Glenbard South junior offensive lineman Josh Schwendeman is out with an injury, but he remains an intriguing college recruit.
Courtesy of Tim O’Halloran
This fall was supposed to be much different for Glenbard South junior offensive tackle prospect Josh Schwendeman.
Schwendeman (6-foot-6, 255 pounds), who in early May had an eye-opening performance at the first West Suburban Showcase held at Glenbard South, was one of the lesser known players at that time who showed some potential and physical upside. I mentioned Schwendeman as one of two names who would draw more recruiting attention this past spring and summer based on his in-person evaluation that day.
The “other” unknown name who also drew the attention of several coaches in attendance at the West Suburban Showcase? St. Francis junior 3-star ranked tight end Gavin Mueller (6-foot-6, 240 pounds), who had yet to play a down of high school football. He’s since added Power 4 scholarship offers from the likes of Florida, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, West Virginia, Purdue and Minnesota.
Unfortunately, Schwendeman was forced to take another path in his dream to play football in college. Schwendeman on May 14 tore his ACL while training for upcoming summer college camps and the Raiders team summer camp leading up to his junior season.
Just like that … done. Finished. In a minute, his plans to camp at several key college summer camps and perform for multiple college coaches ended. His dream of putting on a big 2024 junior season also ended just as harshly.
Schwendeman received some spring interest from schools such as Cincinnati, Iowa, Ole Miss, SIU, Penn and others. But without any camp performances or video, colleges will generally move on, then check back on him and his progress later in the recovery process.
So how do you deal with the various college coaches after a serious injury? Over the many years of covering recruiting in this state, I’ve seen kids and parents handle things a million different ways. Some will opt to not discuss the injury, surgery or rehab with any coaches, hoping they’ll just assume everything is still fine.
Not Schwendeman and his family and coaches.
Instead of sticking his head in the sand and hoping everything would be fine, Schwendeman instead took an old-fashioned approach to handling his ordeal. He was upfront and honest and continues to document his journey and return from injury via his X account (@schwendemanj65) for the entire social media world to see.
“We definitely talked about it with my coach (Ryan Crissey) and my family,” Schwendeman said. “The coaches always end up finding out these things so I decided to just be honest and let them know. It was hard to deal with at first but I’ve just put all of my energy into physical therapy and just getting better every day.”
Crissey was on board with Schwendeman’s handling of his recruiting and the impact of the injury.
“We talked a lot about how to handle everything after the injury and he is doing exactly what he should be doing,” Crissey said. “He’s honest with the coaches and he’s also working hard and making good progress. He’s still very active this season with the team and comes to practice when he’s not in physical therapy three days a week. He has been a model patient and is doing everything he can do now to get back on the field. Josh is just a very positive kid who is just focused on his process and recovery.”
In the meantime, Schwendeman continues to march forward and take more positive steps to getting back to where he left off over three months ago.
“My main goal has been to get back to where I was last spring and ready to be seen and evaluated by as many schools as possible,” he said. “I love Friday nights on the sideline with all of the energy from the fans. I’m watching my teammates just playing the game and having so much fun, but I definitely miss not being a part of it. I just started doing weight work in rehab and that’s a big step in my recovery. I’ll keep documenting my work and progress and letting the coaches know where I’m at these days.”
Crissey has big plans for Schwendeman once he’s fully cleared and ready to go.
“I’ll be ready for him to come back and play offensive tackle along with playing some defensive end next season” Crissey said. “He still has a lot of work to do but I can see him playing at a high level in college if he continues to make such positive strides.”