SPORTS COLUMNIST PETER JAKEY: Hurst still fighting pain of knee injury
It?s been a long road to recovery for Rogers City senior Cody Hurst who tore major knee ligaments in a Huron football game September 27, 2002 against the Whittemore-Prescott Cardinals. Hurst, who was playing quarterback, rolled out and tried to use his quickness to sweep the end, but ended up having a defender cut his legs out from under him. Hurst?s senior year as an athlete, and his life, changed at that moment.
?I think about it every time I?m at home laying down in my bed, about how much of an experience this was,? said Hurst.
After his surgery he started the long and difficult journey back to playing high school sports, with the goal of returning for games at the end of the basketball season. He pushed himself and that knee. In the past, athletes who sustained that type of injury usually didn?t return to sports. But today?s sophisticated physical therapy enables many athletes to participate in athletics again — as long as they are willing to work very hard.
?It seemed like it took forever,? Hurst said of the recovery. ?Going through physical therapy…lifting weights. It lasted forever.?
?HE WORKED very hard,? said his mother Nancy Hurst. ?He gave it his all because he wanted to play basketball before the season was over with. That was his goal.? Hurst?s love of basketball, and the frustration of not being able to help his classmates on the basketball court, was more frustrating than working the knee back to strength, he said.
?I wanted to get back and show people I have the will to come back, and the will to win,? said Hurst, who will enroll at Central Michigan University this fall and seek a degree in business management. A sports scholarship may have been a possibility, but because of the injury, it?s not a part of the plan anymore. He might attempt to try a college sports career as a walk-on, or participate in intramural basketball.
HURST IS PLAYING baseball for the Hurons this spring, and not only has he showed he is a ?special athlete,? but Hall of Fame baseball coach Howard Madsen has been impressed with his leadership skills. ?Not that he wasn?t a leader before, but it seems to me he?s really focused on what he needs to do this year, in terms of bringing the kids together,? said Madsen. ?I noticed a great sense of intensity. I think he realizes this is the final opportunity.? ?I know he?s very happy to be back,? the coach said. ?He?s been a big boost to our team.? Hurst plays centerfield, hits number three in the batting order for Rogers City, and leads the team in homers. As a pitcher, Hurst has two victories for Rogers City this season.
But that knee, and Hurst?s quickness, hasn?t been the same. ?His knee will never be completely straight,? said Nancy.
IT?S BEEN tough, but Hurst remains positive. Nancy says her son never has complained about the situation .
?I did lose a step a little bit, but I guess that is how it goes,? said Cody. ?My friends, who have had the surgery before, like Megan Grulke and Simon Streich, say you are going to be a little slower, and your knee is going to be hurting. ?I have to ice it and put heat on it and take all the medicine I have left, to take away the pain. It?s going to be like that for a while. I rushed to get back to playing sports and I guess I have to pay for it.? ?He seems to be determined to have a good year in spite of it,? said Madsen.
Hurst has proved a lot already, but there are more goals that remain. One that?s on the top of Hurst?s mind is district championship trophy number 14. He wants it in no other place than the RCHS trophy case. Hurst, nor the rest of the Huron ballplayers, want to see the streak come to an end.
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Number 500. The Detroit Tigers are on pace to win 50 games — maybe. At that pace it would take them 10 years to win 500 games. That?s the milestone reached by Huron baseball coach Howard Madsen last week and it took 22 years. The difference is the Tigers play 162 games a year. Rogers City doesn?t play one-third of that.
It?s a tremendous accomplishment for Madsen and the Huron baseball program, but he gives credit to the many talented players he?s had over the years. ?You stay around long enough, things like that happen,? he humbly said.
His career didn?t have the best start. In the spring of 1982, he took his first Rogers City ball team to Petoskey for a doubleheader and the boys hadn?t been outside to practice. There are drills you just can?t work on indoors, such as catching fly balls. In one of the games, a Petoskey batter hit a sky-high fly b
?My shortstop turns his back to homeplate and starts barreling out to centerfield,? Madsen explained. ?My centerfielder sees the ball and comes barreling in and they went face-to-face. All I saw was glass, because my centerfielder was wearing glasses at the time.?
It knocked both kids unconscious. Both of them ended up in the Petoskey hospital.
?Fortunately both of them were 18, so they could they could sign and get treatment. That was before we carried medical release forms,? Madsen said. ?I said ?holy cow,? is this what my coaching career is going to be like??
So Madsen started 0-2, but in the next game, Rogers City won Madsen his first of many, many games.