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Former Laurel Highland football player Ian Edenfield has had a long and arduous journey back into college football.
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Laurel Highlands' Ian Edenfield had a turf burn that nearly ended his career. Now, he's gearing up for a Power Five program

Courtesy photo

Laurel Highlands' Ian Edenfield had a turf burn that nearly ended his career. Now, he's gearing up for a Power Five program

In September 2022, Ian Edenfield had a turf burn on his knee. It was nothing new for a longtime football player, first at Laurel Highlands and then as a tight end at California University of Pennsylvania. But something wasn’t right. 

It turned into a “big hole” and continued to bother him. It got deeper and deeper and even started swelling.

The doctors he saw gave him some antibiotics for the infection, and everyone thought it would be healed.

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On Oct. 1, things took a turn for the worst.

“It climbed up into my appendix,” Ian said. “It was Saturday morning before we're supposed to play Clarion. I had to go to the hospital for that and have emergency surgery. Get my appendix removed and had the infection removed.”

After the procedure, Ian and his family were at the Clarion hospital for four days before he was cleared to go home.

But not back to Cal U. He headed back to Uniontown for the rest of the semester. He did school online, had a visiting home nurse every couple of weeks, and took a lot of visits to the doctor’s office.

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He had only played four games in what he thought was his final season, and he itched to come back.

“It's heartbreaking,” Carla said. “His whole life, it’s all sports all the time. Since he's been 5, it's been baseball, wrestling, football, and if he could have thrown basketball in there, he would’ve.”

What followed was a period of reflection and helping others, plus an unlikely offer to join a Power Five football program at Oklahoma State.

A window opens

Ian hadn’t given up hope yet. He had every intention of returning, especially if his team made it to the playoffs. After all, he had played 28 total games for the Vulcans, going all the way back to 2018 and riding the wave through a canceled 2020 season due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

He had come to Cal U with a group of people who became some of his closest friends, akin to brothers. The 15-18 guys had a goal to win the conference championships, and even if Ian wasn’t 100%, he wanted to be part of that.

But the team didn’t make it to the postseason, and Edenfield thought there was a big chance his career was over. But he had options. In combination with the extra year of eligibility from the lost season, he was just under the threshold to earn a medical redshirt. 

“It was lucky he got a medical redshirt,” Carla said. “If he had played even one more down, he would not have had the medical redshirt. So when he didn't get cleared to play till December — which obviously the season was over there — he went back and forth trying to decide if he wanted to enter the portal.”

The deciding factor was that all of his friends were graduating. He didn’t want to play at Cal without them.

A passion for coaching

When Laurel Highlands head coach Richard Kolesar was in high school, Ian’s father, Chris Edenfield, was the team’s defensive coordinator. Kolesar remembers 3-year-old Ian running around at practice.

So when Edenfield asked Kolesar if he could help out during the 2022 season as he recovered and waited for a call from an inquiring team, it was a no-brainer for the head coach.

Edenfield started personally mentoring Rodney Gallagher -—then the reigning 2022 Post-Gazette Male Athlete of the Year — and Keondre Deshields, both of whom are graduated now and  playing football in college.

“When you have kids that are at that level when they're getting ready to go play Division I football and they get an opportunity to work with another guy that's going on to play Division I football ... ” Kolesar said. “He's going into a sixth year in college football. He just has so much knowledge and experience and understanding of what it takes at the next level. Being able to share that with those kids, I think, was really good.”

Added Carla: “He loved it. It took his mind off of a lot, actually. I told my husband that was a lifesaver, I think, for him to have at least that while recovering.”

Ian’s fall with the Mustangs wasn’t his first coaching stint, and it likely won’t be his last. When he graduated high school in 2018, he coached wrestling just to stay in shape. He was at Washington High his freshman year of college and Albert Gallatin his sophomore year. After COVID-19, he was at Connellsville.

He coached American Legion Baseball in Uniontown the summer of 2019, and his team made it to the playoffs.

