UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Friday, April 22, 1994
12
Davidson's dive
Kansas diver Tim Davidson struck both arms on the three-meter diving board at the 1992 Big Eight Swimming and Diving Championships in Lincoln, Neb. Davidson, then a sophomore, failed to push out far enough horizontally while performing a reverse two and one-half somersault. Releasing from the tuck position, he hit roughly parallel to the board after completing his second somersault. He sustained only bruises and was able to complete 14 more dives, placing third individually.
Davidson stood on the end of the three-meter board, ready to begin the reverse two and one-half somersault, his toughest dive.
Davidson approached the end of the board, but failed to push out far enough horizontally when he began his somersaults.
After completing both somersaults, Davidson left his tuck position to begin the reverse dive into the pool. Roughly parallel to the board he struck both arms on the end.
Davidson splashed to the pool. Because of sharp pain in his arms and slight shock, he had to be assisted from the water.
Source: Tim Davidson
IT'S PART OF THE GAME
Brady Prauser and Micah Lasker/KANSAN
Continued from Page 1.
"It's something you become adjusted to over your athletic career," says Ken Wertzberger, an orthopedic surgeon and one of four Lawrence doctors who volunteer as Kansas team physicians. They help diagnose and treat injuries of Jayhawks in all sports. "When you start out young and in junior high you have a little bump or bruise of some type, it just becomes second nature to try to ignore that as long as you feel it's not going to harm you and if your desires in the athletic field are strong enough."
But by college, pain is more serious and complex than simple bumps and bruises. And whether or not an athlete can play through the injury and pain depends on the sport, position and type of activity involved — and especially the nature of the injury.
The injured part — albeit sore — must function properly.
Kansas athletes, physicians, trainers and coaches generally agree on the criteria necessary for an athlete to stay in the lineup:
There won't be any long-term negative consequences for playing with pain. In other words, an athlete's health won't be in jeopardy.
Physicians or trainers call the shots.
Granted, an athlete may reaggrate the injury. But if there is even an outside chance that career-threatening harm may occur, the athlete sits. Period.
"The doctor is the one that's taking the ultimate responsibility, because if I say somebody can play and something happens to them, then they're coming back at me," Wertzberger says.
What sounds straightforward in theory is more complex in practice.
Aside from football and basket
ball, team physicians frequently aren't present at nonrevenue sports such as swimming and diving, track and field and baseball. Even in basketball, physicians can't attend every game because of their schedules. And they attend practices only intermittently.
What's more, in competition there often isn't time for a trainer to confer with a physician until later.
whether to suit up or sit out.
They can play if they can stand the pain. Or, in Davidson's case, dive.
"Ultimately, I'd say in practice situations and in a lot of games, it's the athletic trainer making the shots," says Lymn Bott, Kansas' director of sports medicine and head athletic trainer. "When you come home, it's easy. You utilize your physicians. Crunch time, it's up to us."
Often, in cases such as Davidson's and many others, a nagging injury hurts but poses no threat of serious, long-term damage. That's when athletes can decide for themselves
"I think you've got to do everything you can to get through an injury and continue to go unless it's career-threatening." Davidson says. "I mean, without X-rays we couldn't say it was broken, so I said, 'You don't know that it's broken, and I doubt if I can do any more damage.'"
--source: Grant's Atlas of Anatomy; Lynn Bott, Director of Sports Medicine Micah Lasaker/KANSAN
Trainers and Gary Kempf told Davidson, "I don't want you getting up there if you don't think you can handle it. You're under no obligation to get back on the board right now."
But not everyone is a Tim Davidson. Some can play with pain. Some can't.
"I understood that," Davidson says, "but I felt up to it to finish the meet off. It was ultimately my decision."
But there was no decision to be made once he recovered from the shock. He dived.
Tim Davidson
Kansas senior diver
"I've always had a strong drive to be competitive, and I want to be in there no matter what," Davidson says. "I don't want little things like injuries to keep me out unless it's doctor's orders. Sometimes even then I've fought it tooth and nail."
