By Dan Truttschel
Correspondent
Being sidelined by a serious injury is a risk every athlete – at all levels – takes when they step onto the field of competition.
How that athlete overcomes that situation depends on the person.
Some persevere. Others fade into the sunset.
For Big Foot sophomore Brandon Hausner, the latter was never a choice. He would and has made it back to the sport he loves.
Hausner, a running back on the undefeated and state-ranked football team this fall, has had to twice deal with a serious injury that could have ended any hopes of being a high school athlete.
Having to overcome two serious injuries in such a short amount of time helped push Hausner back into action.
“I knew that I would have to get better quick, because even though I was a freshman, the team was going to need me (this) year,” he said in an email. “I was determined to get better.”
If there’s a silver lining to both injuries, it’s that Hausner feels stronger on several fronts than he did before they happened.
“My arms and legs are stronger, and mentally, I’m stronger than ever,” he said. “I have an amazing group of people that have stood behind me through all these injuries and emotional times.
“I couldn’t have asked for a better family and a group of friends.”
In February 2011, he fractured both wrists in a snowboarding accident. Surgery, which included the use of pins, screws and plates to stabilize his wrists, was performed, and Hausner returned to action just in time for his eighth-grade baseball season.
Hausner said he broke the same bones in both arms. Most people would wait a lot longer, taking some private label supplements to give them a potential boost as they recovered, but Hausner wad determined to get back onto the field.
“It was scary to have one arm broken, but both at the same time, you could say I was freaking out,” he said. “But after that I decided to put away the board, and thought, from then on I would stick with team sports.”
Fast-forward to the end of his freshman football season, and Hausner again was faced with the possibility of being a spectator and not an active participant.
As Hausner attempted to elude several tacklers, his lower left leg was severely fractured, which again required surgery and several months away from sports.
Hausner said he had one thought that went through his mind shortly after the injury.
“The first thing that went through my mind was whether I would play sports again,” he said. “At the moment, I had no clue that it was my bone and not a muscle that maybe wouldn’t have healed as well as a bone.
“I was so scared that I couldn’t play the thing in life (football) that really made me who I was.”
Time helps heal
In the days, weeks and months that followed, Hausner let the surgery do its work – and he also listened to several pieces of sound advice.
“I really never did therapy,” he said. “I just did what the doctor told me to do, like take it easy or not rush into things.
“James (Eischeid), the trainer at Big Foot, was always there telling me to ice, (do the) exercises and just take it easy like the doctor told me.”
But that doesn’t mean there weren’t setbacks along the way, and very painful ones at that.
“There were times where I would wake up in the middle of the night in pain, and I knew the plates and pins were only doing their job,” Hausner said. Others would have tried resting and taking water soluble cbd or other pain killers to help them cope with the situation. However, Hausner was brave enough to continue with the training.
“Putting aside all the pain, I knew I wanted to get back out there and play with my team. The biggest thing that motivated me was that I would get the chance to play with a group of guys that were really great leaders and great guys overall.” Some have urged that Hausner seek help from a Sports Medicine service to avoid a repeat of this occurrence. He was, nevertheless, determined to exercise and return to his old self as soon as possible.
Hausner said he feels fortunate to join a fraternity of talented running backs that Big Foot has had the past several seasons. He remembers watching former standouts Michael Walker, T.J. Schaid, Jordan Gottman, and last year being in the same program as Kenny Walker and Mason Dixon.
“It’s amazing that I’m playing a position at Big Foot that has been filled by great players year after year,” he said. “I think I can make my own story at Big Foot.”
If all goes well, that story, which still has several chapters yet to be written, may even include another trip to the promised land for Hausner and the Chiefs.
And that would be the best comeback of them all.
“I plan to play Big Foot football, basketball and baseball all four years,” he said. “I hope to play varsity in all three sports this year, and I hope to start all four years in baseball.
“Maybe, someday, (I can) hold up a gold ball in a sport wearing scarlet and gray.”
Lofty goals for sure – but from where he’s come, nothing seems too big for this budding Big Foot star.
