Bay Port’s Calawerts tough to bring down
Photo courtesy of Rich Palzewic
Jacob Calawerts is carrying the football with a purpose this year.
The Bay Port senior is breaking tackles and showcasing plenty of agile moves in rushing for a team-high 204 yards and five touchdowns to help his squad get off to a 3-0 start.
“It feels great to be able to play a role in the offense,” he said.
The 5-foot-9, 190-pounder definitely looks every bit like a top-notch running back this season with how well he’s maneuvering past defenders.
That’s why it was tough to imagine that he was barely able to move around at all entering his freshman year.
“I hit a point where I wasn’t able to walk anymore,” Calawerts said. “That was the turning point to figuring out something was majorly wrong.”
It took two surgeries and spending his junior season on crutches for Calawerts to get to the point of finally feeling like your normal high school football player again.
That’s how long it took him to completely run past the effects of osteochondritis dissecans, which is a joint condition where bone underneath the cartilage of a joint dies due to a lack of blood flow, according to the Mayo Clinic.
This was occurring around Calawerts’ left knee and led to a soft spot developing in the cartilage there.
Check out Rich Palzewic’s coverage of Bay Port sports for The Press
Since he had Osgood-Schlatter disease as a youth, Calawerts originally thought the discomfort he was feeling in middle school was the lingering effects of that. He figured it stemmed from going through a big growth spurt in seventh grade that left him taller than most of his offensive linemen.
But the pain started to become too much to handle as he prepared to enter high school.
“At that age, you’re supposed to be young and agile,” he said. “But I was just in so much pain I couldn’t do normal stuff, like bend over or go run and play too long, without coming in and icing my knee.”
Further tests led to the osteochondritis dissecans diagnosis. After getting his knee scoped and a dissolvable pin inserted into the soft spot of the knee, Calawerts was cleared in time to play football his freshman year.
The hope was the pin would allow the bone and cartilage to grow stronger and make the blood flow normally through the joint.
Calawerts played three sports as a freshman, but began having more of the same nagging symptoms again in his left knee following his sophomore season.
“The pin did not hold and the area was getting bigger and chunking off,” Calawerts said. “It was just heartbreaking.
“I got a second knee surgery. This was a more invasive one, and they removed a whole piece of cartilage on the bottom of my femur that was degenerated. They removed that chunk and drilled into my femur to bring blood down to the area to prepare itself. That surgery was very invasive and took about four months of crutches and a lot of (physical therapy) and exercise to get me back to full strength.”
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Most of that time on crutches took place during his junior season of football.
Although he couldn’t be an active participant on the field, Calawerts came to practices and ran the camera to film the sessions and gained a strong understanding of the offense during that time.
Still, Calawerts had to overcome a mental hurdle to regain his confidence to make a comeback this year. After all, he was aiming to earn a prominent spot in Bay Port’s backfield with no varsity snaps under his belt and hadn’t even practiced against the varsity that much since he missed the chance as a junior.
“I think he was still tipping his toe in the water and was like, ‘Geez, can I really do this?’” Bay Port coach Gary Westerman said. “At some point, he saw the light bulb come on as he started getting faster and stronger. He looked good in terms of the running and agility stuff we were doing.
“I’m just really happy for him. It’s pretty awesome for him to stick with it and have the perseverance to not give up. A lot of kids who would have been in his same place would have just given up on it. He stuck with it and, hopefully, he continues to reap the rewards of that.”
Calawerts said he was inspired to return after watching Jordan Nolle and CJ Maternoski enjoy strong senior seasons last year after coming back from injuries.
“It’s good to get out there and play with my buddies that I’ve been playing with forever and gelling together and working efficiently,” said Calawerts, who is one of 11 players to score a touchdown on offense for the Pirates this year.
“I’m feeling confident about all of us working together. With all those weapons, it’s hard to cover, especially with the game plan our coaches come out with for all the different defenses we face.”
Westerman feels the senior running back is positioned to face bigger challenges down the road.
“That work ethic he has translates over to more than just football,” Westerman said. “He’s going to be really good at something in life, whatever he chooses. That’s a product of having the perseverance to go through some of the things that he has gone through.”
Calawerts wants to pursue a career in civil or constructional engineering.
Right now, he’s focused on doing his part to ensure the Bay Port offense continues to engineer scoring drives as the Pirates pursue a second straight Fox River Classic Conference title.
After outscoring opponents 180-20 in its first three games, Bay Port will face its biggest test of the season when it plays at Ashwaubenon today.
“After missing all those games junior year, I’m just trying to make these count and make sure I run hard,” Calawerts said.
“It’s more important because it’s senior year and I won’t be able to strap on the helmet again for high school football for my team with my buddies.”