Sequoia's Diaz Perseveres through Broken Fingers

After breaking two fingers during the football team’s first week of practice in August, Dalton Diaz’s teammates, friends and coaches expected to see him riding the bench for a while.

Diaz had other ideas.

Wearing a cast covering his left middle and index fingers that didn’t come off until last week, the senior utilityman never missed a practice and has played in every game since landing awkwardly on a play when he was playing defensive back and trying to swat a pass.

“I didn’t want to waste my senior year just because of two broken fingers,” Diaz said. “I didn’t think that it was that big of a deal so I just wanted to keep going.

“I wanted to keep playing.”

Diaz, a receiver/defensive back/backup quarterback/kick returner for Sequoia, has played mostly defense and special teams in games but has been playing receiver – and catching some passes – in practices.

It is the type of injury that typically relegates skilled-position players to the sidelines.

“You don’t see it too often at that position,” Sequoia coach Rob Poulos said. “You see it at linebacker and on the defensive line, but it’s pretty rare for a receiver/defensive back-type to be able to play with one of those.”

Diaz said the injury stung a bit at first, and he acknowledged there were times when his broken fingers throbbed when he iced them, but he downplayed the severity of the injury.

“At first I questioned a little bit,” he said of his decision to try to suit up after doctors told him he’d broken two fingers, “but I knew that that’s what I wanted to do so I was just going to keep trying and trying and trying.”  

He said that playing with pain and making sacrifices for the team is part of a new way at Sequoia, which last season , culminating one of in recent Peninsula football history.

“No matter what happens we’re still a team and we all work together,” he said.

Diaz’s decision to play sent a powerful message to a team that earlier this season needed all the inspiration it could muster after standout senior quarterback James Beekley suffered in a over Branham.

“He was willing to contribute in any way he could,” Poulos said of Diaz. “He was doing everything he could to get back on the field.

“He didn’t want to wait around for the cast to come off.”

Diaz established himself as a clutch receiver with the game-winning touchdown catch in last year’s Peninsula Athletic League Lake Division-clinching 20-14 overtime victory over Carlmont.

He returned a kickoff wearing the cast in a Week 3 game against Mazama (Klamath Falls, Ore.).

And he has by all accounts asked for no pity.

Not that he’s gotten any…

“He can’t drop a ball because if he drops a ball they’ll be on him because of the cast and the whole thing,” Poulos said, noting that Diaz got an earful from teammates when he just barely missed an interception.

“His whole thing was, ‘The cast isn’t going to slow me down,’” Poulos said.

“Instead of using it as an excuse, he was arguing that he could do everything. It doesn’t matter if he has the cast on or not.”

Diaz said he’s learned from the experience, with the most obvious lesson being that “it’s really hard to catch with a cast on your hand.”

But more importantly, he’s learned that with some perseverance, obstacles that initially seem insurmountable can be overcome.

“No matter what happens, you always have the ability, and if you try, you can overcome whatever happens.”