when he was down there hurt were talking about what a great attitude he had about it all.”

Haughton had a notable Tweet from the hospital after his teammates overcame an 18-6 halftime deficit to win 27-24: “I didn’t shed a tear all night until I heard my boys got the W.”

This story was originally published August 25, 2015 at 8:10 PM with the headline "Surgery successful for Northside’s Chris Haughton ."