A Placekicker's Patience: Greg Huegel's road to recovery continues
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CLEMSON -- It could happen at any moment. To many athletes, it’s their worst fear.
A torn ACL.
We’ve seen it hinder many athletes, some who are at the peak of their careers. Donte Grantham, Clemson’s best basketball player, was primed for a terrific senior season until a non-contact ACL tear brought his career at Clemson to an abrupt end.
Tearing an ACL not only sets you back mentally, but it also makes you go through a psychological battle. A battle that takes plenty of time considering the timetable of the rehabilitation process.
For Greg Huegel, all it took was 1.5 seconds for his role to change on Clemson’s football team.
The “freak accident” play took place on the final play of a Wednesday practice in late September. The two-time all-conference kicker was taking part of a two-minute drill, something the team usually does at the end of every Wednesday practice when his plant leg got rolled up on by a defender trying to block the kick.
“It happened in literally a second,” Huegel said. “As soon as it happened, I don’t really remember it. I just remember laying on the ground like, ‘this does not feel good.’ Afterwards, we were in the training room, and they said we needed to get an MRI.”
Ever since Huegel limped off the field that day, he’s gone from the starting kicker to a supporter of Alex Spence who had never started a game as the kicker before.
Huegel took Spence under his wing, understanding every kicker has jitters when they are first starting out. Spence started slow, making six of his first 11 kicks including only making one of six from 30 yards or beyond. But to finish the season, Huegel was one of the first to congratulate Spence when he made three straight from 40-plus yards in the postseason. One was from a career-long 46 yards; the other two were the only six points Clemson scored in New Orleans.
“It was a major role change for me. Obviously, I had no idea it was coming. At first, it was very overwhelming, but Alex is a heck of a kicker,” Huegel said. “I moved in from playing to just a straight support role. I did that to the best of my ability, helped out him the best that I could. And I know him as a player, he grew more. Our friendship definitely grew more from it, too.”
Since his surgery, rehabilitation season has been in session. It’s a long road to full recovery from a torn ACL, a road that doesn’t come without a couple of speed bumps on the way. There’s no doubt Huegel can get back to the way he used to be kicking the football, but he had some doubts in the beginning.
“I had my doubts a little bit whenever I was first starting to rehab like, ‘okay, there’s no way I’ll be able to get back.’ There’s always those doubts in the back of your mind,” Huegel said.
“My knee feels a lot better now and now that I have seen the growth from whenever I first hurt my knee to this point … there is nothing but room for growth.”
Like how he took Spence under his wing, Huegel looked to others for guidance during his rehab process. In 2014, Clemson running back Adam Choice tore his ACL at Boston College ending his season. He redshirted the 2015 season and came back to the team as a backup running back the past two seasons.
He also called up his friend Stanton Seckinger, a former Clemson tight end who played from 2012 to 2014. The trio of players had all dealt with some sort of injury during their careers. It was nice for Huegel to have people to lean on when there were days where he struggled to even go to rehab.
Their advice to Huegel: Stick to it on a daily basis.
“In the end, you’ll be thankful for it,” the players preached to him.
Huegel has been anxious to get back out on the field and win his starting kicking job back since the moment the injury occurred. It’s been a slow process, and he doesn’t know when he’ll be able to fully participate in kickoffs, but he’s finally running again and doing one-step kicking with a regular football again.
Progress.
This has been the toughest hill for Huegel to climb in his career so far. Even tougher than trying out for the football team three different times before finally making it.
“That was tough, but that was a daily grind, and I hadn’t experienced the success yet,” Huegel said. “Once I did I was like, ‘okay, I just need to get back to that. There has been an extra motivation to get back to that.”
You could tell the motivation was there when Huegel was speaking about the freak accident, the injury, and the rehab process. But he also seemed to be in good spirits. The redshirt senior has grown from this experience and has a new perspective on patience.
“Patience is something that I’m definitely learning something about,” Huegel added. I’ve broken several bones in my life. Yeah, those are injuries but tearing a ligament, I did not know what I was really getting myself into.”
Dabo Swinney said having three potential kickers on the roster will be a beautiful thing after the struggles his team got through last season. Although he's barely on the practice field at the moment, Huegel is ready to finish up his rehab and make his presence felt in the new kicking competition.
“Now that I actually see the finish line, I am starting to get a little antsy,” Huegel said. “Like, ‘let’s hurry this thing up.’”