Saturday Sports Q&A: Former Chatfield star finds gratitude in lost career

Nate Skare was a top Chatfield athlete, a three sports-star (football, basketball, baseball) for the Gophers who graduated in 2014. The summer following his sophomore year, he was already hitting 86 mph on his fastball.

Skare’s arm was never the same after that, though, the loss in velocity traced back years later to his freshman year of high school when he broke a rib playing football. The break, it was discovered by a chiropractor his freshman year of college, caused Skare nerve damage and deadened his arm. Skare went on to play football at Division II Upper Iowa University where he was twice an all-Northern Intercollegiate Athletic Conference punter, averaged 39.9 yards per punt as a senior and was an Academic All-America. He also gave baseball a shot, but his arm never did sufficiently come around.

Skare looks back at his athletic career wondering what might have been. But he also does it with genuine appreciation for what happened to him. The injury led the honor student to the field he is in now, as he closes in on being a chiropractor.

POST BULLETIN: Do you recall the hit your high school freshman year that resulted in the broken rib?

SKARE: It was a B-squad game against Dover-Eyota. I’d picked off a pass and then took a heck of a hit. I’d cut back and then just got blindsided. But within a few weeks it didn’t hurt anymore. So I never thought anything of it.

PB: When did you notice your arm strength dwindling?

SKARE: I started feeling it my junior year of high school. My arm began to feel dead and I was having upper-back pain. I’d gone to a baseball showcase that summer and I was only topping out at 79 mph on my fastball and was mostly at 76. I’d lost 10 mph between my sophomore and junior years. My hope had been that I’d be hitting 90 by my senior year. But nothing felt right (starting that junior year).

PB: How difficult was it, seeing your throwing abilities diminish and your hopes of maybe even playing pro baseball drift with it?

SKARE: It was really frustrating because you work hard and everything, and when you don’t get the results you want, it’s tough to take. And it was especially hard because I wasn’t getting any answers about what was wrong, and I was seeing a lot of different (medical) providers. Nobody had the answer.

PB: Who finally figured it out?

SKARE: I finally saw a chiropractor (his freshman year of college) about it. It was finally figured out that it was coming from the rib that I had broken (as a high school freshman). I got an MRI then and they saw that the rib had a huge callus on it stemming from that old fracture. It was cutting off my thoracic outlet, which contains nerves that go into your arm. I had surgery on it then and they removed my first rib. It relieved the symptoms in my arm but I never got all of my velocity and pop back on my fastball. I pitched my sophomore and junior years of college, but it never panned out.

PB: The injury didn’t affect your punting. In fact, you were twice all-NSIC as a punter at Upper Iowa and average was an excellent 39 yards per punt as a junior. Did you ever try to pursue anything professionally as a punter?

SKARE: I tried for two years to punt at the next level. Those two years I was punting four to six times per week, and doing weight lifting and speed and agility workouts. I also did a bunch of camps with (special teams specialist) Gary Zauner.

PB: When did that football dream end?

SKARE: I finally put football away after the spring of 2019. I’d basically spent two whole years training. But at some of the combines I went to, I saw guys hitting balls so well, and I just thought I’d never be able to get to that level and these were guys who were having tryouts with NFL teams and weren’t making a 53-man roster. I just finally came to the realization that it was time to hang it up and go to chiropractic school. But I am glad that I pursued punting the way I did. That’s just kind of how I’m wired. It’s fun trying to get better.

PB: Why did you pick chiropractic therapy as your future life’s work?

SKARE: Probably because it was a chiropractor who was the first person to tell me what was wrong with my arm. He found the root cause of my dysfunction instead of telling me where the pain was being felt. That piqued my interest in being a chiropractor. There is a lot of hard evidence showing that chiropractic therapy, combined with proper rehab, has really good results.

PB: Your injury led you to where you are today, just a few months from having your chiropractor’s license and hoping to one day open an office in Rochester. A true silver lining, right?

SKARE: Yeah, I have to say my injury was a blessing. I believe everything happens for a reason. Sometimes you look at things and wonder “why is this happening?” I feel like now I know. I’m happy with my life.