Not again.
Holden Ruse had to be thinking “not again” as he looked down at his right hand, sliced wide open with blood everywhere. He’d stiff-armed a Southern defender while making the corner in his team’s Week 3 win when his hand hit the steel clip on the front of the defender’s helmet. Sliced his hand wide open. Never one to give up easy, after receiving treatment and getting his hand wrapped Holden reentered the game.
Briefly.
“That wasn’t gonna work,” he reports.
Thirteen stitches later he was back in action the following week, basically relieved it wasn’t any worse that it was. See, he’d already missed much of his sophomore season with an ankle injury and his entire junior season after dislocating his shoulder and suffering a torn labrum in the first day of contact in fall camp. The pain was excruciating.
“And I was told I could either do PT (physical therapy) and see what happened or just have surgery and do my five other sports,” says Holden. Five other sports? Ol’ Holden, he’s a forward thinker, he was counting the five upcoming sports seasons in his junior and senior years of high school. Surgery it was, good-bye football, 2019.
As a result Freeman’s best football player stood on the sidelines as his team suffered through a 2-7 season...one that included wins in the last two weeks of the season. And the Falcons would be moving from 11-man to 8-man in 2020, a better fit for their limited football participation numbers.
“I saw some good things from the sidelines last year, mostly that our guys wanted to get better. You can see that carry over to this season,” says Holden, whose team is 4-2 entering this week’s game against unbeaten Tri County. “One of the days in weights last summer I stopped everybody and told them we could have something special if we worked our hardest. It sort of shocked some people but things have fallen together and we are having a good season.”
Not only did Holden’s most recently injury hurt him - like, hurt him - but it also didn’t do the team any favors as he was the team’s starting QB, same as last year. Injuries or no injuries he’s having a strong senior season, including team-leading totals of 823 yards rushing, 16 catches for 192 yards, 11 touchdowns and 49 tackles on defense.
“It’s been tough to watch because Holden has had really bad injury luck in his career,” says Freeman head coach Travis Andreasen. “He has also undergone a position change on defense (strong safety to middle linebacker) and knows we have a few tough battles ahead, but he is feeling so happy to play after missing all of last year.
“I really don’t know what would have happened if our season was cancelled due to COVID.”
Let’s not even go there...let’s talk about Holden’s other great assets as a member of the Freeman football team.
“In addition to Holden being a great athlete, he is a great teammate. He really knows every position and commonly helps the young guys learn the proper footwork plus he is really good about communicating with the O-line,” adds Coach Andreasen. “You can tell he has been a leader in other sports and activities because he is cool and calm yet a fierce competitor as shown in basketball and track. Hopefully this season will show how great of a player Holden is after being relatively unknown.”
Sure seems like that’s not much to ask.
Born in Lincoln, Holden’s family moved to Adams (40 minutes south of Lincoln) when he was four years old. His younger brother Carter is the sophomore quarterback of the Freeman football team after Holden’s injury and they have another brother who is in sixth grade. Holden likes to golf, play frisbee golf and listen to music, especially country music.
Holden is also a brilliant student who carries a 4.0 GPA and is a member of the National Honor Society, FBLA and Fellowship of Christian athletes chapters in addition to being captain of the Quiz Bowl team. He is also a key member of the Freeman basketball and track teams, having run a leg on Freeman’s state champion 4x800 meter relay team and doing the same for its third-place 4x400 relay.
College sports are in the mix but still TBD, though with a strong spring Holden hopes to get some offers for track and field. He plans to study engineering.
Getting moved off quarterback was a bummer but he’s happy for his brother’s success at the position and also for the fact he’s getting to play some high school varsity football, period. “It’s been a weird career of mine but I am grateful for getting to play and for being surrounded by great teammates.”
