Jack faces football injuries with optimism and determination

Jack with his parents at Howland’s senior night for the football team.

Jack Litton is the student body president and a 4-year starter on the Howland High School football team. Although his team hasn’t enjoyed many victories, he has overcome injury and learned skills that will last a lifetime.

Jack grew up around football. His dad, Chris, was a high school athletic administrator and coach. “I always liked kicking field goals. I’d shag balls for the kickers at practice and during pregame warmups,” Jack shared. “We had a bag of footballs around the house, so I was always going outside and trying to kick balls over the telephone wires.”

Nearly a year-round hockey player, Jack hadn’t played on the football team before. Toward the end of his eighth-grade year, as he casually kicked field goals on the varsity field, the Howland football coach spotted Jack. The coach said the team needed a kicker and invited Jack to join the team. Jack agreed and began preparing for football season.

At age 8, Jack won the Warren-area Punt, Pass and Kick contest organized by the NFL.

Hip injury and recovery

Jack attended a kicking camp at Youngstown State University. “While working with former NFL kicker Paul McFadden, I felt a sharp pain in my hip and the upper part of my kicking leg when I extended it,” he recalled. “I collapsed and couldn’t get up. I went to Akron Children’s for X-rays, and sports medicine specialist Dr. Zaid Khatib informed me that I had a stress fracture in the growth plate of my hip. Although I overtrained to get ready for football, it’s likely that the stress fracture began during hockey.”

The location of the fracture – in his growth plate – meant a shorter recovery time. “Every week, I focused on meeting the big benchmarks that Dr. Khatib put in place during my regular visits with him,” Jack said. “I followed my physical therapy plan and worked for hours every day from June through August. I focused on meeting my goal of being healthy to play week 1.”

A game-winning moment

Jack indeed recovered in time to start football season. In week 7, his Howland Tigers played to a 0-0 tie with Youngstown East. Late in the fourth quarter, the coach sent Jack onto the field to kick the go-ahead field goal. “His mother and I looked at each other in disbelief,” Chris recalled. “Jack was only a freshman, and we didn’t want his teammates to be mad if he missed. But he made the kick, and Howland won the game 3-0.”

Chris credits Akron Children’s for making that memorable moment possible. “That was the biggest highlight in Jack’s high school sports career,” he said. “We can’t thank the Akron Children’s Sports Medicine team enough for helping him improve his strength and recover so quickly from the hip injury.”

Recovering from his hip injury made Jack stronger.

Jack returns to Akron Children’s for more injury care

In 2024, Jack saw Dr. Chris Liebig because of knee pain. “He suffered a patellar tendon strain in his knee with pinching of the soft tissues under the tendon,” Dr. Liebig explained. “We provided guidance on activity modifications, and our in-clinic athletic trainer taught Jack some exercises to do at home.”

The knee injury kept Jack from attending a camp at the University of Notre Dame, but he understood. “Dr. Liebig advised me to put a hold on the kicking for a couple of weeks and incorporate some new stretches into my warmup sessions,” he recalled. “While I was disappointed in not attending the camp, I was happy that I had Dr. Liebig’s expertise and care before something more serious happened.”

A ‘winning attitude’

Fighting through injuries taught Jack valuable life lessons. “I learned that life sometimes presents you with a setback, even when you think you are doing the right things,” he said. “You need to face these challenges with optimism, knowing that each day of work will get you closer to your goal. Kicking the game-winning field goal as time was running out just 6 weeks after my last Sports Medicine visit was the reward, and I guess the realization that I overcame the injury. I think that this is something I am always going to remember when I have a setback or obstacle in life.”

Jack earned All-American Conference first-team honors.

Jack recently finished his senior season of football, and he’s looking forward to attending Notre Dame in the fall. He’s thinking about majoring in finance or an international government program called world affairs. But he’s also interested in sports medicine, after his experiences at Akron Children’s. He hopes to shadow Dr. Liebig and see what a day in the life of a sports medicine doctor is like.

“Jack is a perfect patient, striving to get better at every turn with tremendous motivation and determination,” Dr. Liebig said. “I imagine he takes that winning attitude into every aspect of his life.”