Iowa’s Luke Lachey works to ‘knock off the rust,’ now with new methods to stay mentally sharp

IOWA CITY — Luke Lachey thought he was “fine” after getting helped off the field early in last year’s game against Western Michigan.

“It wasn’t that bad in the moment,” Lachey said, looking back at the adrenaline-filled time. “I thought I could get back out there.”

The Sept. 16 injury — so gruesome that “the next day in meetings we skipped over it because we didn’t want to see it,” Lachey said — was anything but fine. While Lachey politely declined to go into specifics on the injury, it required surgery and turned out to be season-ending.

Almost seven months later and long after the adrenaline of the game wore off, Lachey is once again healthy and “trying to knock off the rust” in spring practices.

“It’s been a long time since I’ve played,” Lachey said. “Just getting out there and playing low and fast and physical — that’s what Coach (Abdul) Hodge wants in a tight end, and so that’s what I’m just trying to kind of gain back as I go.”

Lachey had a promising start to the 2023 season, grabbing 10 catches in the first two games, before suffering the season-ending injury and missing the remaining 11 games of the regular season and postseason.

As he knocks off that rust, he has a new method for staying mentally sharp — reading. He picked up the hobby while recovering from last year’s injury.

“When I was really immobile and in the training room, I’d just grab a book and read,” Lachey said. “It was a lot of fun.”

Some reads had more football benefits than others.

“I read a book by Jon Gordon called ‘The Energy Bus,’ and that helped me a lot,“ Lachey said. ”Stay positive and figure out a role on the team where I wasn’t out there on the field and just trying to help the team in any way I could.“

While Lachey “started out in non-fiction,” he eventually moved to the Harry Potter series. He already has made it to the sixth of J.K. Rowling’s lengthy seven-book series, which has a total of more than 4,000 pages.

Whether it be leadership books like Gordon’s or fiction fantasy books such as Rowling’s, there have been on-the-field benefits to Lachey’s new off-the-field habit.

"Keeping my mind sharp and wired and everything like that really helped, even in school,“ Lachey said.

Reading has taken a bit of a back seat recently, though.

“I’ve taken a bit of a break right now because I’m going to the beach in May and I want to read on the beach,” Lachey said. “I’ve been kind of slacking, though. I need to pick it back up.”

Away from Lachey’s wizardly reading, a wizardly season of production could have long-term benefits for the 6-foot-6 tight end. He could have gone pro and likely been a second- or third-day selection in this year’s NFL Draft, but he instead chose to stay in Iowa City and “play with your brothers for another season.”

“I felt like there was more I could prove and more I could do to help myself,” Lachey said on Thursday.

In the short-term, Lachey has something smaller to celebrate — simply being back on the football field for spring practices.

“I couldn’t wait,” Lachey said. “I was counting down the days at one point. I was really excited for spring break to get over just so I could get out and start playing football again.”

Comments: john.steppe@thegazette.com

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