Whitney Mercilus has an interesting name. It’s Haitian, the country from where both his parents emigrated.

But since the last week of spring practice this past April, his teammates came up with a couple different names for the junior defensive end.

“I got a nickname. It’s called Nubs,” Mercilus said with a laugh. “It’s that, or Nine Piece, like 9.75 or something like that.”

The origin for the nicknames derives from a freak lifting accident that Mercilus caught the short end of this offseason. Redshirt freshman defensive lineman D.J. Woods was squatting 405-pounds with sophomore Tim Kynard as his spotter. Woods brought the bar down farther than he expected on his final rep and couldn’t bring it back up. Kynard wasn’t in the proper position to spot the weight so Mercilus ran over to lend a helping hand.

“I knew something might have been up, especially when the bar came down,” Mercilus said. “I pulled back, I sat there for a minute and asked myself ‘Did I get out of there that fast?’ I looked at my hand to double check and I was like ‘Yeah, I definitely didn’t get out of there.’”

The bar severed the tip of his index finger, and when Mercilus saw the remainder on the safety rack, he said he immediately “freaked out” and kept looking at his hand until fellow defensive lineman Wisdom Onyegbule convinced Mercilus to run up to the training room.

“When I looked at it I was like ‘Oh my gosh. Wow. I know this is not happening right now,’” Mercilus said.

His teammates reacted similarly. Sophomore Michael Buchanan said the injury “was crazy,” and the nicknames started brewing almost immediately after the accident.

“It had to be the worst thing ever,” sophomore defensive tackle Akeem Spence said. “I saw him spotting D.J. and then the next thing I knew he’s looking at his finger screaming ‘Ahh!’

“Me, I would have passed out right there because I saw blood.”

While Mercilus ran into the training room utterly astonished by what had just happened, strength and conditioning coach Lou Hernandez grabbed the severed bit, which nearly caused Spence to faint.

Mercilus said the part of his finger he lost, which included his entire fingernail, was completely crushed and unraveled, making it impossible to reattach.

The accident cut the rest of Mercilus’ spring short. The trainers told him the injury would require surgery and recommended one of the best hand surgeons in Champaign.

The recovery process after the surgery was difficult for Mercilus. He was required to dip his finger in peroxide for two minutes at a time, a painful process, Mercilus said, hurt worse than the initial injury and made him want to faint. Doctors also had to rip skin off the nub to promote growth at the end of the wound. The procedure caused extensive bleeding that required him to keep his finger wrapped in gauze at all times.

“I wanted to go back right away because I didn’t want to slow down from all my teammates,” Mercilus said. “There was like a two-week spread of workouts that I had to be on machines and I felt like I got weaker. I was like, ‘Yeah, this is just not me, I want to be back with my teammates and be on the field.’”

Mercilus worked this summer to bulk back up to his average weight of around 265-pounds. The injury doesn’t affect Mercilus on the field, aside from a splint he wears in his glove to fill it out. He said he had no hesitation about returning to the weight room or getting near the perpetrator — the squat rack.

“Every time I go over near the squat rack I’m just like, ‘This is where it happened, oh well, let’s just go ahead and bang out this lift,’” Mercilus said. “I’m not like messed up psychologically or anything.”

Illini head coach Ron Zook said he knew Mercilus was the best defensive end on the team at the end of last season. Mercilus played in all 13 games last year but started in just two. He’s the most experienced starter on the defensive line.

“He’s making plays, playing with confidence, not that he lacks confidence, but they get older and the more plays they make then they begin to play with more confidence and try some things,” Zook said. “He’s always had a motor, he’s always played hard, but maybe he’s just a late bloomer.”

Through the first three games this season, Mercilus has recorded nine tackles and three of his five career sacks. Against Arizona State last weekend, he had two sacks, two tackles for a loss and a forced fumble.

“It was the highest in my career so far,” Mercilus said of the Arizona State game. “I just want to keep building from that. I just can’t rest. Especially after that showing, there’s going to be a lot expected of me. I’m just going to practice harder and get my technique down better.”