Dimitric Camiel got knocked down, but he isn’t allowing himself to get knocked out.
Mid-September back surgery sidelined Camiel for all but the first two games of Indiana’s starting right tackle’s fifth-year senior season. In the time since, he’s gone straight into rehab to get ready for whatever opportunity he has left with Indiana football.
Addressing the media for the first time since his injury Monday, Camiel remained optimistic he could return for a sixth-year senior season or perhaps a bowl, should IU beat Purdue on Saturday to clinch it. The details are still being worked out, but what’s clear is Camiel hasn’t let the worst injury of his career shoot down his charisma and passion for the game.
“I’ve kind of got a lot on the table right now,” he said. “Coming back for a sixth year, that’s an option. Playing in a bowl game, that’s an option too. We’re just going to deal with the cards that we’ve been dealt and just go from there.”
When Camiel initially suffered his back injury, he wasn’t sure the extent. Ideas flooded his head ranging from being sidelined for a couple weeks to maybe never being able to play football again.
When the severity of the injury became clear, Camiel realized he’d have work to do. At the beginning of the season, he was eying a potential launch into the NFL after an All-Big Ten caliber season.
Then he got hurt. And the only thing that mattered then was getting back onto the field.
“I think all of us hurt for him,” senior center Wes Rogers said. “I look at him and feel so bad for him. It’s not pity—nothing like that. But I wanted him to have the best senior season he could possibly have. It killed me to see him hurting.”
But what shocked Rogers, as well as the rest of Camiel’s teammates, was how quickly he bounced back to being his old self. Within a few days of the diagnosis that he’d be out for at least a couple of months, Camiel was back out on the field joking like he always did.
In practice, he started handing out waters or coaching from the sidelines during breaks between his own rehab sessions. During games, he’d be as vocal as he could from the sidelines and offer any tips and advice he could come up with.
Just last week up in Ann Arbor, Camiel stood on the sidelines keeping hand warmers ready to go for his teammates when they got off the field.
“It’s like he never left,” Rogers said.
Once he could get back to being physically active, Camiel hit the weight room to train for whatever season he had left. When he wasn’t lifting or running, he’d shadow his young tackles, particularly freshman Coy Cronk, to give advice.
Camiel and Cronk have become particularly close over the last few months as Camiel worked to turn the kid he calls a “wiry freshman” into a Big Ten lineman. Just the other day when Camiel was putting in time lifting while the team was practicing, Cronk was upset with him for not being on the practice field to help him.
“Where were you?” Cronk asked Camiel when he found him.
“I was lifting, bro,” Camiel said.
“Well,” Cronk responded, “come in earlier!”
The mentee needed his mentor.
“He’s making me proud,” Camiel said.
IU head coach Kevin Wilson hasn’t ruled out any options for Camiel’s future with Indiana football. Whether he wants to return for a bowl game or seek a sixth-year senior season will be up to Camiel and his doctors.
Whatever Camiel chooses, Wilson said he’ll make sure he’s in the right situation.
“He’s fighting to come back for a bowl game,” Wilson said on his radio show. “He has an opportunity to look at maybe a free agent opportunity. He can appeal for a sixth year. Does a guy want a sixth year of college football? It’s a lot of work. We’ll pursue all those things and do what’s best for him.”
Whatever comes next for Camiel will be revealed over the next month or so. I
n the meantime, he’ll return to his usual spot on the sidelines of Memorial Stadium on Saturday rooting for his teammates to keep the Old Oaken Bucket in Bloomington.
“I’ll be back. I’ll be back,” he said. “When? We’re not sure. We’re just going to pray on it, keep working hard and we’ll see.”
