Spectators don’t realize the challenges that a high school football players takes on. In some cases they are worse than others. Nathan Peroo an all star wide receiver almost lost his true love for good. Taking on a horrific injury which, for many, is a career ending injury. Nathan refused to follow on that path and he created his own through rigorous recovery just to see the friday night lights again.

Sophomore wide receiver Nathan Peroo was just doing his job out on the field until something unfortunate and life changing occured.

“Second possession of our team, throwin the bombs,” said Peroo. “I thought nobody was behind me and he tackled me and I landed awkwardly on my shoulder and I felt excruciating pain.”

Catching that 40-yard pass Nathan had been tackled from behind, breaking his collarbone in two places. His bone was sticking out of this shoulder.

“I missed my first year of varsity football, kind of sucks, know what i’m sayin?,” said Peroo. “It sucks working hard and to have all your work just thrown away in the trash all of the sudden after a hustle play on the football field.”

Breaking his collarbone didn’t just affect Nathan’s sophomore year of football, it was tough on his whole family especially his brother Ryan, also a sophomore.

“This affected my family a lot, it affected it financially because surgery alone was $55,000 without insurance, so right there a big mark on the family income,” Peroo said. “It really put my family in a knot.”

The injury affected the whole family. “It really hurt us financially, it also made it harder to accommodate for Nathan’s needs,” said Michele Peroo.

After surgery Nathan underwent month after month of intense and extreme exercises at physical therapy. The road to recovery was long and seemed almost impossible at times. Nathan had one thing on his mind motivating him, he knew he had to come back stronger than ever and make a contribution to his team next year. They would need this all star receiver for many purposes.

“After surgery I couldn’t really do anything but lay around I even missed some school,” said Peroo. “When I was getting a little better I started lifting lightweight and I started running a little bit. I went through months of hard physical therapy about three times a week, and eventually I got all of my strength back.”

Even after all of the hard times he endured he claims to be a “better man” from the whole experience. He doesn’t regret catching that pass against St. Thomas Aquinas, it made him realize what great opportunities he has to play football for such a well respected program and it can all be taken away in an instant.

“Myself thinking I gotta give the best effort, I gotta put the team on my shoulders and carry them,” said Peroo “I made the mental mistake of thinking I had the easy score I just thought man                                                                                                                                                                         easy walk into the endzone but no the guy back there for St. Thomas Aquinas runnin up on me. I said uh uh not gonna happen so he tackled me, it kinda sucked.”

Through the whole process everyone was supportive of Nathan during his journey to recovering.  He has learned many important life lessons from the injury. He turned a bad experience into a good one.

“When things get rough in life you just gotta keep going,” said Peroo. “If you get knocked down, you gotta get back up. Hold The Rope.”