THE JACOB GINSKEY STORY

Nearly eight months removed from the incident and Jacob Ginskey still doesn’t blame Logan Burger for his trip to the hospital that fateful evening last November in Rochester.

He never has, and never will.

Sure, it was a scary situation and Burger was ultimately ejected from the game, but Ginskey has harbored no ill-will, not even after he was left barely clinging to consciousness and sprawled on his back after a vicious hit by the Mayo High School linebacker.

In fact, Ginskey has refused to place fault on anyone for what happened that night. The healing process has run its course, both from a physical and mental standpoint, and he actually considers himself lucky.

That’s right, lucky.

During a conversation with The Husky Bulletin on Thursday, June 23, the incoming OHS senior said he was “grateful and lucky” the collision high-speed collision wasn’t any worse and is thankful to have walked away from the incident without any major injuries or long-term damage.

His viewpoint displays a level of maturity far beyond his years, because it would have been far easier for Ginskey to play the victim in this scenario. He was, after all, the one on the receiving end of the brutal hit and the one who was rushed to the emergency room in the middle of a do-or-die playoff game. But Ginskey genuinely understands there’s always two sides to every story. Even in a highly-charged circumstance like this, he was able to remove the emotion and look at the situation from an objective lens.

“Most quarterbacks don’t slide in high school, so, honestly, it’s not really (Burger’s) fault. He obviously thought I was going to stay straight up and was just going to make the tackle. There’s no one to blame…I’m definitely lucky and grateful it wasn’t anything worse,” Ginskey said. “I obviously had great doctors (in Rochester) and TC (Carlyle) there to help.”

JACOB GINSKEY

The sequence of events that ultimately ended Ginskey’s season occurred late in the second quarter of the Section 1-5A championship game with his team barely clinging to life and trailing 29-7 on the road. The fateful play started so innocently: He accepted a shotgun snap, drifted out of the pocket and ran toward an opening near the sideline.

But as they had all game long, the Spartans quickly stonewalled any remaining daylight in Ginskey’s path and sent a wave of defenders in his direction. It was at this point when Ginskey realized he wasn’t going to make it to the sticks before being wrapped up by any one of the numerous hard-charging Mayo defenders that currently dominated his field of vision.

It was time to slide.

One of the Spartan defenders that was in hot pursuit was Burger, and the senior linebacker was a millisecond too late in reacting to Ginskey’s last-second maneuver and was unable to stop his considerable momentum in time to avoid what happened next.

Crash. Thud.

Silence.

After absorbing the harsh initial impact courtesy of Burger’s thick right shoulder pad and taking the brunt of the force to the mid-section, Ginskey’s neck was jolted backwards, his head impacting the artificial surface below with a loud “thud”.

As a stunned silence overcame the crowd, Ginskey laid motionless on the turf, flattened by the hit and nearly blacking out as players from both teams were ushered to their respective sidelines.

“I wasn’t really thinking about anything,” Ginskey said of what was going through his mind in the immediate aftermath of the collision. “I was just blanked out and staring up into the sky. I didn’t lose consciousness, but I felt like I was about to a couple times. It was a weird feeling, almost hazy and jumbled.”

Ginskey, indeed, remained awake the entire time. TC Carlyle and his staff of student trainers — a few of which were classmates of Ginskey — were the first to arrive on the scene before being joined by a small crowd of emergency personnel and on-site medical staff. Stacey Ginskey also found her way to the field and made it just in time to watch her son get strapped tightly onto a gurney and wheeled to the far end of the stadium where an ambulance was waiting to rush him across town to the emergency room.

Before being whisked away, though, Ginskey raised one of his his arms and gave a thumbs up to the crowd, the loud applause that followed reverberating throughout the stadium long after the ambulance had sped into the night.

The game eventually resumed and Mayo kept the shellshocked Huskies at a safe distance for the remaining 26 minutes, ultimately pulling off a 36-7 victory.

Across town, Ginskey endured a battery of cognitive tests, physical evaluations and high-tech scans. His initial results came back encouraging and he displayed no signs of serious damage to his brain or back. Within a few hours, he reached a point where the initial mental fog he experienced had lifted and the medical staff was able to conduct a thorough evaluation of his cognitive well-being. It was all good, and Ginskey continued to progress throughout the evening, eventually reaching a point where the doctors cleared him to drive home.

“Basically, they told me to go home and rest,” Ginskey said. “They checked my head at the hospital but didn’t check my neck so I had to wear a brace around it for a certain amount of time. I eventually went back and checked with the doctors and I was cleared and it was al good (and) I didn’t have to wear the brace anymore.”

After taking it easy for the a couple weeks, Ginskey was at full strength by the beginning of basketball season and didn’t miss a beat this spring during track and field.

As for football, the incoming senior has started to explore the option of playing at the next level. Despite the up-and-down results on the field, Ginskey possesses many of the physical traits coveted by college scouts, most notably his raw arm strength, evolving physical stature and versatile athleticism.

It’s impossible to ignore the ease with which he can spin a ball 40-plus yards down field and hit a receiver in stride. He runs multiple mid-distance events and relays on the track and field team and has sprouted 5-6 inches and added 20-plus pounds to his frame that is still developing.

There’s also something to be said about the fact that his teammates voted him on of the four captains for the upcoming 2023 season and how he’s consistently bounced back from adversity throughout his career.

For instance, when he was forced to take the reigns of the offense as a sophomore after starting the season on the B-Squad, all he did was toss seven touchdowns in his first three games. After struggling down the stretch of the 2021 season against Owatonna’s toughest opponents, Ginskey posted his first career 300-plus yard passing performance in Week 1 last season in a game that Owatonna controlled for most of the way and probably should have won.

“You grow and learn from everything.” Ginskey said. “Like a bad game — my New Prague game last season — I still dread New Prague when we play them because I think about the four interceptions I threw. But you definitely learn from everything and grow (and) leads up to the senior season. Everything that’s happened has helped me prepare for my senior season.”

Ginskey and the Huskies are in the thick of the offseason 7-on-7 circuit — participating in various leagues and competitions throughout the southern metro area — and will gather for team camp Aug. 7-10 prior the first official day of practice on Aug. 14.

Owatonna opens the season and christens its sparkling new stadium on Sept. 1 at 7 p.m. against Hastings.