Nagging injuries have followed Riley Stringer, but have not robbed him of his passion.

The 2015 graduate of Powell High School is still on course for the next challenge of his athletic career: a dream to play football for the University of Wyoming. Stringer will report to Laramie Aug. 9 with an invitation as a preferred walk-on to begin fall football activities with the Cowboy football team.

He is one of 105 players who will report for the second year of Coach Craig Bohl’s tenure at UW.

The preferred walk-on status means Stringer will have his shot to realize his dream, but he will be paying his own way to Laramie when he enrolls next month. Stringer has put together enough scholarship dollars — among them the state’s Hathaway Scholarship and a Scholar-Athlete award from the Wyoming Chapter of the National Football Foundation  —  to get to Laramie.

Named the male Outstanding Senior Athlete at PHS this year, he already knows he will be redshirting as a freshman at UW.  And he’s OK with that.

“I think of it as kind of a year to get used to the transition from high school to college and as a year of transition to get better as a player in every area I can,” Stringer said.

First, he must fully recover from a series of injuries that chewed into his senior year.

Stringer tore up an ankle on the last day of wrestling camp in the summer of 2014. He tore ligaments and tendons in an ankle so severely that he had to have two screws inserted to keep the ankle in place. It was the first of four ankle surgeries in the last year.

Stringer missed the preseason football scrimmage game with Miles City, Montana, last fall, but returned to play the rest of a 5-4 season for the Panthers. He had two more ankle surgeries — one before and one after his senior year of wrestling — but despite ankle soreness, the 260-pound Stringer still managed to win the state 3-A heavyweight wrestling championship on a PHS team that won its fourth straight state title.

That wasn’t the end of his run-in with injuries.

During track season this spring, he competed in the discus and shot put events for PHS until a weight room mishap took its toll again. Doing maximum bench press work in his weight room routine, he felt a pain in his chest.

“It hurt like hell,” he said.

It was thought to be a pectoral muscle strain, and he was limited to participating in the shot put only in the state track meet.

An MRI later revealed a minor tear in his left pectoral major and a major tear in his left pectoral minor. He was then shut down from rigorous physical activity and forced to miss the annual North-South Shine All Star football game.

Stringer only this week resumed heavier work in the weight room.  He had been doing light lifting.

His daily regimen also includes some kind of cardiovascular training, either a long run or a series of short sprints.

Stringer said he is being cautious in getting back into the weight room.

“I’m not scared about getting reinjured,” he said. “I’m trying to be smart. I’m not trying to bench 385 pounds.”  

Though he didn’t play in the North-South All Star game, he did participate in the all-star week activities and got a chance to interact with two other North team players who will be freshman scholarship football players at UW — Josh Harshman and Logan Wilson of Casper Natrona.

“I like them a lot,” Stringer said. “I’m really looking forward to getting down there. I can’t wait.”

Stringer’s position coach at UW will be Pete Kaligis, the defensive line coach. Despite going in at 260 pounds, Stringer is projected as a nose tackle in the collegiate ranks.

“I’d like to put on a little weight. Playing on the nose, you take a lot of double teams,” he said.

Stringer said a solid base and “pretty quick hands” are his strengths.

“In high school, I could put my left hand on one guy and my right hand on the other guy. I was always strong enough,” he said.  “In college, I’m going to have to focus on one guy and take him on.”

Stringer plans to pursue a course of study in secondary biology education. He will room in the UW dorms with his best buddy from Powell High School, Carter Baxter.

Stringer doesn’t talk about it, but he has an inner motivation. His late father, former PHS football coach Jim Stringer, was a UW football squadman in the late 1980s. Jim Stringer died of a heart attack last summer, before Riley’s senior year at PHS.