After a concussion sidelined him for three games near the end of last season, Luke Lindberg was looking forward to an injury-free fall for the Hermantown football team.
He made it all of nine plays into the Hawks' Aug. 31 opener at Moose Lake-Willow River. On the 10th, the senior was carrying the ball and planted his left leg to make a cut. Just then, a defender lunged at Lindberg, hitting him in the knee.
Lindberg was dinged up, as they say, but finished the game. The pain, though, didn't subside, so he went to the doctor a week later. There, he was told it was probably the meniscus, a setback that would keep the 6-foot, 214-pounder out of the lineup a couple weeks. To be sure, the doctor scheduled a magnetic resonance imaging exam for the following week. It indeed showed a torn meniscus - in addition to a completely torn anterior cruciate ligament.
Uh-oh.
The Sept. 14 diagnosis seemingly signaled the end of Lindberg's prep football career. But, he was given an opening. Lindberg really couldn't do any more damage to the knee, so if he was adamant about playing, well, that was up to him and his family. At least that was the case until Sept. 21. The next day, Lindberg turned 18.
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"My parents were like, 'Well, you're 18 now, so you can make your own decisions - whatever you want to do,' " he said.
Lindberg wanted to play, of course, and was cleared to return for the Hawks' game vs. Duluth East on Sept. 29.
"I wanted to be out there with my teammates and help them out as much as I could, because obviously I can't get hurt all that much more," he said.
As evidenced by the 34-0 season-starting win over MLWR, Lindberg is a dangerous runner. He rang up 128 yards on 13 attempts that night. But he's had to give up carrying the football and focus instead on pursuing it, as a linebacker. Lindberg still can run and jump, but his mobility isn't quite what it was. And the pain is tolerable unless he's doing a lot of cutting.
Surgery to repair the ACL and meniscus will come immediately after the season ends. Recovery time is difficult to predict - anywhere from six months to a year - but Lindberg is holding out hope he can make it back in time to play lacrosse in the spring.
For at least one more football game, he will try to ignore the injury.
"I think I've gotten used to it and no longer get nervous, because it doesn't help to be nervous about it when you're out there," Lindberg said. "I just try not to think about it."
Fifth-seeded Hermantown (2-6) opens the Section 7AAAA playoffs at 7 p.m. Tuesday at No. 4 Hibbing (2-6). A victory would send the Hawks into Saturday's semifinals at top-seeded and unbeaten Cloquet. Either Hermantown or Cloquet have won the section every year since 2012, when Princeton was the champ. The Lumberjacks went to state in 2013, '14 and last year, while the Hawks advanced in 2015.
