Lincoln-Way East’s Jake Scianna still excels despite torn ACL

Two days before Lincoln-Way East linebacker Jake Scianna was scheduled to have surgery to repair a torn anterior cruciate ligament that would prevent him playing his senior season, a somewhat random conversation changed the trajectory of his immediate future.

Scianna, who suffered a torn ACL at a Kansas State exposure camp in the summer run-up to his senior season, was chatting with a family friend, still reeling from the fact that he wouldn’t be able to play come August.

That friend – Ron Plantz, father of Providence head coach Tyler Plantz – offered a theory that Scianna hadn’t even considered.

“I’m just sitting around at a family friend get together, and I’m talking with Ron, and obviously I’m devastated – torn ACL, out for the season and all that – and I think my surgery was scheduled for two days from then, and he was like, ‘Have you ever thought about playing on it?’ ” Scianna said.

“And I was like, ‘What do you mean, playing on a torn ACL?’”

Plantz went on to describe that he knew players who had attempted and succeeded playing on a torn ACL, including former Montini linebacker Doug Diedrick, who started all 14 games in the Broncos’ 2010 state championship season.

“Then, I was like, ‘I gotta get a hold of this dude,’” Scianna said.

Plantz arranged a conversation with Diedrick, which took place on Scianna’s way to a his pre-operative appointment for surgery.

“I talked with him for 35 or 40 minutes, and he gave me the whole rundown, what I have to prepare for and what I would have to do. I was asking every question in the world because I was totally taken aback that this was even a possibility.”

“I talked to him on the way to my pre-surgical appointment, and when I talked to my doctor, he was like, ‘That’s not crazy at all,’ and that he was pretty liberal with those types of things. We can give you a practice brace, and you can give it a shot.”

Scianna did more than give it a shot. After clearing many of the mental hurdles, the standout linebacker put together an excellent season, anchoring Lincoln-Way East’s defensive unit on its way to a runner-up finish in Class 8A. As such, he is the Herald-News Player of the Year.

“It is crazy. And I think about it, and I thank [Ron Plantz] every day for that conversation,” Scianna said. “What he was able to convince me to do, I was very grateful to him.”

While the door of possibility was now surprisingly open to Scianna, he was well aware that he still had significant hurdles to clear and an underlying concern beyond whether he’d be able to play his senior season with the Griffins.

“I plan to play college football, so I had to make it very clear with my doctor what the risks were here. He told me that the meniscus is more susceptible to some damage, but we’ll just clean that up if you have any issues,” Scianna said. “He did tell me that if I tore my meniscus, I’d be done, but I know how much this means to you, your senior year. But if I did tear the meniscus, it can be cleaned up with the ACL repair. It isn’t like it will hold you back any more in rehab time.”

His coach, Rob Zvonar, also experienced a swirl of emotions from learning that he’d be losing the heart and soul of his defense to his unexpected potential return in a 48-hour span.

“It all happened pretty fast,” Zvonar said. “He gave me a call telling me he was done and then gave me a call that he was going to give it a shot between 24 and 48 hours of one another.

“As happy as I was, there was a great deal of hesitancy. Am I contributing to sacrificing a young man’s further health issues at the sake of winning a high school football game? I felt very conscientious about not wanting to put a win and loss up against a young man’s health. But Jake and his parents really put a stop to that talk, telling us that they knew the risks and that they knew what they were doing.

“We’re just really thankful that he was able to do it and do it at a very high level.”

Scianna knew the risks and thought he’d properly anticipated the mental hurdles he would face. The obstacles in reality proved tougher to clear.

“The first few games, I was definitely not playing to the best of my ability at all. It was definitely a slow start, and it was 100% mental,” Scianna said. “I mean, physically I wasn’t 100%, but I knew if I got to 100% mentally, my game would be great.”

That eventually started to happen with Scianna defining a midseason game against Bolingbrook as his breakout.

“Really had my breakout game there [against Bolingbrook]” Scianna said. “It was just a lot of self-talk and things going through my head. A lot of questions I had to ask myself, and there was definitely some doubt, but the biggest thing that helped it was just work, day in and day out. The more work I did, the more confident I got.”

That confidence allowed Scianna to help lift Lincoln-Way East into the Class 8A state title game, where they lost to Loyola. But not being able to cap the season with the result he’d been hoping for didn’t make the experience any less gratifying.

“I definitely don’t have any regrets,” Scianna said. “The memories and the brotherhood that I have with my teammates is something I’ll never forget.”

Scianna had the repair surgery days after the state championship game and is progressing well in recovery.

“I can already bend my knee past the 7-degree marker, and I have great strength,” Scianna said. “Playing with the injury kind of helped my post-surgery recovery.”

And now the process begins in earnest at to what his next step might be, and, despite the trials and tribulations of his senior season, the goal remains the same as it always was.

“My goal is to play Power Five football,” Scianna said. “Obviously, it is tough with the transfer portal and it is also tough because I’m not 6-[foot-]2.

“But I just kind of use it as a chip on my shoulder, and one of the things I tell myself when I’m doubting myself is, ‘How many big-time recruits could have played with a torn ACL to the level that I did?’ ”

Zvonar would stake quite a bit on Scianna delivering for whatever school has the wisdom to place him inside their program.

“You want to bet against a kid who played 14 games with a torn ACL?” Zvonar said. “I think now that he did that, I’m sure there is no goal or accomplishment that he feels like he can’t achieve. I wouldn’t ever, ever bet against that kid.

“He’s my guy every day of the week. Twice on Friday nights or twice on Saturday afternoon, whenever the game may be.”