Broken vertebra slows wrestling champ

Brian Owen hates being idle.

A national wrestling champion and All-American several times over, the University High School junior-to-be has spent the past year dealing with a broken vertebra in his back – an injury that kept him from his biggest dream.

Owen had surgery in April to fuse the fifth lumbar vertebra to the first sacral. Later this month he will begin stepped-up therapy with an eye toward returning to the wrestling mat in time for the high school season.

“It’s been frustrating, especially these last couple of months,” Owen said. “I’m such an active kid, and this has slowed me down to doing nothing, and I hate that.

“I sometimes wish I had a video-game system so I could play it.”

Owen, son of Central Valley coach John Owen, had his sights set on surpassing his brother, Tommy, a three-time state wrestling champion at U-Hi who was denied a fourth state title during his junior season.

Brian Owen won the 103-pound state title as a freshman.

And then broke his back.

In June of last year, while representing the state at the national cadet dual meet in Kansas City, Mo., Owen went down with what was originally thought to be a minor injury.

“He came back home, he wrestled, we went wake-boarding,” John Owen said. “He started training for Fargo and the national tournament last July, working out with (U-Hi teammate Chase) Fish and hurt it again. He wrestled 20 matches with a broken back and was an All-American in both styles, all with a broken back.”

He returned home and rested. But in the second football game of the U-Hi junior varsity season, Owen went down again.

“That’s when I knew we were in trouble,” his father said.

Father and son looked seriously at the injury, weighing the chance of further injury against the opportunity of being the first to win four Washington State Class 4A championships.

“I don’t know how hard it was on him, but I know how hard it was on me,” John Owen said. “I talked to a lot of doctors. There was no chance of displacement and absolutely no chance of paralysis.

“But there was no way of repairing it, either, especially not at his activity level.”

The decision was made to allow Owen to continue chasing his dream.

Brian’s high school coach, his uncle, Don Owen, used his nephew sparingly.

“My uncle didn’t let me practice – I didn’t practice one time all year,” Brian said. “I could go in and show other kids what they were doing wrong. I may have been the most out-of-shape wrestler in the whole state. I only wrestled districts, regionals and state – and against East Valley and Central Valley because the team needed me. But that was it.”

And when he did take the mat, he said, Owen was as much concerned with protecting his injured back as he was with defeating an opponent.

“I don’t think you can really call it wrestling because I really wasn’t myself,” he said. “It would be like playing basketball with one arm. It would be like my friend, Angie Bjorklund, playing basketball with the cast still on her leg. I could get away with it to a certain extent.

“For example, if you get taken to your back, the only way to get off is to arch your back and get out. I couldn’t do that. If I’d been taken to my back, I don’t think I could get off.”

There are very few wrestlers in the country capable of taking a healthy Brian Owen to his back, however.

And in the end, it took an overtime to be able to defeat him.

Owen lost the 112-pound state championship overtime, falling to South Kitsap’s Josiah Kipperberg, 4-2.

Surgery was successful, and Owen has tried to hang with the recovery process.

“I feel all right – but I feel like an old man,” he said. “I think everything is coming along, but people tell me I’m pushing it. I don’t know what that means. I’ve never had anything like this before.”

He’s not the only one in uncharted territory.

Currently attending a training camp at the U.S. Olympic training center in Colorado Springs, Owen checked in with the Olympic team trainer.

“He said he’d never heard of anyone having surgery like what I had,” he said. “And he’s seen just about every sports injury there is.”

John Owen is certain his son will return and wrestle well. How well, however, is another question.

“If he were a gymnast, he’d be finished with gymnastics,” he said. “I guess it’s just a lot of uncharted territory at this point.

“Make no bones about it: He will be a good wrestler. Whether he will be as good as he was going to be (before this happened) remains to be seen.”