BUTTE, Mont. -- The third time his knee blew out, Trae Vasquez knew his wrestling career was over.

It was devastating. Wrestling had been his life, for all intents and purposes.

But what Vasquez didn't understand was that, eventually, it would become the beginning of another life entirely.

The former Cal Poly wrestler turned Montana Tech football player is enjoying a renaissance, of sorts. He will take the field Saturday as part of the No. 8-ranked NAIA football team in the country against No. 10 Northwestern (Iowa) with a chance to advance to the quarterfinals of the NAIA Football Championship Series.

"It's a dream I didn't know I had," Vasquez said this week with a shy smile.

He grew up a wrestler, his dad a wrestling coach. Sure, Vasquez played football and competed in both sprints and jumps in track & field at Flathead High School, but it was wrestling that captivated him from a young age.

"I did every sport imaginable growing up," he said, "I knew [wrestling] was what I wanted to do in college. That's what I was training for my whole life. … My mind was 100 percent focused on wrestling. I was going to go to college to wrestle."

So when Kyle Samson, then the head coach at Flathead High and now the head man at Montana Tech, asked Vasquez back then about his interest in playing college football, it was a polite, "no thanks."

A two-time high school state champion and placer at several top national tournaments, Vasquez had been receiving interest from the best college wrestling programs in the country. He even considered skipping his senior year of football to focus on his primary sport.

"I don't want to be 10 years down the road and regret not playing my senior year of football," Vasquez said.

Then it happened. He tore his ACL midway through that football season, and everything changed.

"A lot of the recruiting for wrestling started to drop off," he recalled.

But Cal Poly stuck around. At first, Vasquez was skeptical. What mid-major school in faraway California wanted him to move more than a day's drive from home? An assistant coach, Mike Hatcher, was dogged in his pursuit.

"When I went on my visit, I fell in love immediately," Vasquez remembered. "It turned out to be the most amazing years of my life."

Vasquez loved his time at Cal Poly, but injuries continued to get in his way. The knee didn't heal correctly, and an injury sustained along the way sidelined him in his freshman year. Shortly after he returned to action, the same ACL gave out again. He returned for his sophomore season in a limited number of bouts. But the knee failed him again, and that was the end of competitive wrestling for Vasquez.

Instead, Vasquez focused his efforts on helping his teammates improve. He pushed his counterparts as much as he could, and Cal Poly won the regular-season Pac-12 title in 2022-23 with a 5-0 dual-meet record, including wins over nationally ranked Arizona State and Oregon State.

But when he was back home in Montana, Vasquez's heart lay in Butte. Several of his best friends chose to play football at Montana Tech, and Vasquez found himself in the Mining City cheering those friends on before he headed back to California for school.

With a degree in kinesiology in hand, he planned to return to Kalispell after graduation to build up work experience before he applied to medical school. But Vasquez kept coming back to Butte, first to cheer his high-school buddies and coaches, now at Montana Tech, along. Then he became invested in Oredigger football.

In the spring of 2023, the itch to return to the gridiron began scratching hard.

"Just the atmosphere of the games and Butte and football in general, it made me want to play football again," Vasquez said.

Then the text message came.

"I was sitting at my desk, and I got like a month and some change before I graduate … and I get this text from Coach Samson," he said.

Samson asked if he was ready to play college football.

"Trae is one of the hardest-working kids I've ever been around," the Orediggers head coach said.

Word started to spread that a former Montana high school wrestling champion was interested in playing for the Orediggers, and he had two years of eligibility remaining.

"I was thrilled," Montana Tech athletic director and former prep wrestling champion Matt Stepan said. "As a longtime member of the Montana wrestling community, I knew Trae as one of the premier athletes in the state—a two-time high school state champion and a standout at the Division I level. Beyond his athletic ability, his character has made him an incredible asset to our program, both on the field and off."

That was all Vasquez needed to hear. The enthusiasm about him joining the team plus the family environment Vasquez saw his old head coach foster was more than enough to bring him out of retirement. Vasquez joined the Montana Tech football team in 2023 as a graduate student.

"It honestly was a no-brainer," he said about returning to play for Samson. "I see a lot of parallels with his attitude and mindset on coaching from high school until now. … He preaches a lot about family and being together and counting on each other … and that was a lot of what we talked about in high school. And now here at Tech, it's exactly the same thing."

For Samson's part, Vasquez contributes to that family atmosphere in more than just football. Vasquez treats Samson's four kids and wife, Brooke, like kin as well.

"HIs character and the way he treats people is incredible," the coach said. "Trae is extremely special to my family and me, a great kid on and off the field."

Vasquez quickly became a key part of the Montana Tech leadership group and a guy known for making key special-teams plays. That latter part has shown through this year. Vasquez blocked a punt in the Diggers' win over archrival Carroll College in Week 2, and his fumble recovery on a kickoff against Carroll in the regular-season finale helped Tech wrap up another win. Both plays set up Tech touchdowns on the next play from scrimmage.

"I can't thank those guys enough for … believing in me and putting time and effort into a guy who hasn't been on the field in so long," Vasquez said.

It's all attributable to the team mentality, Vasquez added, something his hardship-ridden and team-first wrestling career prepared him for.

"Although it's cool that I'm able to make those plays," he said, "if everybody's not doing their job, I'm not able to make them."

Vasquez hopes the future is full of the same opportunities, ones he still believes will start with medical school in the near future. But that journey begins Saturday with the Orediggers' home playoff game. Tech kicks off at 1 p.m. on Bob Green Field against 2022 NAIA national champion and No. 10-ranked Northwestern College out of Iowa.

"I owe a lot to this university," Vasquez said, "and the community that rallies around us."

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