Glenbrook South wrestler Will Collins makes comeback after serious injury
GLENVIEW, Ill. — For any athlete, one of the hardest things they’ll have to face in their careers is the adversity of returning after a serious injury.
“Will I re-injure myself when stepping onto the field or court? Will I still be able to play as well as I had been before the injury? Can I still do the same things now that I did when healthy?” and more are just some of the questions going through athletes heads when they return from an injury.
That’s what Glenbrook South’s Will Collins faced this season when he stepped onto both the football field and wrestling mat this year.
Collins, a senior, hadn’t played football since his freshman year and missed much of the past two wrestling seasons, all due to injuries. When Will was a sophomore he had Labrum surgery and junior year was open Bankart surgery on his shoulder after too many dislocations.
For many athletes, two years off may have given them pause about returning and may have even had them decide to hang up their cleats and singlet.
Not Collins, however.
“It was definitely scary,” he said. “My junior year, coming back from the first surgery, I think that I was super tentative and I kind of rushed it back, I felt like I could be 100 percent, but didn’t get there, so I definitely was a bit scared this past season. But after the second surgery, I took my time and I went through all the physical therapy and I waited and I felt like I was a lot more relaxed knowing that…I mean, I had nothing to lose, I guess if something did happen again, but just knowing that I at least tried. And so I think that was my main reason that I kept going and I wanted to complete my goals.
“A lot of people will ask me like ‘why would you go back? You could get hurt again and just go through the whole entire process again.’ But I think the reason I kept doing it is one, I love the sport and I got into it at such a young age and fell in love with it. But also the fact that I want to make my family and my coaches proud and my teammates. I wanted to do it for them.”
It’s a good thing that he didn’t as well because his first six months of the 2021-22 school year were definitely some to remember.
First, the running back/cornerback helped the football team to a 9-3 record and state quarterfinal berth, it’s best season since 2009. He followed that up with an amazing wrestling year that included a regional championship, sectional championship and fourth-place finish at the state meet in the 152-lb. weight class, the highest finish by any Glenbrook South wrestler since 2013.
For Collins, to be standing on that podium, after such a grueling comeback, it made it all worth it.
“I think this year I definitely came in with like a mentality that I wasn’t going to go home without a medal or at least some medal,” he said. “And I feel like my coaches and my teammates were a lot more supportive for me this year. I felt like that I was well prepared and more prepared in the past couple years.”
Collins started wrestling when he was around 9-10 years old, but really wasn’t sold on pursuing the sport at first. According to him, he lost pretty much every match he wrestled in at first and got somewhat discouraged.
But the more he wrestled, the more he grew to like it and the better he became. Within a couple years, he was winning more than he was losing and started to realize this could be something he could continue to do as he went into high school.
Even though he had been on the varsity squad all four years of his high school career, there was one moment at state when he truly felt like he realized he belonged.
“I think it was in the consolation semifinals at state,” he said. “I was wrestling a kid that was definitely supposed to beat me and then three seconds in, I headlock him, he was on his back and went up 5-0. And so I think that in that moment I just realized this is where I’m supposed to be. I can win these next couple matches.”
While Collins isn’t sure where he’ll be going to college yet, he hopes to pursue wrestling, and potentially football as well, depending on where he ends up.
But he knows there are some things he needs to work on before he gets there though.
If it ends up anything like his training and recovery process, there’s no doubt Collins will be successful.
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