ACL Tear

My daughter tore her ACL recently. She's a stud athlete and tore it in a Championship game, team won. She'll miss her HS senior year basketball(she's Captain) and lacrosse season(where she was All Conference as a Junior and Captain). She's incredibly bummed

Her school requires seniors to do a final thesis type paper and she's thinking of doing it on ACL surgery and athletes. She's thinking about writing to athletes who have been through ACL surgery and how athletes dealt with it

1. please post the names of athletes who have been through this.

2. do you think writing to the athletes directly, c/o the team, would work or should she contact the PR department.

3. any real chance she'll get a response?

 

A friend I worked with in the 1990s did a nice enterprise package on ACL injuries.
I'm sure the medical handling of the injuries have changed since then.

 

Maybe she should do it on the increase in ACL injuries among female high school athletes. There have been a couple of studies done on the subject and it seems 16 and 17 year old girls -- especially multi-sport athletes -- are more susceptible than boys.

 

Have her give NFL Network P.R. a call and see if they can get her in touch with Rod Woodson. He tore his ACL in the first game of the '95 season and made it back for the Super Bowl, first guy ever to get back within a season. He's also a great interview, very friendly, and would probably go even farther out of his way knowing this was a young student. Plus he'd probably be encouraging to your daughter as she goes through the inevitable frustrating moments of her recovery.

Good luck to her on both fronts.

 

Another thing I would try to do is call a local surgeon (or, if he'll agree to it, her surgeon or general practitioner) who specializes in this kind of surgery. He won't be able to talk about specific cases, but he can give her a lot of the medical jargon, talk about rehabilitation times, different kinds of tears, healing length, etc.

Other than that, I would e-mail SIDs. And a hint: SIDs at smaller schools, like FCS/I-AA and Division II, might have more time to figure out who your daughter should talk to and be more helpful than some of the larger schools, who deal with media requests all the time.

 

To elaborate on what someone said earlier, there is an increasing number of girls tearing ACL's in soccer and basketball. My doctor said that is what most of the injuries are.

Also, if your daughter needs an extra source, I am somewhat credible as I played college dodgeball for a Big Ten schooll (yeah they have that now), and I tore my ACL in competition. Not exactly journalism credible, but credible enough!

 

The poster girl for torn ACLs is former UConn hoopster Shea Ralph. She did both of hers twice - her first right in a game, her first left playing with her dog a few months later. Ruined her WNBA hopes for sure. I remember reading a story on her awhile back, when she was an assistant at Pitt. She still practiced with the team, even though her doctor told her she was one bad step away from knee replacement.

 

Ralph is an assistant at UConn now. Definitely an interesting story in her own right between the injuries and a battle with anorexia.

 

My daughter had her ACL surgery this week, it was a complete reconstruction of the ACL by taking part of her patella tendon and grafting in place of the old ACL, as well as repairing a torn meniscus. Successful Surgery!!!

Now starts the hard part, REHAB.

Her early recuperation reading list:
Warrior Girls-Michael Sokolove
Mental Toughness- Karl Kuehl, John Kuehl, Casey Tefertiller
Heart of a Student Athlete- Karl Mecklenburg
Women Who Risk- Marilyn Olsen

 

Good luck to your daughter, but:

Come on, dude.

http://tinyurl.com/27xje6n

But seriously, a couple of stories along the lines spnited mentioned:

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/soccer/us/news/2002/08/19/wusa_knees_ap/

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1006212/index.htm

Again, good luck to your daughter. I am currently going through pseudo-rehab for an ACL that is merely stretched, and thank my lucky stars daily that it wasn't completely torn.