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Sidelines Kalani Simpson |
Flanagan is a
player to pull forTHIS is the spring for Denny Flanagan.
It has to be.
You would think that for once, he would finally get a break.
If Flanagan's name sounds only vaguely familiar it's because he hasn't played football yet for Hawaii. He's the guy in the jersey without pads on the sideline, these last two years. The one at practice always behind the huddle, only playing catch.
"The last football game I played in was in high school," the wide receiver says. "My last game."
Soon after, he'd pulled his hamstring so badly that it's pulled him ever since.
Flanagan was a promising recruit, a speedster. A record-setting receiver who once had 18 tackles against Long Beach Poly.
He was favored to win the state high school hurdles championship in California his senior year.
But while running a relay he felt his muscle pull.
He rested it for six weeks, in hopes of being ready for states. Then in the league finals he went over a hurdle and it happened again.
"So when I came out here (to UH, for football) I was kind of weak, because I'd rested it all summer and figured it needed time to just heal up, because I'd pulled it twice by then," he says. "And then I came out and started running routes and it kind of pulled up again."
And again. And again. That first year went like this: wait for a while, come back in two weeks, hurt it again. Over and over.
When that season was over he rested and he rehabbed "and I was getting really close right before spring last year and we were doing workouts out here. And then the last one, and I just tried to burst, and I pulled up again."
He was devastated. "Just emotionally," he says. "I mean, physically it sucks. I mean, it hurts. But it was more of an emotional, mental thing."
Sadness? Frustration?
"All of the above, yeah," he says. "Lots of feelings."
Last year, he sat out the entire season.
"And that takes a toll on you after a while," he says, of always being the guy on the side without pads, there but not there, "when you don't really feel like you're part of the team."
But a funny thing has happened. He hasn't been run or written off. He hasn't been labeled fragile or a faker. He hasn't been given up on.
"I really think that there's a reason why I'm here," he says. "Because the coaches have been really patient, and helped me to really concentrate on getting better. And I don't think that would be that way at a lot of other places."
So he's back again, after more rehab and rest. He's about 80 percent now, he says. He's incredibly rusty, of course. His body is relearning football again, and his strength needs to be built back up, and his speed still isn't anywhere near what it once was. And there may be some permanent effects to all those pulls.
But he likes his chances.
It feels so good putting on the uniform again, getting out there again, practicing again.
"Yeah," he says of his teammates' response to his return to action, "they were acting like it was a pretty big day."
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Kalani Simpson can be reached at ksimpson@starbulletin.com