Leandre Gaines takes swings at W.F. West High School Wednesday afternoon in Chehalis.
Leandre Gaines fields a ground ball at W.F. West High School Wednesday afternoon in Chehalis.
Leandre Gaines poses for a photo at W.F. West High School Wednesday afternoon in Chehalis.
Leandre Gaines throws a baseball at W.F. West High School Wednesday afternoon in Chehalis.
Leandre Gaines takes swings at W.F. West High School Wednesday afternoon in Chehalis.
Leandre Gaines came to a grinding halt to make a cut he had done countless times before. The senior W.F. West football player already had five touchdowns on just 12 receptions across eight games and was looking to make it touchdown No. 6 against Aberdeen on Nov. 1.
Just as Gaines was about to make the cut, he was blindsided. His foot planted in the turf and his leg from the knee down didn’t move, while his leg from the knee up shifted and buckled under the defender’s weight. Then he felt a sensation he had never felt before in his 11 years of playing competitive sports. Burning.
“It felt like something was on fire,” Gaines said.
He really knew something was wrong when he couldn’t lift his leg from the ground and had to be carried off the field. Not one to languish in pain, Gaines was walking on the sidelines within 30 minutes. He eventually visited three different doctors, two of which told him it was just a patellar strain.
“I would kind of jump around, messing with people, thinking it wasn’t really torn,” Gaines said. “That’s when I actually found out it was.
He didn’t know it at the time but Gaines had torn both his ACL and MCL. He had surgery two weeks later.
“The nerve blocks didn’t work, so I felt it as soon as I woke up,” Gaines said.
Ever since then, Gaines has been in weekly physical therapy to repair a knee that has helped him garner a multitude of awards the last three years, including, most importantly, a scholarship to harass ball carriers for Division I FCS powerhouse Eastern Washington University.
Standing at 6-foot-3, 230 pounds and rated a two-star prospect by 247 Sports, Gaines already looks more like a college senior than a high school athlete. The hybrid defensive end/outside linebacker earned 2A Evergreen Conference defensive MVP honors after racking up 45 tackles, including 12 for loss, along with five sacks and two fumble recoveries in just eight games.
Eastern offered him a scholarship in February while Gaines was on an official visit to campus, prompting him to accept on the spot, even with a slew of interest from college baseball programs.
Gaines is equally as good at baseball. With a heater that reaches 90 miles per hour, Gaines went 2-0 while running a 2.52 ERA, 26 strikeouts and two saves before rupturing his appendix as a junior last season. He has interest from Gonzaga, Oregon and LSU, among others, according to Baseball Northwest. If that wasn’t enough, he also plays varsity basketball but was obviously sidelined this winter.
“I always thought I was going to do baseball in college,” Gaines said. “I have a love for both (football and baseball). They’re about the same. Whatever season is around, that’s the one I like the most.”
His introduction to sports came in the form of smashing water bottles with a plastic bat as a toddler in Tukwila. His family has always been big into sports, so it didn’t take long for Gaines to gain a love for the game.
“That’s what I knew, so that’s what I grew up doing,” Gaines said.
When he moved to Chehalis soon after, he carried that tenacity for crushing water bottles with him, only he turned it into destroying fastballs, lighting up ball carriers and fanning batters with an electric right arm. Gaines’ nasty streak earned him first-team all-league selections in both baseball and football in 2019.
“On the field, I’m a little more mean,” Gaines said. “I don’t really care. Off the field, I’m definitely more nice.”
It’s now the first spring in 11 years, since he was six years old, that he isn’t running around on a baseball field. That, coupled with being partly immobile with his knee, has flipped Gaines’ spring upside down.
“It’s out of routine,’ Gaines said. “It feels weird not doing anything. I’m usually a pretty active person.”
Now he spends his days either at home sleeping and eating or at physical therapy rehabbing his knee. He estimates it’s between 25-50 percent healed.
“It feels good, but it always feels good, so I can’t really tell,” Gaines said. “Then it gives out sometimes.”
He’s been working on stretching to get the motion back, and improving toward full extension so he can begin building muscle back in his quadricep. He’s starting to move more comfortably now, can walk and even lightly jog.
He plans to grayshirt at Eastern, meaning he’ll wait an extra semester to become a full-time student and part of the team. He won’t play his freshman academic year but will retain freshman status for the 2021-22 season. That allows him to be fully 100-percent healed by the time he puts on pads.
Until then, Gaines is waiting silently until he can once again do what he loves. Compete.
