Lineman has pinkie finger amputated to keep playing
 

Trevor Wikre had a choice: Lose his pinkie finger or lose his football season.
"I said, 'Cut it off,' " Wikre says. He took no time to ponder. "I knew right away," he says. "It wasn't a hard choice."

Wikre, 21, is a guard for Mesa State College, a Division II school in Grand Junction, Colo. He had told teammates a couple of weeks earlier how much he loved them as brothers.

"I said, 'I'd take a bullet for you,' " he says. "Well, this was my chance to put words into action. This was my bullet."

The Mesa Mavericks will play their first game on national cable TV Thursday night (8 ET, CBS College Sports) vs. Western State (Colo.). Mesa is 5-2, 5-0 in the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference.

The trauma came Sept. 30 when Wikre's right little finger shattered at practice. He pulled off a glove, saw bone jutting out and asked trainers to tape it up. They declined and got him to the hospital, where doctors advised him that he needed season-ending surgery.

"I'm a senior," Wikre (pronounced WICK-er-EE) says. "If they put pins in there, my career was finished. I told them to just take it off. They said I was being dramatic. I said, yeah, well, losing my season is dramatic, too."

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Doctors tried to dissuade him, he says, but they were at last persuaded to take the finger at the second knuckle, leaving a stump.

"Even with the operation I was going to have trouble with it later in life," he says. "I think that's why they let me" make the decision to amputate.

Wikre missed one game. He played last week with a rubber cast in a 26-3 win against Colorado State-Pueblo.

Did he find any difference in how he played? "Just one less finger to hold with," he says, laughing softly.

How about differences in life?

"I can't hit the P on the keyboard very well," he says. "I have to train my ring finger to get over there. It takes time."

Wikre got change at the grocery store the other day and felt the coins slipping through his fingers. The pinky is the plug that closes a clenched palm.


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How about sipping from a wine glass with pinky finger demurely extended?

"That's not me," Wikre says. "I'm a beer guy. No fanciness here."

Wikre, 6-3, 280 pounds, is majoring in K-12 education and adaptive physical education. He wants to be a phys ed teacher for special needs children.

Traci Young, his fiancé, is a bank teller who graduated from Mesa last spring.

"I thought it was pretty crazy, but if you know Trevor you understand," she says. "Sometimes he'll stick it in my face as a joke and I'll squeal. It's gross to look at but, you know, I'm getting used to it."

Mesa coach Joe Ramunno lost his left pinky in a shop class accident in 1979, his senior year in high school.

"We're a matched set," Ramunno says of the bizarre coincidence. "I'm a good source for him on how it is to live with."

Unlike Wikre, Ramunno did not choose to have his pinky amputated. "The doctors made that decision for me," he says. And he would have advised Wikre to save his finger, but it was gone before the coach could give advice.

"He's pretty darn committed to this team," Ramunno says. "I know where his heart is at. He's a special young man."

An automatic bid to the Division II playoffs goes to the conference champ.

"We want to win the RMAC and make some noise in the playoffs," Wikre says.

The symbol for a team that finishes No. 1 is an index finger held high. "I don't need my pinky for that," Wikre says.

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I saw this on Sports Center this morning. SIGN HIM CARL :cuss:

His choice, I guess.

I personally think it's reeruned. Couldn't he have just fixed it and worn one of those huge club casts and went all Cowboy Bob Orton on D-Linemen?

My first college roomate played football for Mesa State. He was a fat putz.

This guy sounds much tougher than that sniveling fat lard.

I'm guessing he's not on the honor roll.

idiot

And this years "Ronnie Lott" award goes to.......

If he has any chance of making the draft I don't blame him. Take the fugger. Don't need it anyways.

ah, i can hear the theme from bonanza now

Hell yes, he's an idiot.

How does a guy this stupid get into college?

Oh, yeah. Presumably on a football scholarship.

Now he can't do the "Hook 'em Horns" sign.

Wow.

Brilliant! Think Mel Kiper won't know who he is come draft day? That finger may be worth millions!

Take your shot when you get it.

In Div. II? At the expense of a finger?

I guess it's a story you get to tell your grandkids.

No shocker for his old lady.

We're number two!

We're number two!

Oh, damn that hurt!

We're number one!

We're number one!

Well if you think about it, the pinkie finger has to be pretty low on the list of parts that you wouldn't chop off.

Looks good on a resume.

:D

Draft him! He'll fit right in since our current GM still has a job after having a lobotomy.

He is going to be very good at the adaptive side of things. :)

As I read this, I was eating a bowl of popcorn, and realized I was using my pinky finger to hold it up from the bottom.

The most undervalued finger by far.

If Tony Romo REALLY cared about Dallas......

Now that is a real man. Holy shit!

Not many guys like that left in the football world.

My first thought as well,I'll never forget Lott retelling that story on a program called Hardcore Football.

You mean dumb****s?

Ah, they're everywhere.

Dude c'mon Ronnie Lott was not a dumb**** he was respected by many of his peers

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Favre is urging Romo to play with a splint

The only HOF this guy from New Mexico will enter is the I'm a Dumb**** for Cutting of My Finger Hall of Fame.

He's a badass, everybody on espn wants to make fun of somebody that made it further playing football than any of those douches

Maybe D II, but he advanced from high school football, remember the movie "For Love of the Game,"

I think I'd keep my finger...

ROFL

He's a dumb****. Plain and simple.

You DON'T cut your ****ing FINGER off to play a stupid football game.

I guess it's a good thing he didn't get hit in the balls.

Or maybe, it would have been.

ROFL

Well, OTOH, it'll be easier to fist his old lady

Unless that pinky injury was going to prevent him from being drafted in the NFL and signing a big contract the dude is reeruned.

On one hand I share the guy's competitive spirit and love for the game. OTOH, losing your pinky for a few games nobody will remember in 2 years is pretty dumb.

But, if his finger was mangled and he was guaranteed problems anyway, maybe amputation was the right choice. He won't be hindered significantly unless he's a musician.

fingers do not interfere with love of the most glorious contact sport in all history of mankind. This guy is Ray Nitschke tough. We should be doing nothing but celebrating the spirit and vigor of this man.

Maybe he was just trying to freak out the opposing linemen. He can try to say a rabid coyote bit his pinkie off and he beat it to death with his bloody hand. I think the fact that he's in DII actually made him even more likely to consider doing it. The less chance you have of continuing, the more likely you are to try to hang on to what you've got.

Wait a minute. Checks username. Reads quote again.

I'm confused by all this irony.

o lineman that played with my uncle broke his leg in the 1st quarter. taped it up and played the rest of the game.

i played two games with a fractured thumb & staf infection. I shouldnt have practiced until i got the pins out cause i damn near lost my hand.