Players happy to be back from injuries

If absence does really make the heart grow fonder, as they say, then that would explain the extra pep in the step that Hunter Colao and Noah Gladdish had on Day 1 of football practice with the Mentor Cardinals.

A senior offensive lineman, Colao broke his left ankle during an early season wrestling practice this past winter, which forced him to miss the wrestling season and a good portion of the offseason weight-lifting program.

Gladdish, a defensive back, had it even worse. He tore the ACL, MCL and meniscus in his right knee in one of the first football practices LAST season, and thus missed all of the Cardinals’ football season and baseball season.

So when the Cardinals hit the turf at the JTO on Aug. 1, few — if anyone — were happier than Colao and Gladdish that the coronavirus did not shut down practices for their team like it did many other programs around Greater Cleveland and Ohio.

“It feels awesome,” said Gladdish, wearing a brace on his surgically repaired knee. “It’s great to get back out here with my friends. I hope to get to go all the way through the season. With the COVID stuff, it’s rough, but...”

Gladdish said he was running a drill at practice last august when he planted his leg, his knee slipped and he felt the damage occur.

“The entire thing snapped,” he said of all the ligaments in his knee rupturing. “Right when it happened I was like, ‘You better got get the trainer.’ I figured it was pretty bad.”

Gladdish said it was difficult sitting and watching his teammates advance to the Division I state semifinal game without being able to play. But he said he worked through that disappointment and his ready for his senior season.

“It’s 100 percent now,” he said of his knee. “I’ll keep wearing a knee brace and doing what I can. I have more experience now. I feel I’ll be better than I was,”