Dillon Tingle's second season as a Golden Eagle was off to a great start – he'd racked up seven tackles through the first three quarters against Millersville in the 2024 opener – when it all came crashing down.

On the last play of the third, the linebacker suffered a season-ending injury, tearing his left ACL and meniscus when he came down in a pile-up after defending against a pass.
"I heard the pop, I felt just excruciating pain. I got kind of dragged off the field," Tingle relayed. "Our head athletic trainer, Mike [Chesterfield], he knew right away. He did testing on it and he just hugged me and told me we'd get through it."

"It was pretty surreal at first, you go from playing at one of the highest levels you can get at your sport and then after one play you're having to sit on a chair in the shower. Not able to walk. It definitely took me some months to really come to terms with it."

Tingle, from Hidden Valley Lake, Calif., about an hour north of San Francisco, underwent surgery in October for the injury followed by almost a year of rehabilitation. He re-tore his meniscus during spring, necessitating another surgery and extending his rehabilitation into the past summer.

Through it, Tingle leaned on Clarion's athletic training staff, Chesterfield in particular, as he made his comeback.

"Without them, I would have been not well mentally and physically. Mike [Chesterfield] was always there, pulling me in his office if I needed to talk. I was in there every single day for the last year-and-a-half," reported Tingle. "He could kind of gauge how I was feeling mentally, physically, just kind of seeing it in my face. He got me in contact with a sports psychologist at one point to see if there was anything I needed help with mentally."

Said Clarion defensive coordinator Josh Hager, "I will tell anybody that will listen that our athletic training staff at Clarion is the best I've ever been around. I've been to a lot of places throughout the course of my career and worked with a lot of people from the athletic training departments at those places that were really, really good at their jobs. I will tell you flat out, there is no athletic training staff better than the athletic training staff at Clarion, hands down."

Since returning to the field at the start of the 2025 season, Tingle has progressively regained his confidence, reestablishing himself as a defensive starter for the 5-2 Golden Eagles – recording 41 tackles (12 solo, 29 assists), the third highest total on the team.

"Because of his work ethic and his intelligence, he puts himself into lots of positions to be able to make plays." observed Hager. "He goes out and plays without hesitation."

"He's a highly intelligent individual and he has worked very, very hard to ensure that he'll still be able to accomplish all of the things that he set out to do. I don't know that there's a single individual that can say that they put in more work than him in all of football."

Though Tingle committed to Clarion having never visited campus, the senior Mmanagement major who's currently completing a minor in Nutrition and Fitness has found a home in western Pennsylvania.

"I kind of figured I wouldn't have the opportunity to move out east if I didn't take it this time [when he was recruited out of Santa Rosa Junior College in Calif. after the 2022 season]," said Tingle. "I figured it would just be two years of my life if I hated it. I've loved it, I've actually decided I'm going to stay. I plan on moving down to Pittsburgh once I graduate. It's been a good decision for me."

"There's a lot of resources here at Clarion that helped me get through it [his injury] and I'm very grateful for that. There were ups and down, there were days I'd wake up and it's like, 'I'm doing the same thing every day and it feels like I'm just not getting any better.' They helped me see the light at the end of the tunnel."