Wyatt Jenkins did not always, by his dad Tom’s own admission, take the most soft-spoken approach to sports early in his Whitehall Vikings career.
“There’s not a person in Whitehall that wouldn’t tell you Wyatt was a little bit cocky before this stuff went down,” Tom said with a chuckle.
Granted, it was understandable; Wyatt has a lot of athletic talent, and through two years at Whitehall, he’d showcased it as a two-time state wrestling qualifier and 2023 all-state finisher, as well as contributing to the 2022 Viking football season that set a school record with 11 wins. Following wrestling season, he spent the spring and summer looking to get even better in both sports, participating in high-level wrestling tournaments and the usual off-season activity with the football team.
That’s when “this stuff” happened.
Jenkins and a group of teammates were at Montrose’s annual July veer camp, at which the Vikings have been a fixture during coach Tony Sigmon’s 11-season tenure. One-on-one drills went as planned, and the players moved to a team setup where they worked on plays they might use in the fall.
On Jenkins’ eighth play, he said, a seemingly innocuous play went awry.
“It was a blitz and I did my job, pushed down and grabbed the quarterback, and my outside linebacker came in and chipped me on the side of my helmet while I was trying to grab the quarterback,” Wyatt said. “I had a stabbing feeling in my hands. I tried to run off the field and couldn’t feel my legs.”
Jenkins had experienced something similar just a few months prior - during the 2023 wrestling season, in fact, when he suffered a neck injury during the state tournament. Wyatt was diagnosed with a neck sprain then, but that didn’t stop him from helping the team to the state finals match and securing all-state placement for himself.
Wyatt wasn’t planning on letting this injury stop him either - after all, it was not a hard hit - but teammates Jamar Hill and Reid Burns had other ideas. Hill alerted Sigmon that something was off with Wyatt.
“Knowing his history with previous injuries, I went over there, and I could tell he was visibly shaken,” Sigmon said. “His hands were getting numb, and knowing he’d been through something similar like that before, he was hoping for the best and hoping it was a stinger. By the same token, he wanted to, for lack of a better term, tough it out. Reid took his football helmet and said, ‘You’re not toughing this out.’ I talked to Wyatt and said, ‘We’re not messing around with this stuff. You have a couple minutes, and if it doesn’t get any better, you’re not going back in.’”
The decision to stop Wyatt from returning to action, doctors later told Sigmon, Jenkins and his family, might have saved Wyatt’s life - and almost certainly saved his ability to walk.
Sigmon hustled Jenkins over to a nearby medical facility, and it quickly became clear he would need a more intensive look. Jenkins was then taken to Hurley Medical Center in Flint, and Sigmon alerted Tom to what was going on.
“Once he got his imaging done, I kind of felt the way people were talking to us, the doctors and nurses, it felt like they were going to tell us it was a stinger,” Sigmon said. “Then another doctor came in once he got his results, and that’s when the conversation got flipped.”
Three of Wyatt’s vertebrae, the C4-C6 bones, had broken. He would need a spinal fusion for the C4 and C5 bones; doctors were optimistic the C6 bone would heal on its own with time.
It wasn’t long after that news hit that Tom and wife Jessica were in Flint. Tom joked that he probably didn’t go under 80 miles per hour the entire drive. Big brother Ira, a Michigan wrestler, also came over from nearby Ann Arbor, and before long, Wyatt was in the operating room for a five-hour surgery.
The surgery was successful, and just two days later, Wyatt was able to walk out of the hospital, albeit in a neck brace that he spent most of the fall wearing.
Jenkins was a fixture on the sidelines of football games during the 2023 season as his team won its first 10 games. It was, at times, an emotional experience being there but unable to play, but Jenkins wanted to be part of his team in any way he could.
“As soon as I broke my neck, I told Sig I’d be there to support the team,” Wyatt said. “Wrestling is more of an individual sport, but football is all or nothing, and everyone has to do their part. I took it upon myself to be out there as much as I can...I really wanted to be there for the team and help them as much as I could. The first couple games, it was starting to get to me, but eventually I decided how I can help them is to be there to support them, especially the people sliding into my spots.”
Sigmon was always clear Wyatt was welcome and let the Jenkins’ decide how much they wanted to be around. The coach saw both his high school and college careers end with season-ending injuries, so he could relate to the feeling of what Wyatt was going through.
“We really let the family take the lead on that,” Sigmon said. “Everyone’s a little bit different in how they handle that, but we were always a phone call or a conversation away.”
The wrestling season has been a little different. For one thing, Jenkins isn’t in a brace anymore, though he’s still months from being permitted to return to any kind of contact sport. As with football, he’s around the Vikings a lot, and has taken on the role of a de facto assistant coach.
“He has a lot of experience, so he can mentor a lot of these young guys and can help them out with the mental aspect of the sport,” coach Justin Zeerip said. “He can be around the guys and be around the team, helping coach guys up and helping with the mental aspect.”
Wyatt said the experience, only a couple of months in, has given him a new perspective on the sports he loves.
“It was a big change for me, honestly,” Wyatt said. “It’s hard not to say, ‘Me and you are going to wrestle now.’ I can’t really show them how to do it. I’ve learned a lot about myself. I was wrapped up so much in my ego and showing what I could do, and now with my neck, I just want to go and teach these kids about how it’s not just about you; it’s about everyone else.”
Tom said he’s noticed the change in his son too. Wyatt can’t turn off the showman inside him entirely, and it’s unlikely anyone around him would want that. But he said Wyatt has grown from the experience of his games being taken away.
“His mindset has changed a ton,” Tom said. “This stuff has a tendency to humble you and think about where your life is outside of sports. What value do you bring outside of having big muscles and being a good athlete?
“His level of character has gone up. That has a lot to do with his faith and his ability to not quit. He’s been counted out a lot in his life. Living in the shadow of a brother who’s a big-time Division I athlete, you have a tendency to get overlooked. The version of Wyatt that will come back in the fall is a well-rounded individual, someone with a high level of character.”
Oh, yes, there’s that; if Wyatt has his way, he’ll be back on the gridiron this fall. There are a lot of doctor’s visits to go through first, but Tom said that Wyatt’s neurosurgeon, Dr. Marc Moisi, has expressed confidence that Wyatt will be able to return to play. If all goes well, Wyatt could be cleared for contact sports participation next spring.
“He will hold his thumb and finger really close together and say, ‘Give me this much of your life for that much of your life,’ and spread his arms wide,” Tom said. “He was 100 percent positive about Wyatt being able to play football next fall and maybe wrestling next year.”
That is, naturally, a scary thought for Tom and Jessica. But Tom said as scary as the thought of Wyatt back on a football field is, given what happened in July, standing in the way is even scarier.
“My friends and family say, ‘Doesn’t that freak you out?’” Tom said. “It does, but what freaks me out more is a doctor telling me he’s cleared and holding (my) kid back from something he only gets to do one time in his life. If the doctor says he’s good to go, he’s going.”
Wyatt himself could reasonably have misgivings, but when asked if he’d hesitate to return, he immediately replied, “I’m just ready to play ball.”
