GRAND FORKS -- Brooklan Bruce entered emergency surgery less than 24 hours after playing in Grand Forks Central's 2024 Homecoming football game and attending that evening's dance.
Bruce's leg had hurt all week, but he thought it was simply a sore muscle. He treated it with ice, massages and stretching.
He was back home on his couch at 3 a.m. when the pain worsened.
"My leg just started killing me out of nowhere," Bruce said. "All my muscles were rock hard, and my leg, I couldn't even stand on it."
Bruce paced around his home until early Saturday morning, waiting for the urgent care to open.
The initial diagnosis was shin splints. However, one of the doctors believed it could be much worse: compartment syndrome, a condition in which pressure within the muscles builds to dangerous levels and restricts blood flow.
When Bruce arrived at the emergency room, doctors confirmed the diagnosis. He was rushed into emergency surgery.
"Literally less than 10 hours before surgery, I was doing back flips at the homecoming dance," Bruce said.
Bruce's football season was over. Worse, he was told that missing the coming basketball season was a near certainty.
"The doctors pretty much just told me I should focus on being able to walk, and I'd be lucky if I was ever able to run again," Bruce said. "All the nerves and everything were dead from surgery, so I couldn't move my foot at all, and my knee was really weak. So it was pretty much no pressure at it for a month, and then maybe focus on being able to walk by the time basketball season comes around just so I could try to help out at practice."
Bruce refused to accept that.
"Pretty much everybody besides me and my dad, they were pretty much freaking out, and we just kind of didn't believe them, we were like nah, that's a bunch of crap," Bruce said. "Screw walking again, I'm gonna be playing again."
He entered physical therapy immediately. Bruce would attend multiple sessions a week, going between Choice Health and Fitness and Altru.
Little by little, Bruce regained feeling in his foot and continued to build strength. A month in, he was able to walk. About a month after that, he was able to run.
Bruce told his physical therapists he would be ready for the basketball season. He was given the green light after a physical therapist attended a practice, with the condition that the leg would be protected by a knee brace and an ankle brace.
"It kind of looked like I had a robot leg out there, but I was playing," Bruce said.
Despite playing at what he described as 'about 60%', Bruce averaged 18.5 points and 2.4 assists per game, earning a unanimous all-EDC team nod.
"If there's any kid that's gonna be able to gut through that, it's Brooklan," Central head football coach Jake Schauer said. "He does so much right when he's playing athletics on the court, on the field, off the field. Great student for us at Central, great leader for our guys, first guy to help anyone out that needs help. ... He's an even better person than he is a football player."
Bruce continued to play basketball over the summer, went to the weight room at least four days a week and played football 'here and there' with friends.
This fall, he's picked up right where he left off on the football field. The senior plays a pivotal role in both the secondary and the receiving corps for the Knights.
"It's been the greatest thing I could have asked for," Bruce said. "Every day is so fun. It makes me think of what I was missing out on last year, but I'm just so glad I can be back for it this year, be on a good team and be with my guys. All my best friends are on the football team, so it just kind of makes it that much better."
Bruce leads Central in both receptions and receiving yards, tallying seven and 112, respectively. Defensively, he has five tackles and a fumble recovery.
"I would be lying if I didn't say when Brooklan has a moment, or ( Eli Thompson ) has a moment, it's hard not to get a little emotional," Schauer said. "When you've been in the lowest of lows with these kids, and you've really fought through it with them, to see them rise above it -- those are the life skills that these kids are gonna take with them the rest of their lives. And they're going to use it when they're fathers and husbands and so on and so forth."
Bruce and the Knights are hoping to continue their unbeaten 3-0 start to the season this Friday. Central is heading to Watford City, with kickoff scheduled for 6 p.m.
Grand Forks Red River head coach Vyrn Muir has used the four games of the season as preparation of sorts, figuring out his team's identity, which positions need more depth, who the standouts are and what needs to be changed before the conference slate begins Sept. 26.
Last Friday's road game against Minot North provided further data, even if the final score eventually got out of hand.
The Sentinels, who are No. 1 in Division 2A according to the latest poll, handled the Roughriders in a 45-14 victory.
One of the key spots that could use more depth is in the trenches, in hopes of saving some of the two-way players' energy.
"It seems like if we rest our guys that are our O-line a little bit more when they don't have to play D-line, then that should make this better on the offense," Muir said. "Last week, we moved the ball fairly effectively on offense. We just would have a mistake or a negative play, and we'd take ourselves from being in scoring position to being out of scoring positions, and we're just not quite explosive enough in our offensive skill positions that we can score from a long way away.
"We're just trying to help our team out and make sure we're not gassed in the third, fourth quarter for games that we're gonna be in there."
In this Friday's home tilt against Williston, Muir hopes to continue that search for depth across the board.
"One more game to kind of mess around with that, and then we've got to kind of lock in with people that are performing," Muir said. "That's kind of what it's coming down to now, is after you play four games, you've gotta kind of go with the guys that perform well when you're out there and just try to get those other cats on the field and hope that they can perform, too. Get a little bit of depth that way so you can make it through the conference season."
The Coyotes are 0-3, losing each game by at least 41 points.
The injuries began piling up early in East Grand Forks' matchup against Park Rapids last Friday. At halftime, adjustments had to be made by the coaching staff to fill in some of the losses, thrusting a few younger or less inexperienced players into more important roles.
That didn't stop the Green Wave.
"I thought our kids handled adversity great," head coach Ryan Kasowski said. "It just seemed like more and more of our guys were going down, so we needed guys to step up, and, boy, did they ever. Some young kids came in, and we didn't miss a beat. I thought the energy level and the execution was great."
East Grand Forks finished strong for a 37-24 victory, its first of the season.
Players like sophomore defensive end Cy Hjelmen, junior offensive lineman Hunter Nelson, senior defensive back/running back Jack Coulter, sophomore defensive back/receiver Adam Farder and junior defensive back/wide receiver Rafael Jones all impressed stepping up against the Panthers.
"You never take a win for granted, because they're hard to get," Kasowski said. "Our kids were super excited, were jacked up. How much work they put in, week in week out, to go out there and get a win was great for those kids. I was super happy for them. It was great, now the challenge is to do that every week and come prepared to practice and get better and try to get another one this week."
This Friday, the Green Wave are taking to the road to play Warroad. Though the Warriors are familiar opponents for East Grand Forks in nearly every other sport, it's the first time in Kasowski's 12-year tenure that the programs will compete on the gridiron.
"We play each other in every other sport, so kind of excited to get the opportunity to play against each other," Kasowski said. "It's a lot of scouting and a lot of film work, so you just don't have that familiarity with each other. It's gonna be a great game. They've got great athletes, their tailback is really talented, they bring a lot of pressure on defense, a lot of different looks, so it's a challenge to prepare for, and we've got to go out and make sure we play our best game."
Polk County West's first win of the 2025 season was a resounding one.
It also featured a new face at quarterback.
Grady Horken, stepping in for sophomore quarterback Nick Satterlund, guided the Thunder to a 40-0 victory over Crookston. He took off for a 46-yard touchdown run in the second quarter and connected with Skylar Berg for a 21-yard touchdown near the end of the quarter.
Horken tallied another two touchdowns in the third quarter, completing a 56-yard touchdown pass to Jaycer Davis and punching in a 1-yard rush at the goal line.
Polk County West is heading back on the road this Friday, traveling to Walker-Hackensack-Akeley.
The Wolves are 2-1 with wins over Park Christian and Bagley in the previous two weeks.