SportsFOX 17 Blitz

Actions

A West Catholic comeback: Kloska returns after summer accident

Posted at 11:25 PM, Oct 16, 2014
and last updated 2014-10-17 11:08:40-04

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. -- Doctors told Matt Kloska he wouldn't be back on a football field for West Catholic High School.

Matt Kloska hasn't been listening.

The senior was cleared for non-contact drills this week, just four months after he rolled his car this summer on the way to another teammate's funeral.

Matt damaged the C2 vertebrae in his neck in the wreck. Doctors say if he would have sneezed after the injury, he'd be paralyzed.

Quarterback Travis Russell was in the passenger seat. He walked away relatively unharmed.

"It was pretty scary," he says.  You kind of see your life flash before your eyes a little bit."

Matt was given a grim outlook. Again, he didn't listen.

"I was supposed to lose 10% range of motion after my surgery," he says. "I got it back in the first three days."

"The reason was I kept the faith, kept going in everything I could possibly do, believed in myself. I had no doubt at all."

Matt hopes to be cleared for contact by next Friday - the final game of the regular season.

UPDATE (October 17): Matt tells FOX 17 he's been cleared for contact drills starting on Monday, October 20.