Joel Skotte to undergo neck surgery
The news is grim for Mountain View grad and Oregon State linebacker Joel Skotte as may be not be able to play football again.
Skotte soon will undergo surgery to repair neck injuries suffered during the season.
He has a ruptured disk, a protruding disk, and some spinal cord damage.
Joel first injured his neck in practice leading up to the USC game on Nov. 1, when he took a big hit in practice.
Then, during the opening kickoff of that USC game, he suffered a concussion and missed the next three games.
He returned to record six tackles in the game against Washington and one against Oregon, but didn’t see the field during the bowl game.
The OSU trainers thought it was only muscle spasms in his neck, so they didn’t worry about it during the season.
It wasn’t until winter break that an MRI performed in Bend discovered how serious the injuries were.
He plans on heading to Southern California in the next few weeks to have a specialist examine him and plan his recovery.
To make matters worse, he dealt with a bad case of turf toe this year.
The good news is he does have a redshirt season available if he’s not ready for the 2014 opener.
