For a few agonizing moments in late July, Jon Beutjer wondered if his final Illinois football season had ended before it was scheduled to begin.
What if all he had gone through had been for naught–the arduous rehabilitation process following his Oct. 29 back surgery; the anxiety and uncertainty he felt before the NCAA granted him a sixth year to complete his eligibility; the endless hours he had spent watching films to help him execute coach Ron Turner’s offense.
The quarterback was working at a Champaign sports camp when the driver of a golf cart in which he was riding with Illini basketball player Dee Brown rammed a tree stump.
“Oh no!” Beutjer’s inner voice screamed when he looked down and saw blood spurting from his left knee, which had smacked the bar in front of the cart.
Brown, meanwhile, had been flung from the flatbed and was bleeding from his elbow.
Both feared the worst.
Fortunately there was an ambulance about 20 yards from the site and they were rushed to Urbana’s Carle Hospital. There they got the good news–they weren’t seriously hurt; their injuries were just cuts.
“We got lucky,” Beutjer says. “It could have been a lot worse. I came within two inches of cutting my patellar tendon open. Then I would have been out for the year.”
It took 15 stitches to repair Beutjer’s leg, but he was able to begin training camp with the rest of the team on Sunday and he has been one of the most impressive players during the first week of workouts.
“I know what coach Turner wants and where he wants the ball,” Beutjer says. “Since my injury last year, I’ve watched so much more film of the teams we play against. The more I study film, the more I study coach Turner’s playbook and write the plays, the faster I get rid of the ball. Anytime you have more reps, the more confident you get. I feel I’m getting more comfortable and decisive as the camp goes on.”
Two seasons ago, his first with the Illini, the former All-State selection from Wheaton Warrenville South, who spent his first two years at Iowa, led the Big Ten in passing yardage with 228.3 yards per game and threw for 21 touchdowns.
Last season Beutjer averaged 228.1 passing yards per game, but only 10 passes went for touchdowns and his season came to a premature end after seven games because his back problem was getting more severe with every game.
“At first it was a bulging disk,” he says. “Then, it got herniated. It kept on hurting, hurting, hurting and getting worse and worse. Then I started losing feeling in my leg and I couldn’t drop back.”
Beutjer didn’t know if his career was over when he walked off the field Oct. 11 after a 49-14 loss to Michigan State. He wanted to appeal to the NCAA for a sixth year to complete his eligibility because of circumstances surrounding his transfer from Iowa.
(He left Iowa after being hospitalized three days with a concussion after being struck by his roommate and teammate, Sam Aiello.)
The attorneys representing Illinois weren’t optimistic.
“They told me, `Prepare yourself for whatever you’re going to do after football because your chances aren’t that good,'” he says. “I kept waiting and waiting and praying and praying.”
Early this year the waiting ended when the NCAA notified Beutjer he was eligible to play as a sixth-year senior.
But he still had to rehabilitate his back.
“It’s a nine-month recovery until you feel 100 percent,” he says. “I spent two months strengthening my back and abs. A month later I was running with the team at 6 a.m. . . . My back started feeling good in the beginning of the summer. Now, I’m fine. I feel like the old Jon.”
He is impressing teammates.
“Jon is as good physically as he ever has been, and he’s making reads quicker,”says right tackle Bucky Babcock, who has started every regular-season game for the last three years.
Beutjer believes he should be better.
“I’ve been in this offense four years and I feel I still have a lot to learn,” he says. “That’s what’s frustrating. I strive for perfection. But coach Turner keeps emphasizing he has been around a lot of quarterbacks and none ever has been perfect.”
According to Turner, that goes for every position.
“It’s a human game and they’re going to make mistakes,” he says. “We’re stressing to our team all the time: Play the next play.”
That’s easy for him to say, but for a few agonizing moments in late July while blood gushed from the gash in his left knee, Beutjer wondered if there ever was going to be a next play.
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Back in Beutjer’s day
When Illini QB Jon Beutjergraduated from Wheaton Warrenville South in 1999, the world was a very different place
Eddy Curry had just finished his sophomore year at Thornwood.
Jim Riggleman was in his final season as manager as the Cubs finished 65-97.
The Bulls had finished the first season of the now seven-year rebuilding plan.
THG didn’t exist –we think.
Y2K had us all a little worried.
Millenium Park was just an idea and not over budget.