"We have had athletes over the years who have absolutely no desire or inclination or ability to play with pain," Wertzberger says. "If they're hurt, they're out. And no doctor, no trainer, no anyone will be able to say, 'Well, go ahead. You can do it.' Because they're the ones who have to gauge it."
"I don't want little things like injuries to keep me out unless it's doctor's orders. Sometimes even then I've fought it tooth and nail."
"If you have someone who is capa-
Then there are the personalities such as Kansas basketball forward Richard Scott.
Richard Scott's story is the most recent case of a top Kansas athlete playing with pain. Scott, a senior, suffered a subluxation — a partial dislocation and instant reattachment of the bones that converge at the shoulder joint — during practice Jan. 24.
Wertzberger told Scott that playing with his injury wouldn't
cause any further damage.
ble of playing with pain, that is where your interaction as a physician comes into play," Wertzberger says. "Because you have to decide, is he doing himself harm? Or is he just playing through a situation which is uncomfortable, but it isn't going to be a thing that will cripple him in the future."
After the injury, Scott fought a season-long, high-profile battle with pain the rest of the way.
He could have been operated on
"It's like a death."
Lynn Bott
Kansas senior forward Richard Scott suffered a subluxation - a partial dislocation of the humerus and scapula where they attach at the left shoulder joint. The humerus instantly rotated counterclockwise and immediately popped back into place. The injury occurred when Scott's teammate blocked one of his shots in practice Jan. 24. Scott wore a protective shoulder brace during future practices and in his first few games after the injury.
Scott's subluxation
Acromion process
KU director of sports medicine on injuries that keep athletes out of acti.
Even John Wayne could have learned a thing or two about true grit from Scott's performance this season and other athletes who play with pain.
He chose to accept the pain. And it was rough going at first. Fitted with a cumbersome shoulder brace during practice and the first few games back, Scott's effectiveness clearly was limited early. Several times, he was bumped and, in obvious agony, had to leave the game.
His story reads like a movie script: wounded gunfighter under fire refuses to go down.
"It wasn't getting worse, and it wasn't getting better," says Wertzberger, the primary physician who looked after Scott's shoulder. So the decision was left up to Scott.
immediately and missed the rest of the season. Or, ideally, rest the shoulder for three or four weeks but miss the bulk of the Big Eight Conference race.
"He's a pretty tough hombre," says Kansas coach Roy Williams.
"I may get hurt again, but that's not going to stop me from playing," Scott said at one point.
"If you took a hundred injuries," Wertzberger says, "which weren't of tremendous significance but would be the kind that would be painful or alter a performance, I would bet that at least as many wouldn't play as would."
Yet not everyone can do it.
"What develops is the psychology of it," he says. "Some people never, ever can accept an injury. And some are very good at it. It just depends on the personality."
Sure, the sport, position and injury again are factors, but that's not all.
--late their use, though. And there aren't any miracle elixirs. No magic potions. And certainly not anything illegal.
Kansas sports psychologist David Cook deals with athletes who can't accept their injuries. An associate professor of health, physical education and recreation, Cook counsels Jayhawk athletes and coaches at least once a week. Sometimes Cook and the athletes talk about playing with pain.
"I believe people have varying levels of pain tolerance." Cook says. "The second thing is how important the sport is to the person. If it's their total identity and everything in their life revolves around it, they're more likely to do it. Richard Scott is a good example. He's gonna play, whatever it takes."
Coaches, most say, don't pressure them. It's left up to the athlete, physicians and trainers.
Physicians, trainers and athletes say the internal pressures athletes feel from themselves coupled with the motivation to be a team player drive them to play with pain.
Physicians, such as Wertzberger, can prescribe drugs to treat physical ailments. Strict guidelines regulate their use, though. And there aren't any miracle elixirs. No magic potions. And certainly not anything illegal.
"The medicines that we give athletes are just the ones that we can give anyone walking down the street," Wertzberger said.
