Ex-Gopher Benjamin St-Juste claims Michigan 'finessed' him off the team
Former Minnesota Gophers cornerback Benjamin St-Juste offered words of warning to college football players when he went on TikTok and told a story of how he felt he was taken advantage of while at the University of Michigan.
St-Juste played two years at the University of Minnesota (2019 and 2020) before being drafted in the third round by the Washington Commanders. He now has his sights on upping his game to an All-Pro level in the NFL, but it wasn't that long ago that he says Michigan "finessed" him by having him sign a contract that would eventually force him to transfer to Minnesota.
"This is the infamous story of how I had to 'medically retire' from the University of Michigan but still made it to the NFL," St-Juste began.
It all started when he suffered a Grade 2 hamstring injury as a freshman at Michigan in 2017. The injury ended his season and he struggled to regain the explosiveness that made him a prized recruit. While working his way back, he said he wound up pulling his hamstrings six times – three times on the left and three on the right – because the left hamstring was overcompensating for a weakened right hamstring.
"I'm desperate for a chance to just get better. The trainers at Michigan at the time, they come up with a paper, like these documents, they're like, 'Hey, if you sign this it's going to give you way more options and time to go heal and rehab at any other place that you want," St-Juste explained.
"So I'm like, 'Yo that's a sweet deal because I'm not ready for the season, so let me do this.' Obviously, my parents are not there. They're back home in Canada. I don't have any mentors or friends that know what this paper is. So I'm like, 'Cool.' Sign it."
The new treatments got him healthy and he was ready to play within two months.
He said he called his coaches and said he's ready to play, but the coaches had already decided by then that he was going to miss the entire 2018 season.
"I'm like, 'Hey, no problem. I'll sit out.' 2019 rolls around, I do all the testing, the assessment, all that stuff to make sure I'm ready for spring ball. I'm passing everything. I'm all good. I'm like, 'Hey, when can I participate in spring ball?' They're like, 'We gotta do a meeting with your parents first.'"
His parents drove to Michigan from Canada for the meeting, which St-Juste says was held with team trainers, two team doctors and head coach Jim Harbaugh.
"Basically they look at my dad and say, 'Hey, we don't really know what happened with St-Juste. We don't know what's the situation. So basically my dad snapped. He snapped crazy on them," St-Juste recalled.
"The doctors they're basically saying like, 'Hey, we don't feel comfortable with you playing here with your hamstring.' They're acting like I got cancer or some s***, or I tore my ACL like five times. Bro, it's a hamstring pull."
The next week, St-Juste went to Indiana and was cleared to play by a doctor who works with the Indianapolis Colts. That specialist, according to St-Juste, said "there's nothing wrong with your hamstring."
So what was all the fuss about at Michigan?
"What I've figured out now that I'm older, why I was forced to medically retire, is because when I signed that paper, they was never planning on getting me back on the team," St-Juste said. "Basically, when I signed that paper they took my scholarship, they gave it to somebody else and they made me think, 'Hey, go through the process, pass all the tests and then we'll get you back on the team.' They already moved on. My locker was already clean. I couldn't even access the facility. I had to sit in the stands to watch the games, my teammates, my friends play."
That decision led to St-Juste joining the Gophers, where he was a key member of the 2019 team that went 11-2. He earned All-Big Ten Honorable Mention and it fueled his rise to the NFL, where he's now an up-and-coming cornerback for the Commanders.
"Luckily, when I transferred to Minnesota they already had a player named Chris Williamson who was a DB, safety and nickel that was at Florida. Same situation happened, nagging hamstring injury, they couldn't get it right, went to Minnesota, they took care of him and he ended up getting drafted by the Giants. And what's crazy is, to this day...never had a soft tissue injury because I took care of it, I know how to deal with it and now I got a good plan and a good support system," St-Juste continued.
"The rest is history. I went to Minnesota, two years, wound up getting drafted and everything. But this is where I got kind of like finessed, like forced to retire at Michigan."
Now as a 25-year-old looking out for his brethren, he's offering words of wisdom.
"That's the infamous story. Just believe in your dreams, have a good support system...and never forget that the NCAA, the NFL, all that stuff is a business first. Players don't come first. It's a business first, so look out for yourself," he said.
