WHEELING — When Jay Circosta walked on to the newly installed artificial turf at Wheeling Island Stadium as part of the 50-year reunion celebration during a break in the first quarter of Sunday’s 78th annual OVAC Rudy Mumley All-Star Football Game, it marked the first time the OVAC Hall of Famer had been on a field during a game since Sept. 29 of last season.

What is significant about that date?

With Shenandoah driving for perhaps a tying score late in its game against Circosta’s beloved Monroe Central squad in Woodsfield, a freak accident caused the then-79-year-old to be hospitalized with some serious injuries.

“Having been on the sidelines for 50 years, I knew the key thing was to stay behind the ball. I did that all year. In fact, when we scored to go ahead with 1-minute, 20-seconds left to play, someone took a video and there I was in the background at the 50-yard line jumping up in the air. We went for two and made it to go up by eight points.

“Shenandoah got the kick and they’ve got an outstanding quarterback. They started moving down the field and I was behind the ball. They got down to probably the Monroe Central 40-yard line going in to score and somebody called timeout,” he recalled. “I went down to where the players were huddled to see what was going on. That was probably the first mistake.

“After the time out, I backed up. I wasn’t directly on the sidelines. I was behind the coaches and players,” he said. “What happened was Shenandoah’s quarterback threw an out pattern that their kid caught. Our defensive back drove him out of bounds and the players all went like this,” Circosta described, spreading his hands wide. “And there they (the two players) were. I had no time to go anywhere. For somebody who’s going to be 80 in November, I don’t move as quickly as I used to.

“They hit me in my chest area, and some of the guys that were standing there with me told me later that I went airborne. And when I landed on the ground, the two players landed on top of me.

“After they got the players off of me, I looked down and my right leg was completely out of the socket. I had fractured my pelvis in three places, the top, middle and bottom,” he explained. “They took me by ambulance to Wheeling, but as soon as they took some X-rays, they said, ‘He can’t stay here. He needs to go to a trauma center.'”

“So, it was off to Morgantown and WVU Medicine Ruby Memorial Hospital. They didn’t operate on me until approximately 6 o’clock the next night,” said the second winningest coach in Ohio Valley history (336) behind Steubenville’s Reno Saccoccia.

“The doctor told me up front that these are the most difficult surgeries they do here and most of them are from front-end car crashes,” he recalled. “It’s going to be a long surgery, like four-and-a-half hours, and it’s going to be a bloody surgery. They cut me from the middle of my stomach to the middle of my back. He didn’t even know if he could get to everything from the front. He said he might have to go in through the back.

“The last thing he told me really threw me,” Circosta admitted. “He said I probably wouldn’t be able to walk for three to four months. He said I wouldn’t be able to put any pressure on my leg.”

Circosta said he was in the hospital for two weeks and then in a care center for the same amount of time. Then he went home, where he had a home health nurse come to provide care.

“I was in a wheelchair and then I used a walker,” he offered. “I had to bend my (right) leg so I didn’t put any pressure on it, and I had to lift myself up on my walker. I did that for three months. The accident happened on Sept. 29. I didn’t walk until Dec. 14. I took one step at a time. The nurses showed me how to walk and what to do.

“Our daughter is a nurse practitioner, and she told me I was lucky. I told her, ‘What do you mean I’m lucky?’ She told me that there’s an artery that runs down the front of your leg called the femoral artery. ‘If that had ruptured, you probably wouldn’t have made it off the field. You would have bled to death.’ I said, ‘I guess I am lucky.'”

He underwent in-patient treatment for three weeks, then they put him in water therapy.

“I did some workouts in the pool when we were on vacation in Florida, and I continue to do them in our pool at our home in Woodsfield,” he noted. “In mid-May the doctor in Morgantown told me it would probably be a year-to-a-year-and-a-half before I’d be back to walking a lot better. I still have some pain, but not excruciating like before.”

Circosta said he has the X-rays of his repaired injuries, and they show two screws about 4 inches long along with various other medical products.

“My daughter told me I’ve got about $10,000 worth of hardware inside me,” he smiled.

“I have never, ever felt any pain like that in my life. It was excruciating,” he admitted. “I thought at first that both of my hips or legs were broken. I felt instant pain. I was conscious the entire time. I had grass stains on the back of my coaching shirt. When I got to the hospital, my right hand was kind of numb. I thought maybe I had broken something in it when I landed. What had actually happened was I landed on my right elbow and hit the ulnar nerve that controls all the feeling in the hand. To this day I’ve still got some numbness.

“I’m blessed to be able to walk. The good Lord looked after me,” he stressed. “I couldn’t have asked for better care and support from my family, friends and a lot of people I didn’t even know.”

Although he still has a long road to a full recovery ahead, he is thinking forward, as well.

“I just have to take it one step at a time. I believe I’ll be in the press box this year.”

When asked about Saturday night, the face of the owner of 14 OVAC titles at Woodsfield High and Monroe Central lit up with delight.

“This is a great game. It’s great for the Ohio Valley. Every time this game rolls around, I think of Rudy Mumley,” he noted. “Rudy had me in school at Shadyside. We had a real close relationship, and he nominated me for enshrinement into the West Liberty Hall of Fame.

“It felt great to be out there on the field with those guys,” Circosta added. “I coached in this game four times, winning two and losing two. This group of guys was a good group.”