Athletes Coping With Injury

Every team has them.

At a basketball game, they are at the end of the bench, dressed in semi-formal attire. At a soccer game, they are filling in the scorebook or sitting atop the scaffolding, taping the game. They go unnoticed, but they are there.

They are the injured. There is no disabled list for Harvard athletics, but that doesn't mean that hurt players disappear.

Darren Rankin, the captain of the men's basketball team, knows the feeling of sitting at the end of the bench. Midway through last season, Rankin found that his aching back was getting worse and worse. After having it examined, Rankin learned that two vertebrae needed to be removed and a third had to be shaved. For the rest of the season, he wore a coat and tie and sat on the bench.

"The doctor was surprised to see me walking," Rankin says. "He definitely laid it out--he didn't think that I should play at all."

Rankin got opinions from other doctors, who said that he could hit the court again after extensive therapy. So rehab he did, and now he can play about 10 minutes at a time--on a good day.

Kim Vender would say that Rankin is lucky, despite his 10-minute limitations.

Vender, a sophomore, learned last January that she has a herniated disc--an ailment that causes the discs in one's spine to flip out of place. The injury forced Vender to stop swimming forever, an activity that she's done practically since birth.

"It was really difficult for me--it's still difficult for me," Vender says. "All of a sudden I couldn't do anything."

A Desire to Continue

It seems that all injured athletes share Vender's desire to continue playing. It's rare for a Harvard varsity player to have a mild injury and quit.

Brad Konik, the current captain of the men's hockey team, missed a season and a half of play due to bruised cartilage in his knee. Konik was injured in November of 1992, when a Brown shot hit his knee cap.

Konik continued to play into December, before the pain forced him to stop. Then, he took two semesters off from school and spent it rehabilitating his knee.

"For the whole time they weren't able to tell me [how long I'd be out]," Konik says. "Instead, they'd say it could be two weeks, it could be two months or it could be never."

Nevertheless, Konik was determined to come back and did so successfully in the fall of 1994.

Part of the Team

Another common trait among the injured is to continue to be a part of the team. The fact that they do not dress for games does not take this away.

Even after Vender knew that she would never hit the water again, she continued to go to as many meets as she could. Vender couldn't go to the away events--her back wouldn't allow her to sit in a bus--but she went to home meets as often as she could.

"They're my friends," Vender says. "It's hard to watch them, and I'd love to train with them... [but] they're doing really well, and that makes me happy."

Sophomore Eileen Horwath, a field hockey player, missed the last season probably due to a pulled ligament in her back, though even now no one is sure. However, she continued to go to all practices and games, as is the norm for injured athletes that can still walk.

"Practice started at about three," Horwath says, "and I'd be there at two. I'd simply watch practice.

"It's about a 130 percent more of a time commitment--every single game, every single road trip--you want to be there to support your team and coach."

Lengthy Rehab

For those athletes who do heal before the season ends, all the effort makes it that much sweeter.

Senior Tarlin Ray was understandably excited about this upcoming year--after three seasons of playing for the junior varsity basketball team, he was moving up to the varsity. However, he sustained a stress fracture sometime in November and returned to the court about a month ago.

"It makes it that much more exciting when you come back out to practice," says Ray, who is Rankin's roommate in Leverett House. "You don't take it for granted anymore."

That's not to say that getting injured is a good thing. Rehabilitating is a time-consuming, difficult endeavor.

Konik, of course, spent all of 1993 strengthening his knee.

"It was hard, but I knew that I had to do it," he says. "I chose to stay home and rehab it. There was a lot of dead time at home."

He spent his time at a nearby clinic, which helped him get back into his skates again.

Horwath started with abdominal exercises to strengthen her weakened stomach and spine muscles using large rubber balls in the Harvard training room. Later, she was able to progress to running on grass and then on concrete.

"You get to know your trainer really well, especially the people you work with," she says. "You really learn the ins and outs."

The Right Tude

Psychological strength, in fact, is about as important as physical. As the rehab sessions stretch on, it's difficult to keep one's hopes up.

"The biggest thing is your attitude," Konik says. "I really got down about it, [and] that hurts you the worst."

Horwath agrees.

"I definitely applaud the field hockey team in sticking with [me]," Horwath says. "It was just as important as the support I got in the athletic training room."

And if a team supports one of its own, that person will support the team back.

"Two teammates of mine--[senior Mike] Gilmore and Ray--we want to finish what we started," Rankin says. "I love my team...it just makes it worth-while to see the team jell."