CALMAR --- Tony Balik, an old noseguard from South Winneshiek's Class of 1961, watched the Warriors' regular-season home finale with wide-eyed wonderment recently --- a smile stretching like a fault-line across his face.

Was his joy rooted in the Warriors' perfect record? No.

Was he reliving his lost youth? Not exactly. Balik's unabashed happiness was due to the fact he was watching football in vivid, autumnal colors even high-definition television couldn't match.

"A year-and-a-half ago I couldn't see my finger move in front of my face," the 66-year-old Spillville native explained.

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Back in 1961, Balik was set to play for the Upper Iowa Peacocks.

A week before his high school graduation, fate intervened.

"I had an accident with anhydrous ammonia and ended up in Rochester, (Minn.), in the hospital," Balik said recently, recalling a farming mishap with fertilizer. "The tank of anhydrous ammonia blew up in my face."

Before long, the former football standout had lost virtually all of his eyesight, save for a little light perception.

Yet, Balik forged ahead. In 1962, he attended the Iowa Commission for the Blind in Des Moines, where he learned to deal with the rigors of life without sight. He graduated from Loras College in Dubuque in 1963. He married and fathered six children. He thrived during a 37-year career with the Iowa Department of Human Services, halting child abuse.

He also had two corneal transplants in his left eye. They didn't work. Neither did countless other alternative treatments.

Then, Balik met Kenneth Goins and Stephen Russell, professors of ophthalmology at the University of Iowa, in 2006.

On Jan. 26 Balik underwent the last of two surgeries at University Hospitals in Iowa City in which doctors removed a blood clot that was blocking his vision.

Within hours of his final procedure, Balik saw his wife for the first time.

"Since the 27th of January, I've been able to read the eye chart," noted Balik, who now boasts 20-25 vision.

"My doctor said, 'I'm just the instrument, and I'm just happy to be part of a miracle, because that's exactly what happened."

For nearly 48 years, Balik's life had largely been shrouded in darkness.

Yet rarely will you see a man with such a bright outlook on life.

"It's indescribable," Balik said, smiling.

The family patriarch no longer has to imagine what family members look like. Or, his Iowa Hawkeyes, for that matter.

On Oct. 3, Balik soaked in the sights in Iowa City, as the black and gold nipped Arkansas State, 24-21.

"My son (Peter) got us tickets," he noted excitedly. "Sat between the 50- and 45-yard line, 26 rows up. Incredible seats.

"You know, the last Iowa game I was to was in the fall of 1960. I saw Ohio State play there, and the south end zone was bleachers --- open bleachers. As the game progressed, you would hear (glass) bottles fall down through the bleachers and crash on the concrete below. That was my memory. That was fixed in my head."

Kinnick Stadium is state-of-the-art now, following an $86.8 million face-lift four years ago.

"When I walked into the stadium, I just said, 'Wow, this is 70,000 people; I just can't fathom that,'" Balik noted. "It was quite amazing to me."

"To be 40 and find one of your childhood wishes can come true is truly amazing," said Peter, Tony's oldest son. "He was pretty emotional when the players were going out on the field. I think that game meant a lot to him. (Football) is probably one of the first things he had to let go of (after the 1961 accident). Then it became almost a lifetime of giving things up.

"He deserves this."

For decades, Balik listened to his beloved St. Louis Cardinals and Green Bay Packers on the radio, picturing coaches of yore like Vince Lombardi, who usually wore a suit on the sidelines. Then, earlier this year, he caught his first glimpses of a world in which coaches like Bill Belichick wear cut-off sweatshirts.

"And the different uniforms, I had no idea that they had changed 'em that much over the years," Balik noted. "And in basketball, the long pants, or 'shorts' that they're wearing."

The current Cedar Rapids resident is now immersed in a veritable sporting Shangri-la. Naturally, he now watches baseball on a hi-def TV set.

"It is big and clear," Jane Balik said of her husband's 47-inch Phillips.

And, he even enjoys time behind the wheel.

"I took driver's ed when I was in high school, so I didn't have to take it again," he laughed.

Judging by the look on Balik's face on Oct. 16, his return to South Winneshiek was nothing short of sublime.

"Nice run, nice run," he said after a 23-yard, third-quarter scoring sprint by his alma mater.

It was high school football, in living color. The rolling hills of rural Northeast Iowa never looked so good.

"This was a hayfield when I played," Balik noted of the Warriors' current football facility. "We always said that would make a beautiful setting for a football field, with this bank here. ... This is quite an improvement."

For Tony Balik, this was a homecoming venture unlike any other. Next up: Wrigley Field, the Grand Canyon and perhaps Lake Superior.

"I know he was in the dark for a long, long time, and missed out on things, but he really cherishes what he has now," said Peter. "Every time I talk to him he's having new experiences. It's a wonderful thing."

"It's quite a trip," said Tony. "It's quite a trip."