THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, February 24, 1996 TAG: 9602240457
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY ED MILLER, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 176 lines
Fifth metatarsal.
Fourth time.
And, for Virginia Wesleyan's Jason Nickerson, a third straight basketball season lost to the same nagging injury.
These are the breaks of Nickerson's game. This is the story of a career that keeps getting off on the wrong foot, which for Nickerson always has been the right one.
Last month, Nickerson, a Kempsville High graduate, broke the fifth metatarsal bone in his right foot for the fourth time in 25 months. He already had broken it twice during his senior year in high school, and once last season as a walk-on at Old Dominion. The fourth break came as he was preparing for just his fourth game as a Marlin.
By now, the 20-year-old Nickerson probably could give a passable med school lecture on the diagnosis and treatment of the Jones Fracture, the medical term for his injury. He could hold court on the importance of restoring blood flow to the area, the effects of electrical stimulation treatment, and the relative merits of hollow vs. solid bone screws.
Nickerson has had both kinds of screws. He's had the ``e-stim'' treatment. He's had his foot in casts, and in a removable fracture boot that he's worn so often it resembles an old slipper. He wore a cast to his senior prom. He wears the fracture boot now.
But in a few weeks, if X-ray results permit, the fracture boot will come off. And, long after many people would have called it a career, Nickerson will begin yet another comeback.
``Quit? I'd never do that,'' Nickerson said. ``I'd feel like this got the best of me.
``I feel like if I can overcome this, I can do basically anything.''
Why quit before finding out how good you can become? Before knowing the feeling of a playing a full season injury-free?
Why quit when you're an incurable gym-rat who lives to play basketball?
``I can't see him ever saying, `Just forget it,' '' said Vernon King, Nickerson's coach at Kempsville High. ``Not if there's any chance he can play again.
``I feel for him. I felt for him when he injured it the first time. It's absolutely frustrating.''
Frustrating because when he's had two healthy size 15s, the 6-foot-4 Nickerson has shown signs of becoming a very good player. During his junior year in high school, the only injury-free season he's had, he and teammate Mike Francis led Kempsville to its best season since the J.R. Reid era. Kempsville split a pair of games with Joe Smith's Maury team, and he and Francis battled Smith to a draw. Nickerson was voted All-Beach District and second-team All-Tidewater, and was considered a low Division I prospect.
At Kempsville, Nickerson was a good leaper with a nice touch around the basket, and some nifty low-post moves. What set him apart, however, was his love for the game.
``He was never at home because he lived at the rec center,'' Kempsville coach Vernon King said. ``After practice we used to joke with him all the time. `You going home?' Of course we meant the rec. We'd ask him, `You lost the key to the rec yet?' ''
Nickerson could have had his mail forwarded to the rec center. But all the hours of pickup ball paid off. Through the first six games of his senior year, Nickerson was leading the district in scoring, and on his way to a banner reason.
``He was averaging 25.1 when he went down,'' King said.
Nickerson broke the foot in a pick-up game in December 1993. The diagnosis was a stress fracture of the fifth metatarsal, the bone that runs from the little toe along the outside of the foot.
``We put him in a cast,'' said Lt. Cmdr. Dean Olsen, an orthopedic surgeon at the Naval Medical Center in Portsmouth who has treated all four of Nickerson's breaks. ``It felt great at six weeks. The X-rays looked good, and at 12 weeks we turned him loose.''
It was not the first time Nickerson had been in a cast. He broke his left ankle the summer before his senior year. During his sophomore year, he broke the third metatarsal on his right foot, twice.
Both of those injuries healed nicely, and haven't troubled Nickerson since.
Nickerson figured he had nothing more to worry about, and began playing again. The second break came in March 1994, in another pickup game.
This time, Olsen put a screw in the bone, and took a bone graft from Nickerson's hip.
``I put a pretty stout screw in there,'' he said.
Again, Nickerson returned to the court. He made it through summer without any problems, and enrolled at Old Dominion, which had offered him a chance to try out for the team as a walk-on, even though he had missed most of his senior year.
``He has a passion for the game,'' ODU coach Jeff Capel said.
