In this week's episode of This Hits Different, Shelby Cassesse tells the Fan Morning Show about the year for Frazier senior Brayden Boggs who, with the support of teammates and opponents, overcame numerous setbacks.
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This Hits Different Episode 10: Opponents support Frazier senior through injuries
High school juniors are encouraged to start thinking about the future, while athletes in particular begin to think about playing at the next level and college recruitment.
That was no different for Frazier quarterback Brayden Boggs as he started his junior season, but two games in, some nagging knee pain took a major turn for the worse.
"(I was) trying to make a play and ended up tearing my ACL, MCL and LCL, and both meniscuses," said Boggs.
Doctors told Boggs he would need a full year for recovery, putting his senior season, and plans to play in college, in jeopardy.
Boggs wouldn't hear it.
"To me, not playing football was never an option," he said.
After surgery, Boggs got to work on a demanding and grueling healing process.
"He pushed me to my limit every single day," he said. "The hardest experience I had was the recovery process."
Six months later, Boggs was cleared to play. It took half the time doctors thought it would.
But, the battle wasn't over. That same week, he started feeling sick.
"About five days of it not going away, I went to the emergency room," he said. "That's where they told me I had appendicitis and I needed to get that taken out. I believe it was another month of recovery from that."
Over the course of his recovery, it wasn't just family, teammates and friends supporting him. Athletes from other schools were checking in and showing up.
"Having those guys, especially from other schools as well, come down and see me was so much help and made it such an easy process to get through compared to what it would have been if I was by myself."
Despite two unexpected surgeries in less than a year, Brayden recovered, and was able to start summer workouts with the Commodores ahead of his senior season.
He was back under center at the start of the year, but faced one more health hurdle, COVID-19.
"It was a rapid test that came back positive," Boggs said. "From there, I ended up missing two games from that."
After recovering from COVID, Boggs finished out the year, along the way meeting up with many of the opponents who were by his side through a difficult year.
"Almost after every game, I was able to see someone who was at my house helping me," he said.
And following an injury that made a college football career seem unlikely, Boggs just committed to play for St. Vincent College.
"That was definitely the hard part of it was sending out that highlight tape and needing to explain the injury," he said. "Actually throughout that was really what made my college choice more apparent."
It took a lot of work for Boggs to get the chance to play high school football one more time, and though that chapter of his life has come to an end, he says the lessons of this last year will stick with him.
"Bad things are going to happen, but at the same time, it's not about the bad things that happen," he said. "It's about how you can get through it."
