Although linebacker Sam Bodine is a junior, he's only playing in his second season at Portland State.

This year's co-recipient of the Norm Daniels Athletic Scholarship sustained a compound ankle fracture his senior year at Canby High School. It took 18 months to heal and his freshman year of eligibility.    

Coming into last year, he was behind. The injury "really effected my explosiveness and speed so I did a lot of extra training, running and weight room stuff, working on technique," Bodine said.     

He felt he needed to work on every aspect of his game and his flexibility. "I needed to be able to read offenses better and to react faster," he recalled.     

But, that was mostly just gaining experience in the position at the collegiate level.     

"I didn't waste any reps during the year. I tried to take advantage of every practice," he said.      

Bodine played in every game that year, starting six, and felt he got better.      

In fact, he had 58 tackles to rank third on the team. He also had four tackles for a loss, three pass break-ups and forced a fumble. He made a season-high 11 tackles against Idaho State and Weber State and 10 stops with two tackles for a loss against Cal Poly. This season, Bodine has 35 tackles through the first eight games.   

"Sam has good leadership skills. That stood out to me last spring when I first got here," said first year linebacker coach Hansen Sekona. "We need him to work on getting quicker and faster in the open field."      

Coming into this season, Bodine felt he needed to work on reacting faster. That meant spending the off season working out and training for explosive movements. He worked on good eye perception, he said…reading the offense every play. He also worked to get more range of motion and more strength.      

Linebacker is a complicated position. "We're the heart of the defense. We have to know the job of everyone on defense. We react of what the D-line does and the safeties react off us. You react to everything that's in front of you," said Bodine.       

Bodine's high school injury may have been partly responsible for his becoming a Viking.       

The Viking coaching staff had offered him a scholarship during his junior year, before he went down with that compound fracture. He'd also been getting a lot of interest from elsewhere. After the fracture "I still heard from a number of schools, but it was all preferred walk-ons. PSU stayed with me. And, an advantage to playing here is that my family can come see me play."      

This year, Bodine's expectations were "to play hard every opportunity I got and to help give us a chance to win." But, two days before the season's fourth game, against Montana, he jammed his right thumb in practice, breaking it.    

He played with a cast until the North Dakota game, but said it limited his effectiveness.     

"That makes it extra difficult because you don't really have two hands. You need both hands to grip. After you make contact, you have to grip your opponent and throw him down. But when you're only gripping with one hand, you're not as strong," Bodine said.      

And that opened the door for true freshman Nicolas Ah Sam, who began starting as strong side linebacker after the Montana game.     

"There's been a lot of competition from Nic Ah Sam. But, even though he lost his starting role (Bodine still has a major role in every game), he's embracing his new role. He's been really good about that. He's a tough kid and a good leader. He's coaching the younger player who's competing with him," said Sekona.      

And, coaching is something that might interest Bodine…although not professionally.      

He's majoring in communications and minoring in business, carrying around a B average. "I'd like to coach. I've got a good understanding of the game, but I'm not sure I want to do that professionally," he said. He's thinking of opening his own business.      

As with football, that might be a good direction for him.     

"I love to compete. I find it a lot of fun. Fun to me is competition," he said.