Two weeks ago, Garrett Hepner was sent to the hospital with a broken nose and a lower lip cut.

On Monday, the standout linebacker debated if he should go to class or focus on recovery.

Tuesday, athletic training worked with him on pain management.

Wednesday, he’s cleared for full-pad practice.

By Saturday, he records seven total tackles.

Waynesburg University’s athletic training helped prepare Hepner to start his final game for Waynesburg against Washington & Jefferson after suffering his injury a week prior against Case Western Reserve University. On the play that caused the issues, Hepner injured his face as he chased down the running back only to see his helmet fall off, but he does not regret the effort he had on the play.

“It’s all about the love of the game,” Hepner said. “You don’t go out there wanting to go through the motions because then you’re going to get beat up, so you want go hard you want to do it because it’s fun—you want to go out with friends and play the game you love.”

Before the Case Western Reserve game, the Jackets had a bye week giving them time to recover after playing eight straight weeks. When the injury happened this past week to Hepner, it was his own helmet that did most of the damage to his face.

“[It] happened when I tackled a guy and my helmet flew off and my helmet ended up cutting me a lot,” Hepner said. “The aches and pains—they can of add up week-to-week, but the bye week really helped you feel refreshed going out. Then you realize it is still a physical game and you’re pumped up again.”

Hepner did not go through concussion protocol after the injury and was removed in the middle of the fourth quarter but did not return. Hepner’s pain is monitored week to week by the athletic training staff, but there is only so much that can be done. Head athletic trainer Andy Palko works with the players to measure whether they would be able to practice or play for the upcoming game. As the season gets later in the year, Palko said, a lot of the pain is just athletes adjusting to the longer season.

“A lot of guys will come in here specifically this time of year and it’s more maintenance treatment,” Palko said. “They’re not injured, they are just getting run down a little bit.”

Palko says that athletic training will monitor guys all year and make adjustments for what they can and can’t do for the following week.

Kevin McClellan is a junior offensive lineman on the Yellow Jacket football team. From the start of the year to this past week, he has been dealing with pain. Some of the aches even date back to his sophomore year of high school when he injured his hip. His most noticeable injury is his hands, which he says have gotten worse playing football.

“My hands, after so much physical hand movement every single day it’s like sometimes my hands lose feelings sometimes, that’s a lot of pain I go through,” McClellan said.

Before every practice and game, McClellan wraps his elbow after an injury he suffered against Westminster, but the injury wouldn’t prevent him from playing.

“It’s kind of like a never ending circle, there isn’t a lot of time for recovery,” said McClellan. “I still can’t even fully extend it and I had to get x-rays on it but I still ended up playing that next Saturday.”

McClellan plays through many different injuries—from not being able to extend his elbow to his hands failing him doing daily tasks. He still believes it’s worth it.

“Playing this game for so long, it’s hard for it to not be worth it,” McClellan said. “Playing football has always been a part of my life and who I am.”

Some weeks the pain has been so overbearing that McClellan didn’t think he would be able to play, but he suited up anyways. He said he didn’t want to risk losing his starting position on the team.

“There have been a lot of times I don’t know if I could even go [that day] but still did anyways,” McClellan. “I felt like if didn’t go to practice or didn’t show the coaches I can man up enough for a practice, I feel like they wouldn’t feel too confident to put me out there on Saturday, so I put that in perspective, and I tell myself if they need me I can’t just not show up.”

For some players, like defensive lineman Will VanNorman, this has been the first year he has constantly gone to Athletic Training to help with managing pain. VanNorman has never suffered a serious injury that has held him out of games his entire football career. Against Grove City, he injured his Ulnar Collateral Ligament (UCL), and for the first time all season he came out of a game with an injury.

“When I hurt, I usually don’t come out of the game much, and it’s my senior year so I don’t want to come out of the game as much as possible,” VanNorman said. “So, I played with it, they didn’t have a brace. All they had was a little tape to protect myself, I was playing with one arm.”

VanNorman would end up playing the second half.

For Palko, building trustful relationships with players is important. According to Palko, athletes that come from schools that may have only had one athletic trainer or one that was absent, it’s difficult to build that relationship with students.

“Trust is a great thing,” Palko said. “Here at Waynesburg at the collegiate level, I’m here all the time. My staff is always around. So just having them understand what we do, our knowledge, our capabilities that we have here and kind of how the process works—once they see that, they can’t hide an injury because we see that—they learn pretty quick that athletic training staff know what they are talking about.”

For both VanNorman and Hepner the dreams of playing organized football at the next level are slim but not impossible. But they still show up to practices and games despite injuries.

“I fell in love with it my freshman year of high school and since then it’s the only thing I ever wanted to do,” VanNorman said. “Even going into practices, no matter how bad I feel it’s still fun.”