‘There’s More To Life Than Football’

LARAMIE — The lingering pain below his left knee cap escalated from annoying to excruciating in a matter of days.

Jake Wilson had no idea what was causing the constant swelling. Neither did Wyoming’s training staff.

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Restless nights eventually turned sleepless. Something was seriously wrong, the redshirt freshman admitted to himself. Numerous tests were negative for structural damage. The tendons and ligaments remained intact.

Why can’t I bend my leg? What did I do?

Doctors eventually zeroed in on the issue. Wilson, it turns out, had two large cysts causing the discomfort.

"They were going to do a scope, so, just a minor surgery, I guess, to kind of crush it up and just suck it up," Wilson said. "I didn't see it, but they said it was the size of two golf balls."

That unexpected surprise led doctors to deviate from the original plan.

Wilson slid up his pant leg last Tuesday evening inside the team’s meeting room, revealing an eight-inch scar that begins at his lower quad muscle and stretches to the top of his shin.

The trauma is red in areas. Purple in others.

Compared to what it looked like last August, Wilson added, it’s hardly noticeable.

After the tumors were removed — they were deemed non-cancerous, another concern that weighed heavily on the Cowboy tight end — he developed an infection.

His nightmare was just getting underway.

"The scar looked terrible," Wilson said. "It was gross looking. It was basically bleeding all the time. It cracked open."

With the regular season just days away, the Texas product would again head to an operating room inside Ivinson Memorial Hospital while his teammates boarded a plane for Akron.

Two additional surgeries and even talk of potential amputation consumed his mind during the weeks ahead. There was even the thought of inserting a Peripherally Inserted Central Catheter -- a flexible tube inserted in the upper arm that connects to a large vein near the heart. That's utilized for long-term IV treatments, such as chemotherapy.

Fluids kept flooding into the area. Sought out second opinions left medical professionals from here to Houston scratching their heads.

Recovery was agonizing. Mobility, impossible. Rehabilitation wasn’t much better.

"It was pretty demoralizing, to say the least," said Wilson, a physical specimen and only 20 years old, who stands 6-foot-5 and tips the scales at 245. "But, thankfully, God had other plans, so it was all good."

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Still, once the unknowns were solved and the lingering anxiety dissipated, nothing compared to the pain of helplessly watching as his team began to rack up losses.

It didn’t help matters that his mentor at the position, John Michael Gyllenborg, also dealt with a litany of ailments that sidelined him for three games and parts of two others.

"There were a couple games where I was like, I don't want to go. I don't want to just stand there and hobble around the sideline, just because it was painful," Wilson said. "So, yeah, it was hard to watch. It was tough to be away."

Now, nearly eight months removed from surgery, Wilson is back to being a full participant again.

He ran through a number of drills Tuesday inside War Memorial Stadium during Wyoming’s first spring practice. He ran routes. He blocked linebackers. He even snagged a few out routes, tapping both feet in bounds before gliding into the sideline.

That visual alone brings an immediate smile to Jay Sawvel’s face.

"I'm just looking forward to seeing him cut loose," Wyoming's third-year head coach said. "Jake's a good football player. Jake's a really good person. Jake, I think, felt like he had about half a lung today, at one point."

Sawvel recalled how difficult it was seeing Wilson in that hospital bed.

"You have no physical ailment, but you're not able to function and do things because you have an infection," he said. "That's a serious deal."

That visit meant the world to Wilson.

"It was amazing," he said with a smile. "I mean, he came, sat down and talked to my dad right after they had just played a game. I can't say enough about this staff. Just everybody, from trainers to strength staff to coaches, they are really good people, and I think they've really pushed me to where I am right now."

Wilson may not have been a blue-chip recruit coming out of Montgomery High School — he essentially spent just one season on the varsity squad, catching 32 passes for 465 yards and four touchdowns, drawing interest from a number of Ivy League schools and the three main service academies — but he is now expected to be one of the Cowboys’ top downfield threats.

He’s replacing not only one, but two, potential NFL Draft picks in Evan Svoboda and Gyllenborg. It doesn’t matter that he’s yet to catch a ball in his young career, he’s already shown this staff and his teammates what he’s capable of in the weight room, film study and on the practice field.

Expectations, fair or not, follow.

"Jake was doing things better than me when he was a freshman," Gyllenborg said minutes after competing in NFL Pro Day in Laramie. "He's still young, but I'm really excited about him."

Is there pressure? Sure. Nerves? Of course.

If Wilson has gained anything over the last seven months, it’s perspective. The way he sees it, he’s not even supposed to be in this position in the first place.

He now also knows it can all be taken away in the blink of an eye.

"There's more to life than football," Wilson added. "I was just away from everything, like football. For me, it was my identity growing up. It was definitely a point where I had to rely on my faith more than ever.

"It's really the craziest couple months of my life."