They fall into two categories. Most common are nonsteroidal, anti-inflammatory medications, such as ibuprofen and indocin, often used to treat tendinitis or arthritis. For more painful injuries, a true pain pill often is prescribed, such as Tylenol 3 (with codeine), Lortab or Darvocet.
"It's a big mind game," says Alana Slatter, a junior forward on the women's basketball team, who suffered a sort of medical double jeopardy, undergoing arthroscopic knee surgery before the season and again just after the season began. "You get to a point where you know you should be able to do some things, and you'll remember that sharp, shooting pain. It's hard to put that out of your mind."
But they can't ease the mental pain. Often, the psychological strain of an injury is as painful or worse than the actual physical ailment, athletes say.
Cook tries to help with the mind games.
Kristi Kloster will vouch for that. A junior cross country and track standout, Kloster burned up the track as a freshman, winning the Big.Eight Outdoor 800-meter Championship in a school-record time of 2.06.78. But after the season, she had surgery on both calves to correct anterior compartment syndrome, a condition where blood becomes trapped in the muscle, can't escape and causes the muscle to become swollen and sore.
"It's one of the most confusing things an athlete has to deal with," Cook says.
"When you have surgery, you're afraid that they're taking something out," Kloster says. "I think all athletes have that. I mean, it's ridiculous. I was afraid I wouldn't be able to run fast anymore. That's not really logical, but it did scare me that I wouldn't have the speed that I did before, for some reason. I
Kloster missed the entire indoor and outdoor track seasons her sophomore year.
Sitting and watching. Watching and sitting.
"It's like a death," Bott says. "People say, 'Oh, it's just a game.' But what happens when you can't participate in your job?"
Tying to return after an injury at less than full strength can be equally debilitating.
"It just killed me that I couldn't play up to my full ability," says Chris Powell, a Kansas junior fullback who returned to the football lineup after missing the first part of last season with a broken foot.
--was afraid I wouldn't be the same. The idea of surgery on my legs just made me sick."
Indeed, sports lore would lead us to believe that football players — more than any other athletes — are conditioned to play with pain. Whatever the costs. But those days, if they ever existed, are a thing of the past.
Shake eyescarr in a career.
Like the time Chris Maumalanga went down with a knee injury against Nebraska last fall. Maumalanga, one of Kansas's all-time top defensive linemen and a shooi-in for this spring's NFL draft, limped to the sideline.
The legendary Vince Lombardi took pride in saying that the first thing he did after becoming coach of the Green Bay Packers was to shut down the training room. No injured players would be sitting around his locker room nursing their bruises. Put out or get out.
Snake eyes can ruin a career.
"He looks at me and says a few choice words," trainer Bott recalls.
Even in football, those involved won't gamble with an athlete's future. Rolling the dice isn't worth it.
"I can play," Maumalanga said.
"We have had athletes over the years who have absolutely no desire or inclination or ability to play with pain."
"I can play, Mmaalunanga said.
"Sure you can," I told him. You
For Kloster, as with many athletes, the pain in her heart from not being able to participate was worse than the pain in her legs from the injury and surgery.
"Oh yeah," she says. "I went to the KU Liraes on crutches and that was horrible. It was the first year in six years that I hadn't run there. I had to sit there and watch. That was hard
Ken Wortzberger KU team physician
Bott says.
know, I'm not gonna disagree with a 300 pounder."
But that wasn't the end of it. Wertzberger told Maumalanga to walk down the side-line and test the knee. Maumalanga did an about face and limped back.
"Lynn," Maumalanga said looking at his knee, "it feels kind of funny."
"He'd torn his medial collateral ligament."
In the end, Maumalanga didn't reenter the game.
"Times have changed," Bott says. "You get a lot more kids asking, 'What's this gonna do to me 20 years from now? Still, the athletes, trainers, our team physicians, our coaches, and the administration in general acknowledge that athletes will play hurt."
"And." Bott says, "there will be pain."