AKRON -ÊFriday, October 15, 1999 started out like any other football game day for Tippecanoe Valley senior Craig Kuhn. Little did he know that what was about happen in the game would end his high school football career and jeopardize his chances to play his final season of basketball.

On a fairly routine play, Kuhn was supposed to catch a pass over his right shoulder and run down the field. But this time something went wrong.

"The pass was supposed to be thrown over my right shoulder," said Kuhn, "but instead it was thrown over my left shoulder and it was a little short.

"I hadn't worn a back cleat in my shoe all season, but before the game I put one in. When I turned to the inside, the cleat caught. My foot stayed, but my leg moved, and I just fell."

"I saw it happen, and knew as soon as I saw it what had happened," said Louis Desenberg, Valley's athletic trainer. "Then I knew I had to tell his parents and get him to the doctor.

"It's very hard to tell a young man who is 18 years old he has an injury that affects everything he has worked for. It's hard."

On that play, Kuhn injured his anterior crucitate ligament, or ACL, the ligament underneath the knee cap that helps keep the bones in place.

"The ACL prevents the tibia from transversing forward on the femur," said Dr. Thomas Krizmanich, Kuhn's surgeon. "The majority of ACL injuries occur without any contact at all. They are caused by a sudden deceleration with a change in direction. For example, when an athlete stops and turns to the opposite side, it is easy to blow out a knee.

"(Craig) had an ACL tear. For an athlete, it is a fairly devastating injury."

"When I was in high school and college, an injury like this ended careers," said Desenberg. "The patient would start out with a cast for six weeks and then go from there. With all the scopes and reconstructive surgeries now, the recovery time has been greatly reduced."

"Everyone told me that (a quick recovery) would take hard work, a miracle and a good surgery," said Kuhn.

"For underclassmen, the typical return time is four to six months," said Krizmanich, "and they can pretty much count on missing an entire season. For a senior, it can be an 'end of the world'-type injury."

So Kuhn set out to reach a specific goal: Play his senior season of basketball for the Vikings.

"I'm a senior, and that was motivation, but I also wanted to prove people wrong," said Kuhn. "A lot of people tould me that I wouldn't be able to play basketball, but I wanted to prove them wrong."

In order to prove those naysayers wrong, Kuhn began a comprehensive rehabilitation program to heal and strengthen his injured leg.

"I would go to school and then go to rehab for quite a while, almost two hours sometimes," said Kuhn. "Then I would come back to practice with the team and do what I could with them, run the scoreboard or whatever. Then I would do my homework and go to sleep."

That rehab program included extensive physical therapy that centered around helping Kuhn return to the court as quickly as possible.

"With Craig we started out slow to increase his range of motion and strength," said Desenberg. "Then we worked on functional activities. Once we got to the functional activities, he was expected to do what he would do in practice, things like slides, shuffles steps and ball handling.

"We wanted to get him back in to controlled situations and get him some confidence. We worked a lot on footwork and switching directions. We tried to simulate basketball situations as best as we could, but you can't really simulate actual game situations."

"In order to come back to the level he was before, Craig not only had to work on his knee, but also on the cardiovascular aspect. Not only did Craig have to rehab his leg, he also had to work on his cardiovascular conditioning as well. On a normal day, he would warm up for 15 minutes on an elliptical runner. Then he would work out with a program of set exercises. Next he would work on the stairmaster for 15-20 minutes."

However, the difficult rehabilitation program was not the only challenge Kuhn faced after his injury.

"When came in, the rest of the team had already played eight to 10 games together and had a rhythm down," said Desenberg. "Then we had to put Craig back in and his timing wasn't the same as everyone else. That's why we wanted to get him back as soon as we could.

"Craig worked extremely hard. Physically he worked very hard in rehab. But it was probably harder to go back on the floor because he had to have the right mindset in place. Once that seed is planted in the back of your mind after an injury, the fear of another injury is always there. He was always thinking that if he stepped and turned wrong it could happen again.

"He'll probably always have the thought in the back of his mind that he could get hurt again. He doesn't play the easiest position. He's the big man in the middle, and it gets physical in there. He needs to push off the leg and turn to play his position, so he tests it everyday."

"At first I didn't think it (getting back on the court) would bother me," said Kuhn, "but the more I thought about it, the more it sank in. I became more anxious little by little. I was afraid that I was rushing it."

"He was released at 11 weeks," said Desenberg. "The fastest recovery I have ever seen is seven weeks. He could have been released at nine weeks, but we wanted to make sure he didn't come back too soon and have another injury right away. Jerry Rice went back too early and fractured his patella. We wanted to avoid an injury of that type.

"As it was, when Craig returned, the leg that was repaired was stronger than his non-injured leg."

"He was capable (of returning) at eight weeks," said Krizmanich. "It was simply his surgeon's concern that kept him out longer. I did not want to take the chance of him rerupturing his tear because he returned too quickly."

Finally after 11 weeks of treatment, the moment of truth came. On January 7 of this year, Kuhn played his first official game when the Valley Vikings took on the Southwood Knights in a Three Rivers Conference matchup. Kuhn finished the game 4-of-6 shooting with eight points and three rebounds.

"Coach (Bill Patrick) and I talked about Craig's return to playing," said Desenberg. "We wanted him to have success in his first game back, so he started in the first game when he returned."

Now Kuhn is a regular fixture on the 16-5 Valley squad. When he suits up for practice or a game, he sports a Terminator-like black knee brace as part of his uniform.

"I get ready for games like normal, I guess," said Kuhn. "I say a prayer and thank the Lord that I am back. I ask Him to watch over the whole team and keep them safe and free from injuries."

The statement on the back of Valley's practice jerseys sums up Kuhn's attitude: "To be a champion, you must be willing to pay a greater price than your opponent will ever pay." [[In-content Ad]]