Saturday marked the official beginning of the journey that is the NESCAC football season. For many players who will graduate this spring, this journey is bittersweet, as its inevitable ending will deprive them the game of football. Wesleyan star defensive back Donnie Cimino ’15 began his final football journey in exciting fashion. He helped seal the Cardinals first victory with a 55 yard punt return that set up a short field goal while also registering four tackles.
Saturday was also the culmination of another journey. One that Cimino unexpectedly had to take this summer; one that began months ago in the beauty of a New England evening.
After starting the season playing for the Chatham Anglers, Cimino moved along with Wesleyan teammate Guy Davidson ’16 to the Nashua Silver Knights in the Futures League. On June 29, Cimino was leading off for the Silver Knights when he squared to bunt. His face was completely exposed as he had no time to react to the fastball that came and hit him right in the jaw. Summer teammate Cam DiSarcina says Cimino took the pitch unbelievably. “”He went down for a little bit and everyone was just shocked. He started walking back to the dugout by himself and there was a little bit of blood in his mouth and his face looked swollen. He said, “my jaw is broken”, without showing any pain and sat on the bench.”
That very night Cimino learned that he would need surgery to fix two breaks in his jaw, and that the recovery would mean having his mouth wired almost completely shut for six weeks. After the injury, a dreamy summer playing baseball was over. Cimino would have to return to New Jersey and recover at home.
His surgery the very next day on June 30 went as planned, but the rough reality of the new situation set in even before he got home. Cimino’s mother, Sisi Cimino, was in the car with Donnie and her husband. “On our way home from the surgery, he began to hyperventilate, I thought we were going to have to take him back to the ER. Thankfully, my husband was able to calm him down for the moment, but not being able to open his mouth for the next six weeks seemed impossible.”
The first week after surgery was rough. The immediate injuries of the pitch still caused Cimino a lot of pain. “My face was really swollen and I had a hematoma (occurs when clotted blood swells up) underneath my tongue which was painful. I struggled to eat and lost 20 pounds that first week from not eating and all the medication I was taking. My mom and sister were taking care of me that whole first week, I don’t think i would have gotten through it without them.” Being home gave Cimino a support group that he could rely on every day.
Having his mouth wired shut meant that he would not be able to eat any solid food until the wires could be removed. For any person this presents a challenge, but Cimino would need much more than the normal person requires in order to keep on muscle going into football season. This meant finding a food that had the protein needed without having to be chewed. The answer lay in beans. Every type of beans imaginable from red to black to white to lentils. Cimino himself estimates that he had beans or soup five times a day while the wire was in.
Things started to get better as the weeks went by. Though there were still days when he got down or upset about having to stay in his house, his family helped him get through it. Because he had difficulty talking through the wire, he didn’t leave his house very often in order to avoid awkward situations. When he did it often lead to conversations like this:
Nothing more awkward than the conversation asking the people at panera to blend my soup for me
— Donnie Cimino (@donaldcimino) July 29, 2014
One of the few things that Cimino was still able to do without people looking at him too funny was run and train for football. Because he has always been a two sport athlete, most of his summers were spent playing baseball and then using the last few weeks of summer to turn around and get ready for football. Since he couldn’t do much else, Cimino was not going to let a little wire get in the way of training. He worked out and ran three times a week with high school friends while also throwing at times during the week. Working out became a welcome diversion. “Training was pretty much the only way for me to get out of the house and not feel uncomfortable so I looked forward to it.” He began to put weight back on slowly but surely.
Through all of his hard work and the herculean efforts of his mother to keep him somehow interested in the food he was eating, he lost only ten pounds because of the injury. And he put that weight right back on soon after he was able to eat solid food for the first time in six weeks. Though the experience was a difficult one that robbed him of summer baseball and six weeks of eating food, Cimino says he feels stronger mentally from it.
He returned to school in late August for football season excited about starting his final season. And he barely missed a beat because of the injury. After one week of non-contact he was back at full speed in practice. Besides a little soreness he hasn’t had any problem with the jaw.
On Saturday, Cimino will take the field against Hamilton in Wesleyan’s home opener. Only three more home games will remain after Saturday. Cimino knows his parents will be watching him, proud of how he overcame everything this summer. Being able to get back to playing the game he loves was only possible because of them, and the memories of this summer will help drive him this fall.