Ottawa ? Caleb Blakesley has seen the videotape a hundred times, and each glance at the way it all came about makes him shake his head in disbelief.

“It was stupid,” he says.

And yet, it has caused him all this extra work, all this pain, all these doubts, and all the disappointment of missing his time to be the big man on Ottawa High’s campus.

Five hours of his week now are spent here, at Gollier Rehabilitation Center on Main Street, working every other day to get his right knee back into satisfactory shape. He does exercises in a pool, rides a stationary bike, lifts weights, does intense stretching and tackles every weakness imaginable caused by a freak injury in an OHS football game early in his senior year.

When all his work at Gollier is done, Blakesley’s football career will be far from over. The 6-foot-5, 270-pound lineman gave his word to Mark Mangino and Kansas University in August, and all remains well between the two camps, despite the progress the knee must make in order to become ready for Division One football.

But as Blakesley was being helped off the field that September night, the questions swirled through his head like a swarm of bees. Questions about the severity of the injury. Questions about what caused it. Questions about what could’ve prevented it.

But most of all, questions about what effect it would have on his future as a Jayhawk.

Kansas University football recruit Caleb Blakesley exercises during his rehabilitation program. Blakesley suffered a knee injury during a high school game in September.

“It scared me,” Blakesley said. “I knew there was a possibility that it could be more than just out for a couple of games or even out for the season.”

The play

On Sept. 10, the Cyclones had a nonleague home game against Kansas City Turner — Blakesley’s second game of his senior season. The lineman already had the respect, had the honors and already had given KU his word that he’d be a Jayhawk in August.

“I didn’t have to prove anything to anybody,” Blakesley said. “But I wanted to.”

In the second quarter that night, Turner’s quarterback swung out to his right and was looking downfield for an open man. But nobody blocked Blakesley, who emerged from the trenches, chased down the signal-caller, grabbed him by the shoulders and flung him to the turf.

It was a quarterback sack — and another exhibit as to why Blakesley was named the state’s top college prospect by rivals.com prior to the season: size, speed and strength, all in one package.

In one motion, Blakesley tossed the Turner QB aside and jumped to his feet — only to feel a pain sharper than a razor blade shoot through his right leg. He grabbed his knee and fell right back to the turf as quickly as he sprung up.

The whole town held its breath.

Caleb Blakesley exercises in a pool as part of his rehabilitation program.

“It scared everybody,” OHS coach Pat Boeh said. “He’s been our leader for three years. Even as a sophomore, we turned to him for leadership.”

Five days later, Blakesley was in the operating room. The original diagnosis was mild, and the operation was supposed to be a simple knee scope to clean out cartilage and get him ready for the Cyclones’ stretch run of the season.

It wasn’t that easy.

“When I woke up,” Blakesley said, “they said, ‘You’re done.'”

Blakesley did have cartilage damage behind his kneecap, but the twisting of the knee also severely strained the muscles in the area, and his miniscus may have suffered a slight tear, as well.

High school football suddenly was in the past — seven weeks premature. Now, it was a month in a brace, followed by several months of rehabilitation.

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“It was rough,” Blakesley said. “Especially because when it first happened, it was only supposed to be a simple scope and a couple of weeks off.”

Back in Lawrence, the KU coaching staff heard about the injury the night it happened. Blakesley attended KU’s game the next day against Toledo, and after the operation, assistant coach Clint Bowen — the coach in charge of in-state recruiting — gave Blakesley a phone call.

“He said, ‘The only thing you need to concentrate on now is getting better,'” Blakesley recalled. “‘This is not going to affect your scholarship at all. You chose us, so we’re behind you 100 percent.'”

The road to recovery

For four weeks, Blakesley did nothing. He’s as athletic as they get, a football player in the fall, a basketball player in the winter, and a state champion shot put thrower in the spring.

Kansas University football recruit Caleb Blakesley, an Ottawa High senior, works out at rehab. Blakesley makes three trips a week to the Gollier Rehabilitation Center to rehabilitate his right knee.

But while a heavy brace suffocated his right knee, anything physical was off-limits.

“You get bored real quick,” he said with a laugh.

Now, Blakesley spends roughly 90 minutes every Monday, Wednesday and Friday at Gollier Rehabilitation Center. On this day, he was joined by classmate Matt Ferguson, the Cyclones’ starting quarterback who tore his anterior cruciate ligament in Ottawa’s season-opener a week before Blakesley’s setback. It was just one of a number of injuries that wrecked the Cyclones’ promising season. They finished 4-5, and lost four of their last five games.

While doing exercises in the pool, Blakesley chatted eagerly about his future team, in disbelief over the bad breaks that haunted the Jayhawks all season. He gave grief to his physical therapist, a Kansas State fan. And he happily announced that at least all the pain and hard work into getting strong again comes with a silver lining: He gets to miss a little bit of class three days a week.

“That’s the beauty of it,” he quips.

Caleb Blakesley displays the scar on his knee he received from surgery to repair damaged muscle.

Blakesley said the strenuous exercises were getting easier each session, a sign that the knee is getting stronger and stronger. He’s targeting the end of January to return to sports, which would be about the time Ottawa’s basketball team will be in the thick of things in the Frontier League race.

After that, it’s track and field. He has a Kansas Relays and a Class 5A state title to defend in the shot put, throwing better than 60 feet at both meets last spring.

Then it’s off to Lawrence to start a new career as a Jayhawk. Blakesley said a couple of schools are still inquiring about him, but if anything, his haunted senior season on the football field has made him feel stronger than he already did about KU.

There’s no uncertainty about it. Signing day in February won’t be a big deal at Ottawa, because Blakesley won’t be surprising anybody.

“There’s no second thoughts,” Blakesley said. “Especially after this. This is something that makes me feel even closer to the school. I’m going through all this and they stayed by me because I chose them.

“That means a lot to me.”