Nickerson practiced with the team, and was four days shy of his ODU debut - in the annual Blue-White intrasquad game - when he landed on center David Harvey's foot and twisted his own right foot so violently that he bent the screw Olsen had inserted.
``I asked 30 orthopedic surgeons, and every one said they've never heard of that happening,'' Olsen said.
Nickerson's case was quickly becoming the stuff of medical journals. Nickerson's mother, Janice, had had about enough. She told Jason he needed to quit.
But Jason wouldn't hear of it.
Olsen operated again, in November 1994. He took out the bent, hollow screw, and put in a solid one.
Nickerson's season at ODU was over. And with his foot holding him back, his transition to a new position, shooting guard, was slowed. With several scholarship players ahead of him, he realized that playing time would be hard to come by and didn't go out for the team this year, although he remained in school for the first semester.
For the spring semester, Nickerson transferred to Division III Virginia Wesleyan, where he would be eligible to play immediately, and thought he could contribute immediately.
He was right. Nickerson became eligible Dec. 30, against Division I Hampton, and scored 12 points off the bench. In the three games before his next injury, he averaged 13 points and five rebounds.
``It was quite obvious at that point he would be an impact player,'' Wesleyan coach Terry Butterfield said. ``He had basically two or three practices before his first ballgame and then he went out and scored in double figures.''
Nickerson didn't know all the plays yet, and wasn't in good basketball shape. Butterfield was anticipating huge things from him this season, once Nickerson learned the system and rounded into condition.
But during a shooting drill during a practice the day before the Marlins' game with Hampden-Sydney, Nickerson twisted his right foot again. He finished the practice, but knew something was wrong when the pain in his foot persisted.
A trip to see Olsen confirmed that the foot was broken again. But the screw was intact, and prevented the break from going all the way through the bone.
``I got about 10 opinions, and the consensus was not to operate because the screw was intact,'' Olsen said. ``We've put electrical stimulation on him, and we've had good results with it.''
Nickerson continues to receive treatment, and hopes to be able to remove the fracture boot in a few weeks.
``I think I'll take it easy for a while after that,'' he said. ``I don't want to push it.''
Should he come back at all? Olsen said there is nothing inherently wrong with Nickerson's foot - it's just that his type of break is difficult to heal.
``His foot shape is a little different than some, but I don't think that's necessarily responsible,'' he said. ``It (the fracture) is at kind of the watershed area for blood supply to that bone. It doesn't heal very well, and that's what bones really need to heal: good blood supply.
``He's just unlucky. It's just one of those fractures that doesn't heal well.''
The Jones Fracture was named by Sir Robert Jones, a British physician who in 1902 fractured his foot dancing around a Maypole.
The fracture is not uncommon among athletes, especially basketball players. But Olsen said he's never heard of anyone having four fractures.
In an attempt to prevent a fifth, Olsen is fitting Nickerson with a special brace designed to stabilize his foot.
Nickerson is confident the brace will do the trick. Meanwhile, he lifts weights and rides a stationary bike. He's lifted so much over the years - while waiting for his foot to heal - that he's added 30 pounds of muscle since he was a high school senior. He now weighs 220 pounds and can bench press an impressive 315.
``He's strong, he's quick, he's got good hands,'' Butterfield said. ``He could be a very nice player at our level.
``But I don't know if we'll ever be safe in saying, `It's better now, we'll never have this problem again.' To me, when a guy does this four times I don't know how they can be confident about anything.''
An optimistic tone is the only one Nickerson can take. He's got three years of college eligibility left, enough to have a good career. He'll put on the brace, step back on the court, and hope for the best.
``I just wish I could have a year or two with no injuries, just to see how good I could get,'' he said. ``I just want my turn.
``That's why I keep coming back.'' ILLUSTRATION: [Color Photo]
CHRISTOPHER REDDICK
The Virginian-Pilot
Jason Nickerson, who broke the same bone in his right foot four
times in a little more than two years, has had his foot in a
removable fracture boot so often it resembles an old slipper.
JOHN EARLE
Staff illustration
KEYWORDS: PROFILE by CNB