For each of the past five years, Joey Valdivia has held a different title with the Lake Forest College football team.

In 2012, he was a backup running back for the Foresters. In 2013, he served as a volunteer assistant tailbacks coach, sidelined with an injury.

In 2014, Valdivia disappeared from the team’s roster altogether, spending the entire fall at home in Grayslake, Illinois, nursing a foot injury on his own. In 2015, he was named the Foresters’ starting running back halfway through the season, after finally recovering from the injury he sustained the year prior.

Now, in 2016, Valdivia holds his most prestigious title: statistically the best running back in Division III football. He leads the country with 1,422 yards and 27 touchdowns in nine games. The second-highest touchdown total in the nation, 18 by Dayton Winn of Hendrix, is nine less than Valdivia’s tally.

Back on the field for his junior season, Valdivia has finally been able to play a full campaign for the Foresters, cementing a legacy as one of the most efficient running backs in Division III with a historic stat line in 2016.

Courtesy of Lake Forest Athletics

Coming off a freshman campaign in 2012 which saw Valdivia rank second on the team in rushing attempts, yards and touchdowns, Lake Forest head coach Jim Catanzaro said Valdivia was preparing for his breakout year in 2013.

But he tore his hamstring during a preseason practice. Catanzaro said that doctors would discover the muscle “dangling” off of the bone — almost a complete tear. It sidelined Valdivia for the entire 2013 season.

“We had expected Joey to be the head tailback (in 2013),” Catanzaro said. “We had a couple of young guys who came in and had to carry the load.”

Valdivia wouldn’t let his injury separate him from the team, though, and he spent the season coaching the running backs from the sidelines. Catanzaro said the Lake Forest offense is a tough adjustment for a lot of freshmen to make, but Valdivia made it easy for the young tailbacks, offering advice from his time as a freshman and easing them into the Foresters’ scheme.

He worked himself back to full health by the summer of 2014, and was set to return and make up on lost ground from the year before. But just when Valdivia thought he was in the clear, he was sidelined with a more serious injury — a broken foot.

Valdivia was distraught. He missed an entire season again.

It was the hardest thing Valdivia has faced in his life, he said.

Unsure of his future as a football player and discouraged by just how long he was going to have to go without football, Valdivia left Lake Forest in the fall of 2014 and returned home.

Catanzaro called it “radio silence” while Valdivia was home, with little communication between the two. Valdivia was removed from the Lake Forest roster, a step that Catanzaro said was necessary in the recovery of the running back. It was chance for Valdivia to “take care of himself” and reflect on his options, Catanzaro said.

“I had a lot of alone time,” Valdivia said. “A lot of time to think about what I wanted to do, and I think it gave me a lot of motivation to come back working hard.”

Courtesy of Lake Forest Athletics

When Valdivia reached out to the team regarding a comeback, Catanzaro said the staff was impressed at how much more communicative and confident he was in himself. Valdivia no longer identified himself as only a football player, but was now adamant on going to school and looking into his future as an adult.

Returning as “a new person,” according to Catanzaro, Valdivia began physical therapy. Initially, the physical therapists made Valdivia lose a lot of his muscle, something that was tough for the 210-pound player to swallow.

“We kind of joke with him that he had to get weaker to get stronger,” Catanzaro said. “If you look at his weightlifting numbers as a freshman and sophomore to where he is now, they’re not nearly as strong. We intentionally based his training on getting smaller, so he could grow again.”

Valdivia returned for six games in 2015, again taking the reigns of the Foresters’ offense. He rushed for 454 yards in six games, scoring five touchdowns.

Catanzaro said it felt like he had his old tailback again. He could finally give the ball to a runner he was confident wouldn’t fumble, and Valdivia’s ability to run up the middle or outside made him a dual threat rusher that facilitated the Foresters’ ground offense well.

“You don’t have guys very often miss two seasons and come back completely fresh mentally and emotionally,” Catanzaro said. “We didn’t really have any playmakers while he was away, and it was a special reappearance when he was finally able to return.”

But even in his wildest dreams, Catanzaro couldn’t begin to imagine Valdivia would be Division III’s leader in rushing touchdowns.

Valdivia’s latest impact on the Lake Forest program has been five years in the making.

“He knows that he’s essentially on borrowed time,” Catanzaro said. “His appreciativeness of this opportunity and the way he does it is great, and having another chance is something very special for him.”

Published on November 2, 2016 at 10:29 pm

Contact Matt: mjfel100@syr.edu