Perseverance

You may recognize Austin from being our November Athlete of the Month. Austin was having a very productive senior year of football when his leg was rolled up on from behind- tearing his ACL and MCL. This was a devastating injury as Austin prepared for MONTHS (since December, not just the 2 months in the summer) so he could have a great senior year and potentially fulfill his goal of playing college football.

I’ve actually had the opportunity to coach Austin throughout his entire high school career. I was anxious to see how he would respond to such adversity. Anyone who has ever been hurt knows how depressing and stressful it can be when you get taken out of your natural environment. For Austin, this was the football field and the gym. When this injury happened I knew it wasn’t going to hold him down for long and I was excited to have a front row seat to witness his road to recovery because I knew some big things were about to happen. 

Within two weeks, he was back in the gym, crutching around from exercise to exercise. He still wanted to train 3-4x per week so we organized his workouts to accommodate this- more of a bodybuilding routine as he could only train upper body. He never missed a session and went to all of his physical therapy appointments. The fact that he gained over 15 pounds of bodyweight and hit PRs in all of his upper body exercises is irrelevant to the killer work ethic and discipline he developed throughout this time. These are the traits he’ll use way more often than his 300lb bench.

I’m proud to say that Austin has decided to play football at Trine University in Indiana this fall! Playing college football was a long-time goal that wasn’t an easy task to accomplish. There’s been a lot of hard work put in so far but the real work is just beginning. Austin was fully cleared a few weeks ago and the next stage of his return has already begun!

Time to get back to work!