Despite multiple injuries, Aubil still plays on

By Roger Sievers
Western Herald

(Chyn Wey Lee/Western Herald) Western Michigan University senior goalkeeper Casey Aubil.

The story of Western Michigan University men’s soccer goalkeeper Casey Aubil is one of triumph over injury.

The senior goalie has gone through so many medical operations in his life that some may find it impressive that he is still competing at a high level for the Broncos.

Born in Grand Rapids, Aubil lived there for two years before moving to Middleville, a town between Kalamazoo and Grand Rapids. Around the age of 5, Aubil developed his enthusiasm for playing soccer.

“I chose to play [the position of goal keeper] because when I was real young I was faster than a lot of kids, but as I got older I wasn’t very good in the field, so I made the move to goalie when I was 12,” Aubil said.

Besides Western Michigan, he was recruited by Oakland University, the University of Michigan and Michigan State University.

Aubil chose WMU because of proximity and family ties to the university.
In his freshman year of high school Aubil tore the ACL (Anterior Cruciate Ligament) in his right knee.

“I didn’t even know what my ACL was at that time,” Aubil said.

He came back the next year to only tear his ACL again in the same right knee and tearing the Meniscus as well.

“My knee twisted on me, and everything came loose,” Aubil said.

After recovering from the injuries and just before his senior year, he tore his Meniscus again in the same knee.

Aubil red‑shirted his freshman year at WMU because there already was a senior goalkeeper in net for the Broncos.

As a sophomore he broke his nose after getting kicked in the face while diving for a ball.

“It didn’t really hurt, I just felt my nose [feel] kind of numb,” Aubil said. “I didn’t know until later when my nose was black and blue and we went to the hospital that I had broken it.”

The following year in a Mid‑American Conference tournament game against Hartwick College, Aubil broke his nose getting kicked in the face while again diving for a ball.

“I had asked the trainer if my nose was still there,” Aubil said.

The injury shifted Aubil’s nasal cavity to almost under his eye socket and he had to have reconstructive surgery to fix it. He had to wear a facial mask for weeks after.

“I looked like Rip Hamilton from the Detroit Pistons,” Aubil said.

Just after getting back from spring break in 2008, Aubil was practicing and felt his knee move. The doctors said it was just a strained knee, but he could hear his knee click when running and practicing.

The doctors checked again and found an immense amount of scar tissue built up from all the other surgeries that had been done on his knee. They performed a knee scope and took thirty minutes to get all the scar tissue out from his knee.

Aubil was interning with the Chicago Fire of Major League Soccer when one morning he woke up in bed to find blood all over his leg. They rushed him to the hospital where they found out that he had a Staph infection from a previous surgery.

“I was laying on the bathroom floor, I couldn’t even lift my leg up by myself,” Aubil said. “The lightest of touch on my leg would cause excruciating pain.”

Aubil spent days in the hospital and would be on crutches for months after (July-October) and ended up losing 20 pounds through the whole ordeal.

“There were times where I thought I wouldn’t ever be able to kick the ball again, but my trainers just said to take it one day at a time. The thing with recovering from my injuries (is) it was not day to day like a sprained ankle. I had to take it month to month,” Aubil said.

“I thank my parents, my girlfriend, the training staff at WMU, and Kalamazoo Valley Orthopedics for getting me through everything.”

Part of the rehabilitation process for Aubil was riding a bike.

He developed a passion for cycling  and he ended up competing in a 24-hour bike race to rack up as many miles as possible. Aubil finished third in his age group with 251 miles.

Aubil graduated last spring with a degree in accounting and is now back at WMU working on his master’s degree.

Aubil will be starting an accounting job in 2011 and though he is not looking for a chance to play soccer professionally, he sure wouldn’t mind to try out for a team if the opportunity should arise.

“The main reason that I don’t need to play past college is I have been given so much that anything more on top of being able to play this season would seem like a miracle,” he said.

Given the chance to go back and do something different, Aubil said he probably wouldn’t have changed anything.

“Everything happens for a reason and I don’t think I would do anything different. People have done this [multiple surgeries] before. I am not the first to go through this and I wont be the last,” he said.

Aubil’s goal this season is help first‑year men’s soccer coach Stu Riddle start the new era of Bronco soccer off on the right foot.

“If I can look back after five, ten, fifteen years and see this program in the top 25, it will make everything worth it knowing that I was one of the guys who started the rise of Western Michigan soccer.”

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Posted by heraldstaff on Oct 22 2009. Filed under Sports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry

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