Battle back from blood clots was 'scary stuff' for Purdue K Ben Freehill
Blood clots. Those are two words no one wants to hear, especially a 22-year-old college student. But, that was Ben Freehill’s reality earlier this season.
The Purdue fifth-year senior kicker first began feeling discomfort in his lower right kicking leg while warming up for the second game of the season, at Virginia Tech on Sept. 9.
“We were warming up the returners, and I just kind of felt a little spot,” recalled Freehill. “It felt like I just tweaked a little bit of my calf or something. But, to the touch, it was super, super painful.”
The week of the Syracuse game the next week, Freehill had some ultrasounds done.
“They found a couple of blood clots in my leg,” he said. “And then over the course the next couple of weeks, it just kept getting worse and worse.”
Now, Freehill is as good as new. He’ll look to add to his comeback story on Saturday when Minnesota (5-4 overall; 3-3 Big Ten) plays at Purdue (2-7; 1-5) at 3:30 p.m. ET on NBC.
It hasn’t been an easy road back.
The clotting issues can be directly related to Freehill’s early season struggles during the first three weeks of the 2023 season, as he hit just one of his first three field-goal attempts.
“The week of the Syracuse game, everything below my knee started to swell up,” said Freehill. “I could push down on my shin and there would be so much fluid in there. I could push down half an inch and it would just sit there.
“My ankle swelled up, my foot swelled up. The Syracuse game was really where it got the worst. I couldn’t really feel my foot in the fourth quarter. So, yeah, it was not pleasant.”
It was also frustrating for the Gibson City, Ill., native.
“It’s not like I twisted my ankle or something like that,” said Freehill, who began his career at Oklahoma State. “I didn’t do anything out of the norm and then just to have something like that pop up, it’s kind of really frustrating.”
Freehill was told there were likely two reasons why he had the clotting problem. 1) family issues 2) trauma to the impacted area. Neither applied to the 6-1, 200-pound Freehill. The good news: His blood clots weren’t life threatening.
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“It was superficial,” he said. “So, it wasn’t like a deep vein. It wasn’t as serious. But just being a 22-year old kid and hearing ‘blood clot,’ it’s scary stuff just to hear that.”
From his knee to his ankle was completely clotted and Freehill subsequently underwent a small surgery the week of the Ohio State game on Oct. 14.
In all, Freehill missed four games, returning to action at Nebraska on Oct. 28. He missed his only attempt in Lincoln because of issues with the hold.
Finally, last week at Michigan, Freehill nailed two field goals (32 and 31 yards), breaking an 0-of-5 string for the team that dated to a Julio Macias made field goal on Sept. 30 vs. Illinois. Those were Freehill’s first made field goals since he nailed one at Virginia Tech.
“Just going out there with confidence, making those kicks,” said Freehill. “I told Coach P (senior special teams analyst Chris Petrilli) when I came back, I never had an issue with my confidence. I’m confident in the work I’ve put in and the training I’ve put in. … “
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