PALMER — When Zach Tanner led his teammates onto the field Saturday night, it represented so much more than just a pre-game ritual.

Tanner ran through the gate and onto the grass, with each of his Colony High School teammates and coaches following behind him.

Nothing could be more appropriate on this night — the football program’s senior night.

ROBERT DeBERRY/Frontiersman Colony senior Zach Tanner stands on the sidelines during a Colony home game. Tanner played football as a freshman, but missed the next two seasons due to injuries he sustained in a car accident as a sophomore. On Saturday, Tanner had the chance to lead his teammates out onto the field when the Knights hosted the Lathrop Malemutes on senior night.

Not only was it an evening to honor the team’s senior class on the night of their final home game, it was a time to recognize one Knight’s battle to get back onto the football field.

Two years ago, Tanner — then a sophomore at CHS — suffered life-threatening injuries in a horific automobile accident.

With the help of his family, friends, teammates and coaches, Tanner battled through an incredibly demanding recovery process that included nine surgeries and a 33-day hospital stay.

“Anytime I see him run through the gate and onto the field it makes me cry,” Tanner’s mother, Kristan Cole, said Saturday, while struggling to fight back the tears.

On Sept. 12, 2005, Tanner was in a one-car accident. He was driving alone, and on his way to his father’s house in Talkeetna. Tanner left on a Monday evening, and when Cole had not heard from her son by about 3 a.m. that following morning, she began to contact Tanner’s father and some of his friends.

According to a story published in the Frontiersman in September of 2005, Tanner was found about 16 hours after his vehicle slid off the road, down an embankment and into a crowd of birch trees.

Once he was found and rescued from the vehicle, Tanner was taken by ambulance to the Wasilla Airport and flown to Merrill Field in Anchorage. From there, another ambulance took him to Providence Alaska Medical Center, where he spent the next 33 days.

Tanner had broken his foot, jaw and collar bone in the accident. Both his bones in his lower left leg were broken.

Cole said from the first day, the impact of Tanner’s coaches and teammate was felt immediately.

“It was huge,” Cole said. “Coach (Jamie) Mayo came to see Zach at the hospital.”

Mayo said he visited Tanner the day after he was admitted into the hospital, and it nearly made him sick.

“I get a little choked up when I talk about him, because he should have been dead,” Mayo said. “And that’s hard to really say.”

Mayo calls Tanner, “the most inspirational player we’ve got,” and repeatedly called Tanner’s recovery, “amazing.”

“To go through all of those operations, all of the pain, and everything else he went through and still want to play football?” Mayo said. “For that kid to even be out here is amazing to me.

“Even though to run from here to that line, he was in pain the whole time,” Mayo said, pointing to a hash mark on the Colony field just beyond his arm’s length. “If there’s any kid that is the poster child for high school sports, it’s that kid right there.”

Cole said the support for her son continued through his hospital stay, and when Tanner was able to come home.

“He has some teammates who really stuck with him the whole way,” Cole said.

Cole noted Colony seniors Stewart Krueger and Bradley Truax as two of Tanner’s teammates who proved to be especially important to the recovery.

“When Zach came home from the hospital, Stewart rarely left our house. And Bradley too,” Cole said. “They have always been there for him.”

Tanner said his coaches and teammates played a big role in his recovery, but leant much of the credit to Cole.

“My mother has probably been (the) most help,” Tanner said. “She’s been the biggest leader in my recovery.”

Cole said doctors initially told the family Tanner would not be able to leave the hospital until Christmas of 2005. So even after the doctors and physical therapists were done helping Tanner for the day, she would help Tanner build his strength.

“We had our own little physical therapy sessions,” she said. “We did whatever it took to get him home. We knew it would do him better to get him home with his friends and family.”

Once Tanner was released from the hospital, he returned to Colony High School and attended classes during the day. But Cole also home-schooled her son in the evenings, to ensure Tanner did not fall behind academically.

Out of the hospital, Tanner also did what he could to stay close to his teammates on the football squad.

Tanner said he planned on playing during his junior year, but his left leg had to be rebroken, and he spent a lengthy period of time with a cast on his leg. Instead, he found other ways to stay near the team, and was involved in school activities.

“I couldn’t play, but I wanted to stay in touch with the team,” Tanner said.

As his senior year approached, Tanner said he continued to feel the lingering affects from the injuries sustained in the accident. But he persevered.

“Before this season I couldn’t run, couldn’t really do a lot, but I came out here. I guess I gave it my all,” Tanner said. “The coaches helped me with it, and worked with me to try to get me running the best I could.”

Tanner said his family, coaches and teammates supported him throughout his senior season, even when it was a struggle.

“Throughout the whole year, when I’d say to my mom, ‘my leg hurts,’ she said ‘Zach you need to get out there and be with your team’,” Tanner said.

Even if he wasn’t able to suit up on a particular day, Tanner said he still wanted to be with a team.

“It means a lot to me to be out here with this jersey on, to be out with my  friends, be out here representing my school,” Tanner said. “That means a lot to me. That’s what my goal was, to play my senior year. And I did it.”

Mayo said it was important to him that Tanner was not just someone out there wearing the school colors. He wanted Tanner involved.

“He wasn’t going to be just a token,” Mayo said. “He was going to practice. He was going to compete for a position. He was going to play.”

It was hard for Mayo not to think about the potential for injury, considering what Tanner had already been through.

“We as coaches, every time he steps on the field, we’ve got to worry,” Mayo said. “I hate to be the reason that kid gets injured. That’s my biggest fear, he goes out there and gets injured bad. But honestly, he’d have a big ole’ grin on his face, because you know it’s something he loves to do. He’s willing to take that risk, his parents are willing to take that risk. Guess what? I’m willing to take that risk.”

Mayo said seeing Tanner on the field instantly inspired the Colony coaches and players.

“To have Zach go out — I don’t even know how to explain it,” Mayo said. “Just the mental boost it gives the rest of these kids.”

And on Saturday, Tanner’s ability to run onto the field with his team behind him proved to be a boost for everyone.

“For us, winning tonight, senior night, him playing — we couldn’t be more thrilled,” Cole said. “We couldn’t be more proud. We just thank the kids, the coaching staff, everybody who has been with us the whole way and never gave up on him.”

Contact Frontiersman sports editor Jeremiah Bartz at sports@

frontiersman.com.