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PASADENA, Calif. — Now that three years have passed and his time is almost up at this level, he’s finally ready to talk about it.
It’s not something Michigan football star defensive back Mike Sainristil likes to discuss, but to this day he believes it to be one of the defining moments of his life.
The year was 2020 and as summer turned to fall in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic, the entire world — including Big Ten football — had fallen out of whack. It was not yet clear when or even if the Wolverines would have a season; when they were finally permitted to do so, the team gathered for practices, workouts, and organized activities.
Dec 2, 2023; Indianapolis, IN, USA; Michigan Wolverines head coach Jim Harbaugh celebrates with defensive back Mike Sainristil (0) after winning the Big Ten Championship game against the Iowa Hawkeyes at Lucas Oil Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Robert Goddin-USA TODAY Sports
Everyone was there.
Well, almost everyone.
“No one knows this story, but during COVID, it was a little tough for me,” Sainristil told the Free Press earlier this fall. “I’d have conversations with my mom, like ‘I don’t know if this is working out, I don’t know if I want to stay or not’ and she’d tell me it was OK, ‘don’t give up.’
“I think practices were ‘optional’, but as you know, optional was not optional. So I missed a practice, coach (Jim Harbaugh) called me and we talked and he was like, ‘Mike, that’s not who you are; doing things like missing practices isn’t going to get you to where you want to be.’”
Anybody who knows Sainristil knows how truly out of character that day was. After all, this is the same Sainristil who started work when he was 14 years old and never cashed a single check.
After football practice at Everett High School, in a suburb about six miles north of…
Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/making-mike-sainristil-unsung-hero-110613832.html
Author : Detroit Free Press
Publish date : 2024-01-01 11:06:13
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