CORBIN, Ky. (AP) -- Travis Freeman cannot see the football. He cannot see the goal posts or his teammates or opponents bearing down on him, trying to get to his quarterback. In between plays, his teammates help him to and from the huddle and position him over the ball. From then on, Freeman is on his own. The play starts with his snap of the ball and usually ends with him still blocking, awaiting the referee's whistle. Freeman is blind, but that has not kept the 17-year-old senior from playing center for the Corbin High School Redhounds in this town of 9,000 in southern Kentucky.

"At times it's confusing, at times it's scary, but most of the time, once I get off the ball and I get my hands on someone, it's just like blocking like I could see," he says.  "Sometimes it may be even better that I can't see, because ... I don't rely on the visual technique of their being able to fake me out."   Freeman, robbed of his sight five years ago by bacterial meningitis, does not start but plays in nearly every game. "If someone's lined up on him, he's going to do as good a job on him as anybody would,"  Corbin coach Mike Whitaker says. "As far as effort and trying to do what we ask all of them to do, he does everything. He runs sprints blind -- he does everything that he can possibly do. Travis does as much for us as an inspirational leader as he would if he were an outstanding football player and he could see. At he end of a recent practice, Freeman was paired with teammate to run sideline-to-sideline sprints. At the end, Freeman was pulling the other player to the finish. Pick it up Kenneth," he yelled.  "Don't give in to it, Kenneth."  Freeman was on the offensive and defensive lines on youth teams in the fifth and sixth grades, but in the summer of 1993 his day playing football seemed finished.  Before he was to enter seventh grade, he came down with a severe sinus infection resulting from bacterial meningitis.  At the University of Kentucky Medical Center in Lexington, his body temperature was 106 when he went into surgery and his head was so swollen that, You couldn't even see my eyelashes.  "They told me that 70 percent of the people who have what I had die,"  he says. A large number of the 30 percent that's left have severe brain damage and live their lives as a vegetable.  "Surviving against such long odds made losing his sight seem like a small price to pay" and gave Freeman new determination and religious faith. "I came out of it and I've never looked back,"  He says.  "To look at what all God has done through this and the lives that he has touched through my blindness and I have to give the glory to him, because I wouldn't even be here if it wasn't for him."  Freeman's return to football was the idea of his eighth grade coach and was supported by his parents, Larry and Mary, once they got over initial reservations. "There was a lot of people that told me,  "I can't believe you're going to let that kid play football,"  his father says.  Ultimately, the couple decided that the benefits outweighed the risks.  "I want the assurance of knowing if Larry and I get killed
today, he can take care of himself,"  Mrs. Freeman says, pointing  out that football has helped her son avoid a life of isolation and dependence.  Freeman's teammates and friends are impressed by his determination to keep up with them -- even if he can't see where they're going. "He's willing to try anything,"  linebacker Josh Moran says.  "We go jumping off a 20 foot rock into the water near here, and he's right there."  Moran and tailback Derrick Neal attend church with Freemanand spend many hours at the his house.  He wants us to think of him not as somebody special, just as normal person,"  says Neal, who reads Freeman's school assignments aloud to him.  Not that Freeman needs much help in class.  He's got an "A" average, is a member of the National Honor Society and is being recruited academically by the Universities of Kentucky and Louisville.  On the field, Freeman has played in each of the games this season for the undefeated Redhounds -- including an unexpected appearance that fulfilled his dream to play varsity defense. Freeman got the chance when, near the end of an Aug. 28 game against cross-town rival Lynn Camp, a Corbin player ran a kickoff back for a touchdown -- apparently depriving Freeman of a chance to get in the game at center. It's two minutes left, they're driving and coach pulls me over there and says, "Travis, it doesn't look like we're going to get to go back in on offense.  Do you think you could play nose guard?"   Instructed to simply go on the snap and tackle the center's legs, Freeman did just that -- and nearly got on the score sheet when the opposing tailback came straight up the middle. "If I'd have raised up a little bit I'd have ended up with a tackle,"   Freeman says. "That would definitely have been a first."

;