Etter Personifies Determination

There may be an urge to feel sorry for Billy Etter.

Don’t.

Etter will undergo surgery Friday for a torn anterior cruciate ligament in his right knee.

He isn’t the first young athlete to have a season cut short by an injury. He may, however, be the first to have two seasons in the same school year derailed by major injuries.

But he doesn’t have time for sympathy, he has his future to prepare for.

Etter, a senior at Lewis and Clark, first injured his knee the weekend before the football season. His kneecap was displaced during LC’s jamboree at Cheney.

Through practically unheard-of dedication, Etter recovered enough to quarterback the Tigers into the playoffs. Then he elected to test his knee in basketball, only to have the ligament give out during the Rubber Chicken game on Jan. 7.

“Nobody can say anything,” Etter said. “You just have to work it out yourself and work harder.”

Etter is unfailing in his optimism.

“I’m kind of a believer in everything happens for a reason,” Etter said.

Exactly what that reason might be seems like a mighty difficult lesson for a teenager to learn, even one who was communicating with Ivy League schools before the first injury.

Etter is plotting his future. In a best-case scenario athletically, he hopes to attend an East Coast prep school to play football, kind of a fifth-year of eligibility that may lead to a college program.

But he has also applied to several strong communications programs across the country.

By all accounts, no one worked harder than Etter to be ready for his senior year in football and basketball.

Monday through Thursday, from the time school got out until August, Etter met Tom Yearout, LC’s offensive coordinator until this week, when he was named head coach, at 7:30 a.m. for extra workouts.

Then there was the usual full schedule of camps and summer league basketball.

“I’ve never had a kid more committed to improve himself,” Yearout said.

Etter was ready to play. He chose to wear No. 11, the number his father wore when he was one of the brightest stars in Spokane.

“I liked the pressure,” Etter said. “It was more of a positive.”

When Etter went down the first time, Yearout’s reaction was: Why does this happen to somebody who put so much into it?

By the time Yearout got to the hospital after the jamboree, Etter was planning his return.

“The amazing thing is what he did to come back,” Yearout said.

Even his father, who had his senior year at Notre Dame and his Canadian Football League career cut short by injuries, was impressed.

“We haven’t shared a lot of deep thoughts, but he’s quite a deep-thinking kid,” Bill Etter Sr. said. “He’s handled this well, at least as far as I can tell. He didn’t complain or stew or ask, `Why me?’ He was up every day at 6 a.m. According to his physical therapist, he worked harder than any kid he’s seen to get back. I was very proud of the effort.

“Given the circumstances, with a knee like that, he performed very well (in the four football games he played). I told him he couldn’t have won the Heisman Trophy and gotten more respect from me. Those things happen. It’s how you respond to that kind of adversity (that matters).”

The son may not have said much, but he listened.

“Everyone’s parents are there to give help,” he said, “but with (his father’s) background, he’s a real reliable source.”

Still, the drive to return could only come from one person.

“It was probably worse mentally than physically,” he said. “Then I came to the realization I could work hard on my rehabilitation and try to come back or feel sorry for myself. I didn’t want to look back and say I missed an opportunity to play because I didn’t work hard enough.”

He said his family, coaches and friends were all supportive.

There is no finger-pointing or second-guessing from the Etters about Billy returning too quickly for football and blowing out his knee in basketball. He was probably facing a surgery anyway.

“A lot of good basketball players would have chucked the football season,” football coach John Hook said. “He wanted to go into basketball knowing he had done the best he could in both sports.”

Billy Etter never made it to the finish line, but there’s no arguing he did the best he could.