Bouncing Back: Manti senior has overcome serious accident to help Templars succeed

MANTI — For a few days in his life that he'd rather forget, Dave Hugentobler resembled a Bobblehead.

Shortly after his sophomore year ended, Hugentobler, now a senior guard for Manti's basketball team, violently crashed his dirt bike while performing a jump at a track in Kaneville. He said he had too much adrenaline going, went too fast on a jump, overshot it and landed on a hill a few feet past his expected landing.

The jarring landing drove his helmet into his handlebars and broke his jaw in three different places. He broke both his right tibia and fibula. He shattered his sinuses.

Hugentobler had to wait for hours to get treatment and was in agonizing pain until medical personnel arrived to give him morphine. He was out of it until he got out of surgery to repair his face and his leg. When he awakened, he saw his bruised and battered face that had swelled to an enormous size.

"It was kind of funny — my face was like a balloon," he said. "It was big. It was weird. It was difficult."

Reality set in for Hugentobler following those first few days after his accident. His recovery was going to be a long, drawn-out and painful process. He would have to miss his junior year of football, and no one was sure if he would ever regain the mobility and athleticism he had previously displayed.

When Hugentobler was a sophomore, his play at guard was silky-smooth and he led his team in scoring with 13.2 points per game. The future, once bright for both him and his Templar teammates, was now murky.

But Hugentobler has shown that no one should have ever doubted his ability to bounce back.

Hugentobler was again one of Manti's top scorers as a junior, averaging 12.2 points per game. But he didn't have the same amount of explosion and he was constantly in pain.

There were lingering complications from his accident. His foot wasn't 100 percent, and he would later find out why. He overcompensated for his weakened right leg and would usually jump with his left leg and land on it. That gave him some problems with his left hip.

"It was pretty tough," Hugentobler said. "I didn't have as much mobility. I wasn't as quick. I wasn't able to practice as much. As the year went on, my body just kind of started ignoring the pain. It got a little easier. It (his right foot) got really sore after games. I would just hobble onto the bus or to home and put some ice on it and take some Ibuprofen."