Prep football: Here’s how Rocklin’s Derek Houston came all the way back from a broken leg
Derek Houston knew he was getting the ball out of the backfield. His teammate, Kaleb Larson, had just run a similar route and saw how the Inderkum defense reacted.
“And he told our quarterback, Joey (Roberts), that I was going to be open on this,” Houston said in a recent interview. “So I was like, okay, I gotta get ready.”
It was only an August scrimmage, but Houston was ready. The 220-pound hulking senior took a pass in the flat and ran through a slew of tacklers to score a 40-yard would-be touchdown.
“First guy came up and he took a shot in the lower leg,” Rocklin head coach Jason Adams said. “Two or three more people hit him, he kept his feet driving. And then another guy, he got through that. He never got tackled on the play.”
But that shot Houston took to his left leg, before plowing over would-be tacklers, nearly derailed his last high school football season. He came off the field noticing a strange feeling in his leg. It turned out to be a broken fibula suffered by a defensive star who was playing offense.
“Obviously our first initial reaction was we were super bummed,” Caleb Houston, Derek’s father, said. “Derek’s a really hard offseason worker and he had a great junior year, so you’re thinking the sky’s the limit. Plus, that’s a special time as a varsity football player, your senior year. So we were really sad for him.”
Houston was coming off a junior season in which he was named first-team All-Metro at linebacker. He recorded 100 total tackles, including 13.0 for loss and 5.5 sacks. The 4.3 GPA student knew he had a chance to earn his way toward a Division I football career in college, but he wasn’t sure if he would be able to get on the field in time to contribute as a high school senior.
When he was first diagnosed, Houston was given time frames from six to 12 weeks to recover. He returned last week to play against Del Oro, nine weeks after the Aug. 12 scrimmage. Fortunately, the injury did not require surgery, and he was able to rehab with Lem Adams at the renowned fitness center, Game Fit, where many of Sacramento’s best high school players train.
He also used physical therapy to help get his body back into football shape so he could help the Thunder through the key stretch of the season in the ultra-competitive Sierra Foothill League. He was on a limited snap count against Del Oro, but is expected to play more in a key game Friday against Granite Bay.
Houston made the most of his time while he was sidelined, keeping his team’s lofty goals at the forefront.
“The reality is this,” Adams said, “Derek’s missed out on some great opportunities to play and to make more memories. But he’s done a heck of a job of building up the guys who (were) playing his position (while he was out). We’ve been pretty good on defense without him, so now when he comes back, there’s some other guys that we really trust that we wouldn’t have trusted before because they wouldn’t have gotten those Friday-night chances.”
Houston helped coach up players such as Larson, sophomore Derek Keeley and junior Gavin Correia to the point where there wasn’t much drop off. The Thunder have allowed just under 14 points per game this season without their top linebacker for the bulk of it. The team enters Friday with a 5-2 record and a good chance to make noise in league and the Sac-Joaquin Section playoffs.
Houston hopes his time on the sideline acting as an extension of the coaching staff will sharpen the mental side of his game.
“It just helps from me from an outside point of view, being able to see the game from a different perspective,” he said. “Because I’ve helped coach with the younger teams but not at this level. So it helped me a lot and my game too.”
Houston isn’t considered the quickest or most physically gifted linebacker. His production stems from a football IQ he’s been developing since he began playing when he was 7, when Adams first began coaching him. Adams said there were times when Houston would remind him of his assignments based on where offensive players were lined up.
“Every once in a while, he would say, ‘Coach, is this the one where we need to chip the D-end if he’s blitzing?’” Adams said. “I’d go, ‘Yeah, you gotta chip the D-end, thank you for reminding me.’ It was his assignment. So he loves the game, he loves the chess match part.”
And despite the injury, Houston recently committed to play for Sacramento State while being in contact with a handful of bigger Pac-12 programs.
“The coaching staff there is really special,” Houston said.
Key to Houston’s decision was Sac State defensive coordinator and linebacker coach Andy Thompson. He checked in with Houston regularly while he was working his way back from the injury. The forging of that relationship was key in Houston’s decision to stay local and play for the Hornets rather than a more prominent program.
“The recruiting stuff is sometimes not always the most enjoyable with some of the people you come across from other schools,” Caleb Houston said. “But coach Thompson struck my wife and I as someone who was real and I think Derek could see that too. And he just kept the communication lines open before the injury and after the injury. If you want to get an athlete, I think his approach was the right way to get it. Build a relationship to where the athlete feels comfortable with you, and he was great.”
This story was originally published October 14, 2022 at 9:52 AM.