“I like working with younger kids and teaching them,” Ian said. “I feel like with me being so young and coaching recently in the years, that kids really listened to me.”

Unexpected chance

Edenfield was walking to his car after a January workout at Laurel Highlands when he noticed a missed call from a Stillwater, Okla., phone number.

He had only entered the transfer portal that morning, Jan. 10. His phone had been blowing up with Twitter notifications all morning, but it wasn’t the same as a missed call from the Oklahoma State tight ends coach. The Cowboys were looking for some depth in their tight ends room, and Edenfield jumped at the chance.

The first step was to get his transcripts sent over. Once that was done, Ian was on a flight to Oklahoma the following Sunday, the 15th. They stayed until the 17th, when Ian was offered a full scholarship.

“Our minds were blown basically with that level of football and the facilities,” said his mother, Carla. “It's almost sad, like the drop of resources and all that between Division I and Division II because Division II is good football, but just the money that's in Division I ...”

It was a whole new world for the Edenfields as Ian got ready for his final season of football — this time at a Power Five program.

Carla and Ian flew back to Stillwater on the 20th to get him moved into his apartment. He was already slightly behind in school but was ready for anything the Cowboys could throw at him.

“Coming out of high school, I probably would have never seen myself after committing to Cal coming here or to a Division I program for that matter,” Edenfield said.

A final season

When the playing days are finally over, Edenfield will likely harken back to his time at Laurel Highlands and pursue a career in teaching. It’s why he’s is an education major, first physical education at Cal and now secondary education at Oklahoma State. He was actually supposed to student-teach in the spring of 2023 to finish up his degree.

Kolesar said he was planning on bringing Edenfield to the Laurel Highlands football staff, but the decision to go to Oklahoma State put a wrench in those plans.

“He knows he wants to coach,” Kolesar said. “That's what he wants to do when his playing days are up. And I know just how good of a person he is and his understanding of the game, that I want him to coach with me. As soon as he's ready, I want to do everything I can to get him as part of our staff, because he's just a valuable asset. He's going to help further this program.”

Before Edenfield makes any return to coaching, he’s got one more opportunity on the field — one he didn’t think he’d get.

He was nervous in January. It was his first time moving away from his family, with Cal only being around 20 minutes away.

“Most of the nerves came from I didn't know if I was going to be ready,” Edenfield said, “[if I would be] in shape when I got here. But they thought they knew my situation. They let me just work it out and get comfortable.”

His first day, they put him through some tests to get a gauge on where he was physically. Ian said it was a fairly tame workout, but since he’d been recovering from his surgery, it wasn’t as easy as he’d hoped.

“The first two weeks were not very fun,” Edenfield said. “I was very sore and very tired. My body never really felt like that. That soreness was just from being off for so long.”

After some time, Edenfield finally settled in physically, but the demands of a Division I program were very different from those of a Division II program. There’s new terminology and way more plays. At Cal, he said he was learning 100-110 plays, with Oklahoma State there's close to 500.

He was grateful that he started in the spring, but now with training camp just beginning, the anticipation of the season is here.

And Edenfield will get a close look at how his mentoring helped. Gallagher and West Virginia will take on Oklahoma State on Oct. 21, which is crazy for Edenfield because he remembers Gallagher as the ball boy for Laurel Highlands during his senior year.

But if Edenfield learned anything in the last year, it’s to not look too far ahead and savor every moment he can get with the sport he loves.

“I'll be running out that first game on Sept. 2 with about 60-65,000 in the stands,” Edenfield said. “I'm looking forward to being able to have that gear on and run out of the tunnel and look up at fans with a smile.

“No regrets. My football career could have been over in a snap of a finger. Just keep working and keep pushing yourself because you never know when your time with the sports is going to be done.”

Abby Schnable: aschnable@post-gazette.com and Twitter @AbbySchnable

First Published: August 6, 2023, 9:30 a.m.

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Former Laurel Highland football player Ian Edenfield has had a long and arduous journey back into college football.  (Courtesy photo)
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