Serving the University of Toledo community since 1919.

On the mend

Junior quarterback on the grueling road to recovery after tearing ACL against Mizzou

Jackie Kellett/IC

Junior quarterback Phillip Ely (shown above vs. New Hampshire) played less than two full games before losing his year to a torn ACL. Sophomore Logan Woodside replaced Ely on the field, and Ely is dealing with the grueling year-long task of rehabilitation.

Blake Bacho, Sports Editor

Hang on for a minute...we're trying to find some more stories you might like.


Email This Story






image_pdfimage_print

Toledo junior quarterback Phillip Ely hasn’t been interested in reliving the moment that abruptly ended his first season as a Rocket.

Going through the experience once probably robbed him of any desire to reminisce.

“I’ll be honest, I watched it for the first time this week,” Ely admitted. “I never went back to watch it, didn’t want to, didn’t care for it. I finally just said ‘the heck with it, I want to go see it, I want to see what actually happened and how it looked.’”

Nothing Ely saw on tape came as a surprise.

“Just how I kind of remember,” he said. “Just coming around on the play before on the run. I pulled the ball, just made really one hard cut to the right back inside and it kind of felt like a soda pop can crushing.

“You know how you just kind of step on [a soda can]? It felt like that with my knee, it just kind of crumbled on me.”

Ely doesn’t have a medical degree, but as he was carted off the field he didn’t need one to know that something was seriously wrong.

“I know my body,” Ely said. “You play this sport so long that you know what a sprain is compared to what real damage is. I tried to keep optimistic and went into the MRI with some hope. I’m not a doctor so I can’t diagnose myself.”

The MRI confirmed the fears Ely felt as he was carted off the field; he had torn his ACL and wouldn’t see a football field again in 2014.

The diagnosis might as well have been a sledgehammer.

“It was hard,” Ely said. “But I took that night, I got to stay with my parents in a hotel room. We talked about that game, we talked about other games and we just kind of slowly changed our attitude from ‘oh my God, my life is over with,’ to ‘hey, what do we need to do next?’

“I owe it really all to my parents for getting me through those first couple days. I couldn’t have done it on my own.”

Ely and his family did get through the first few days, and Ely has been making his way through the grueling recovery process ever since.

That process couldn’t even include anything surgical until Ely got back into the gym.

“Before the surgery even happened, we try to do a really good job building up his quads so he is able to come back from this surgery even better,” said Toledo head coach Matt Campbell. “For him it was about a two-and-a-half-week process really to even get into surgery.”

But that was just the beginning.

“Once the surgery occurred it’s now about an eight- to nine-month process for him of retraining that knee, from bend to walk, from walk to certainly to be able to run,” Campbell continued. “It’s a slow process, it’s kind of a grind a little bit, but if there is one kid that has the mental makeup to handle it and be detailed it’s [Ely].

“I think he’s taken it as almost a challenge.”

Ely’s challenge is one of solitude for the most part. He has the help and support of the team and his family, but he is the only one that can actually put in the work.

“It’s tough for sure,” Ely said. “You do get a lot of alone time to yourself. You’re the only one that does the rehab, the only one that does the reps and the sets, so you’re the only one that really goes through it.”

While Ely fights through recovery, the Rockets roll on. With sophomore Logan Woodside at the helm, Toledo sits atop the Mid-American Conference in scoring offense and total offense.

Woodside has taken full advantage of the opportunity Ely’s injury offered, and Woodside insists his fellow signal caller has been nothing but helpful throughout the experience.

“He’s been in every meeting, we’ve watched film together and he’s been helping me out,” Woodside said. “We help each other out really even though he’s not out there right now he’s doing everything he can to help this team out.”

Ely’s teaching tendencies recently led to a position in the press box on Saturdays. According to him and his coach, it is an opportunity for Ely to learn and stay sharp mentally during the rehab process.

“He’s got a coaching mentality,” Campbell said. “If you ask Logan [Woodside] I think one of the things that is really special is their relationship. You don’t see that much. From really day one, [Ely] has been there for Logan and made him a better quarterback.”

The relationship between Ely and Woodside will be put to a true test next season, when a healthy Ely will want to compete to start against the player who has led the Rockets to a 3-0 record in the MAC so far this season.

The competition to come is one that any coach would love to have, a throw down for the most important position on the field between two players of starting caliber.

“It’s one of those things where you have to take it one day at a time, try to evaluate that once you have all the information and you’re able to sit down and really calculate it,” Campbell said. “It’s an unbelievable situation to be in, you’ve got two kids that [are] great leaders, great competitors and really would do anything to make our football team the best it could possibly be.

“It’s hard to find just one of those guys. To have two of them, it’s a pretty special situation for us.”

The chance to once again compete for a starting spot will be the reward for Ely after what has been and will be a long grueling struggle through recovery.

He said bring it on.

“I’m going to get better, I’m going to grind through therapy and I’m going to get myself back,” Ely said. “I just got to go into next year and battle it out again.

“I mean, why not? I’m going to be sitting at a boring desk job five or six years from now, so why not go out with a bang and just try to do what we enjoy doing, which is playing football.”

Print Friendly

Leave a Comment

Serving the University of Toledo community since 1919.
On the mend