Future Wally Always Fights
Knee Doesn’t Slow Him Down
Michigan City’s Ryan Sosinski
Nick Dettmann
Staff Writer
MICHIGAN CITY - Ryan Sosinski wondered: Is it worth it?
Is the pain, the rehabilitation, worth enduring in order to play a sport
he has loved since he was 7 years old?
Yes.
Absolutely.
No doubt about it.
The 6-foot-1, 200-pound tight end barely has a left knee to walk on. In
the third game of his sophomore year - his first on the varsity roster -
he tore his medial collateral ligament. Hoping to contribute as a junior
after missing two-thirds of his sophomore season with a knee injury, he
tore the anterior cruciate ligament. The following spring, he tore his
patellar tendon. And, this year after the football season, he discovered
he tore his meniscus.
“It was a struggle,” he said. “… There were a lot of times I thought
about giving up. Sometimes you thought, ‘Will it be back to normal?’ It
probably never will be, but it’s as close as I’ll ever get it.”
The closest he came to quitting? It came Aug. 31, 2007, against
Chesterton, when his ACL was torn.
“I thought about (quitting) a few times,” he said. “But I never really
thought about going through with it. I love football so much.”
The injuries, he says, have molded him into the person - the player - he
is today. They either make or break you, tough to come back from.
When the thought of quitting came up, it was brief. Only during the
surgeries. Once through that stage, Sosinski worked to get back to
football.
His passion wouldn’t let him quit.
“There’s something inside me that won’t let me give it up,” Sosinski
said. “… A lot of times, your greatest success comes from what, at the
time, looks like your greatest failure.”
He’s a walking success story.
On Wednesday, Sosinski announced he would attend Wabash College in
Crawfordsville, Ind., to play football. He wants to study biology and
pre-med, ultimately becoming a team doctor.
He joins classmate Garrett Payne, a wrestler at City, with the same
aspirations.
As a senior this year - his first full varsity season - Sosinski caught
19 passes for 383 yards and four touchdowns. He will play in the
East-West All-Star game during the Sports Fest 2009 this summer in South
Bend.
He was also a News-Dispatch All-Area selection this past season.
“Ryan had an outstanding senior year coming off ACL surgery as a
junior,” City coach Craig Buzea said. “Wabash is getting a very good
pass-catching tight end and, most importantly, a quality
student-athlete.”
Sosinski will join a Wabash football team that went 10-2 last season and
won its fourth consecutive North Coast Athletic Conference championship
with a 7-0 conference record. The Little Giants advanced to the NCAA
Division III playoffs, defeating Case Western Reserve, 20-17, in the
first round before losing to Wheaton College in the second round.
Wabash finished the season ranked 18th by D3football.com and 14th the
American Football Coaches Association.
“When I visited them,” Sosinski said, “I saw their work ethic, and how
hard they work to win to win and in academics, and that’s a place where
I wanted to be.”
Sosinski said he visited the campus four times, including attending two
games - Oct. 25 against Wooster and Nov. 15 against DePauw.
The DePauw-Wabash game, or the “Monon Bell Classic,” is college
football’s oldest rivalry west of the Alleghenies. It has been played
since 1890 and the series is tied at 53-53-9.
“They have a lot of fan support, which I really want to play for,”
Sosinski said. “The DePauw game was nice because there was like 11,000
people there. It was pretty loud.
“It was crazy. I would not have expected to see that for a Division III
team.”
Sosinski considered many schools, including Valparaiso, Indianapolis,
DePauw, St. Xavier, Ohio-Northern and St. Joseph College.
“They’re all good schools, academic wise,” Sosinski said. “I felt I fit
in better (at Wabash) with the football program.
“… Every time I went down there, I got that strong tradition feeling
like you would see at Notre Dame. … I’m looking forward to possibly
playing for a national championship. That’s one of their goals. They
want to take the next step to win a national championship.”
Sosinski says it has been worthwhile.
Definitely.
Contact sports writer Nick Dettmann at ndettmann@thenewsdispatch.com or
874-7211, Ext. 447.
