FORT WAYNE – As football practices evolve on the Saint Francis campus, coach Kevin Donley compares senior running back Taylor Vieck to an ageless NFL wonder.
“We told him, ‘You’re kind of like Brett Favre,’ ” Donley said. “ ‘If you don’t feel like you can go, then step out.’ So we’re trusting him to use good judgment.”
Which is where the resemblance ends.
Unlike the Minnesota Vikings’ quarterback who kept vacillating between playing this season or retiring, Vieck never wavered about playing football this fall after back-to-back season-ending injuries.
“I didn’t even think twice about it, to be honest,” Vieck says.
After a 2007 sophomore season in which he scored eight touchdowns, including four in one game, Vieck tore ligaments in his wrist and underwent surgery before the 2008 season began. So he sat and waited for 2009 to roll around.
When it finally did, and the preseason summer workouts were twice a day, Vieck cut on a passing drill and heard an awful sound.
“When I planted, I popped it (Achilles’ tendon),” he said. “It was more of just the fact that I wasn’t going to be playing hurt me more than the injury itself. You put all that preparation into it.”
And now here it is in 2010, almost three years after his last game.
And the Cougars, to a man, are holding their collective breaths.
“I think everybody is pulling for the guy,” Donley said.
Yet he is still “Vieck the Freak,” the loving moniker he gained as a freshman who could bench press a Volvo.
Even back then, receivers coach Pat Donley couldn’t help but notice the 5-foot-8, 218-pound running back from Vincennes.
“People stop in the weight room and watch him,” Pat Donley said. “To watch him lift is impressive. You see the bar on the squat, and it’s bending. You can’t believe it. He’s something else. He’s a freak of nature.”
He is also a team leader.
“There are a lot of guys that would say to heck with it over things a lot smaller than an injury,” senior quarterback Shaine Tierney said. “You know the guys who are just naturally competitors and who want to help the team succeed, and Taylor is one of those guys.
“There are a lot of guys on our team like that. But there are a lot of guys who would say, ‘forget it,’ but Taylor’s got great character; has a lot of integrity.”
Maybe it’s the old wrestler in him that kept him coming back. He was, after all, the 189-pound state champion as a senior. And sometimes you just have to lean on past grit to make it through today.
“With wrestling, you’re on the mat one-on-one,” Vieck said. “You either push yourself or you get beat. I think it’s helped me carry over to football because I like to push myself.”
And after pushing himself past 2008, then 2009, it’s another year for The Freak.
“I just love putting on the pads,” he said. “I love the feeling of game day. It’s hard to explain the rush you get going out on Saturdays. I just wanted that feeling back one more time.”
