Mentor captain vows to return

It took Chris Finucan three years to earn a starting job and captaincy of the Mentor football team.

Injured in the Cardinals’ 49-7 season-opening win over Canton McKinley, the senior safety vows the first game of his senior year won’t be his last.

Finucan was injured when he made a tackle late in the first quarter on the home side of the field at Tom Benson Hall of Fame Stadium. He was taken from the field on a backboard and transported by ambulance to a hospital in Canton for neck and head evaluation.

But come the next day, Finucan was back with his team for film session at Jerome T. Osborne Stadium. He doesn’t know when he’ll be cleared to play, but vowed he WILL return.

“That injury could have taken away my career. I’m grateful it didn’t,” Finucan told The NewsHerald. “I’m OK. I can’t wait to get back on the field with my guys.”

Finucan said he remembers moving in for the hit, but when the ballcarrier’s leg slammed into his head, that’s when his recollection of the play dissipates.

He convulsed on the field for a bit as medical personnel congregated.

“I don’t remember that, but my parents (Joe and Rene) told me it happened, so I know it did,” he said.

Players knelt and a somber hush came over the stadium. The silence was broken with a roar of the crowd when Finucan was taken from the field.

“You know, it’s so scary when something like that happens,” Mentor coach Matt Gray said.

“You hope to get through a game healthy, then to see someone require medical attention like that… it’s scary.”

Gray speaks extraordinarily high of Finucan’s rise up the depth charts over the years. Gray said Finucan has been a mainstay on special teams and the junior-varsity units the past few years, but that his offseason work and leadership stuck out.

“He worked his tail off, and he is such a great leader,” Gray said. “He was our first captain chosen who was a unanimous pick by both the players and coaches earlier this spring.”

In Finucan’s absence at McKinley, junior Caleb Pohto stepped in at safety and did an admirable job. Finucan said the tests at the hospital revealed no concussion symptoms or bleeding to the brain.

“I will continuously go through tests with the trainers at the school to monitor how I’m feeling,” Finucan said, “but like I said, I can’t wait to get back with my team.”

In hours and days after his injury, social media was flooded with well wishes from teammates and fans. Finucan said the outpouring of support “made me tear up a little bit.”

“That meant so much to me,” he said. “A lot of them came to my house after the game. I love each and every one of them.

“The whole experience was a scary one, but it’s going to take a lot more to keep me off the field after all I’ve been through working my butt off for this opportunity.”

JOHN KAMPF — THE NEWS-HERALD Mentor senior captain Chris Finucan vows to return to the gridiron after an injury scare in Week 1 at Canton McKinley, during which he was taken from the field by ambulance.