DE SMET — Through an injury-riddled season, Grant Wilkinson remains a constant for De Smet football.

The senior offensive/defensive lineman has played an important role as a starter for the last three seasons on the De Smet football team, but none bigger than his last dance as a Bulldog.

As a three-year starter and returning two-time all-state selection, Wilkinson has had to help coach up some underclassmen through a season full of injuries.

“As a team, we’ve faced more adversity than we ever have,” said De Smet head coach Brendon Pitts. “We’ve had a ton of injuries, a lot of season-ending injuries to our team early on in the year, which means we had a lot of young kids step up and fill those spots. And the one thing that remained constant through it all was Grant being positive and he’s helped those young kids.”

Wilkinson’s knowledge of the game has also been a boost to the coaches when it comes to making in-game decisions, with Pitts saying “he’s like a coach on the field.”

“He’s very talented at the game, but also understands the game extremely well,” Pitts said. “We always say we can’t be on the field, we can only be on the sidelines, so he gets to see it out on the field and helps us coaches a lot when it comes to making in-game adjustments.”

On top of that, Wilkinson is not a player teams can ignore when prepping for the Bulldogs. At 6-foot-8, 320-pounds, Wilkinson’s size alone is enough to disrupt an opponent's entire gameplan.

“Playcalling is really nice,” Pitts said of Wilkinson. “Like on a third and two or a fourth down and short to go for it and you need a first down, teams know where we’re going but a lot of times we get it.

“Just drawing double and triple teams on the D-line, it takes two or three guys to stop him which opens up a lot for our defense. In the run game he can pretty much control end-to-end and then in the passing game, when he’s rushing with hand up it’s tough to get the ball over top of him.”

Wilkinson has even helped out with the special teams duties when needed. During De Smet’s homecoming game, a 54-14 win over Florence/Henry, the Bulldogs needed a kicker after suffering an injury.
“Towards the end of the game we needed to find a kicker and we looked at Grant, he went out and put it through the endzone first kick,” Pitts said. “So not only offense and defense, but special teams too, he just impacts the game in all phases of it.”

With the success Wilkinson has had on the gridiron, it wasn’t always his first choice. Up until high school, he always enjoyed the basketball court more.

“In junior high and before that, I was just a lineman and I really didn’t get much credit for anything,” Wilkinson said. “Didn’t get no touchdowns or anything and in basketball I would have however many points a game and I always got credit for having points in basketball games so I got recognized more. When I got into high school it got more fun playing the line.”

And it wasn’t until his sophomore year that he chose to have football in his plans beyond high school. From his sophomore to junior seasons, Wilkinson put on 30 pounds in the weight room to become a future college offensive lineman.

“Going from my sophomore to junior year, that summer, just getting in the weight room and doing workouts during the summer. I was put on a pretty good AAU basketball team and that got my confidence up quite a bit, and then put on some muscle going into my junior year of football.”

Heading into last season, Wilkinson started getting attention from many Division II and FCS teams, ultimately choosing South Dakota State to be the next member of the 605 Hogs.

“I went and visited a couple other colleges around the area,” Wilkinson said. “I just thought when I got to SDSU for the first time, the coaches were more welcoming. A lot of them liked me and talked to me quite a bit and got a lot of love from them. I just thought it was the right spot to be.”

With De Smet being just 42 miles from the Brookings campus, it’s an added bonus being close to home, on top of his brother, Damon, playing for the Jacks on the men’s basketball team.

“I asked him a couple things, like if he liked it or not, what he thought about the schooling part of and all that,” Grant said of Damon. “He just said when he went there for a visit on football, he just liked the schooling part of it too and the campus.”

Coach Pitts pointed out the Wilkinson brothers’ lasting impact on the program that goes beyond team success, motivating the future members of the Bulldogs football program.

“Grant got to look up to Damon and watch him play high school football and now Grant’s playing high school football, Grant also has a younger brother (Nate) that’s an 8th grader looking up to him now and waiting for his time to play high school football in De Smet,” Pitts said. “Just the impact it has for years to come on our football program, that’s going to be seen for a while yet.”

And Wilkinson, who also throws shot and discus while competing on the golf team, won’t be done playing football just yet, he will miss a lot of aspects that come with playing Friday night under the lights.

“It lets me be me,” Wilkinson said. “Get to go out and have fun with my teammates. I get to hit some people so you couldn’t ask for much more. Going out and playing on Friday nights, having some fun with your teammates/friends.

“I’ll miss going to practice with all of my friends, cause I know everybody on the team very well. Going to miss the fans also with most of the town being there at our games and playing on our home field, and just bonding with the team.”