It’s a warm July day in Shreveport, La., and Laura Milkert is playing basketball.
Specifically, she’s playing against some of the best teenage talent in the national Amateur Athletic Union girls basketball tournament.
But on this particular Monday in Louisiana, the student from York High School in Elmhurst will suffer an injury that affects her entire junior year.
“Heartbreaking,” says her mother, Kathy.
“Pretty devastated,” is how her father, Jim, describes how Laura felt.
“ACL” is how the medical profession describes it.
Anterior cruciate ligament injuries have made ACL as much a part of the English language as NBA, IBM and CIA. And research conducted by the NCAA indicates that female athletes suffer this injury far more often–almost four times as often–as males.
But no one is quite sure why.
“There are varieties of theories why the injury is more frequent in women,” said Dr. Mark Hutchinson, director of sports medicine at the University of Illinois-Chicago. “The most recent hot topic is estrogen receptors on the ACL.”
Hutchinson, who is also team physician for USA Gymnastics, which is the rhythmic gymnastics group, then went through the litany of causes that have been discussed: Girls start sports at a lower level of conditioning; girls are built differently, with wider hips and knock-knees; and “the little space where the ligament lives is smaller in a woman than a man.”
Milkert has plenty of company in dealing with the dreaded acronym. Allison Farrington of Libertyville, Tiffany Kelver of Warren, Jill Keresztes of Sandburg, Kate Varde of New Trier and Camille Williams of Morgan Park are just some of the players in the Chicago area struggling with ACL injuries.
The letters A-C-L are thrown around so casually in sports stories, one almost assumes the reader has an M.D. For those who don’t, let Hutchinson explain the anterior cruciate ligament:
“It’s one of four stabilizing ligaments in the knee. It keeps the knee stable rotationally and front to back. The woman taking that rebound has the same stress load as a guy, but is doing it with a smaller ligament.”
Varde and Williams suffered their injuries early in the 1997-98 season and are in physical therapy. Keresztes’ torn ACL was discovered in the fall while undergoing arthroscopic surgery to clean up some cartilage. She’s currently playing and will have surgery on her ACL after the season. Kelver hurt her knee last year as Warren was making its drive toward the state playoffs. She’s back this season. Coach Tom Murphy calls Farrington, who was injured while playing soccer and is back after tearing her ACL last year, “the most valuable player in the (North Suburban) conference.”
Milkert returned just two weeks ago and is still trying to regain the form that made her one of the area’s top sophomores.
After suffering her injury, Milkert and her mother flew back to Chicago the next day, July 20. Two days later, the 5-foot-11-inch forward was being examined by Dr. Bernard Bach of Rush-Presbyterian-St. Luke’s Medical Center.
A machine, the KT 1000, merely confirmed what had been expected, according to Jim Milkert.
“We kind of suspected it, and were told it would be a long, drawn-out recovery period,” Jim Milkert said. “And lonely for Laura. It would require a great deal of hard work and dedication.”
Initially, his daughter spent four weeks of physical therapy to establish a full range of motion and reduce swelling in the right knee. On Aug. 19, Laura Milkert had surgery to repair the damage to the ACL.
Hutchinson said that in the last five years rehabilitation schedules have been accelerated, and it was no different in Milkert’s case.
“The first physical therapy session was 2 1/2 hours after surgery,” Milkert’s father said.
That began a long, frustrating process for Laura.
“It was hardest at the beginning of the school year,” she said. “I was still on crutches. Normally, I would be playing volleyball.
“And it gets tedious and frustrating in therapy.”
Helping her through the tedium, according to first-year York girls basketball coach Andy Laux, was Dr. John Jevitz.
Jevitz, York’s head athletic trainer, “was very involved early, helped her through presurgery,” Laux said. “He’s the behind-the-scenes guy–I’m sure every school has one–who doesn’t get near the credit he deserves.”
September, October, November passed and finally, on Dec. 15, Laura Milkert got the good news: She could start practicing. That was good news, right?
“Oh . . . it was very intimidating,” she now says. “Just the idea of me being able to play had me scared. Beyond scared.”
Laux, who met with the Milkerts soon after she returned from Shreveport, said there’s no mystery as to how the ACL affected her.
“It’s a tough, tough thing,” he said. “Psychologically, it’s got to be scary.”
Milkert’s first game was Jan. 9 against Glenbard West, a team ranked among the Top 20 by the Tribune.
“I think Coach told me I was going to go in at the end of the first half. I could swear he said that,” Milkert said.
So Milkert said she was somewhat taken aback when Laux motioned for her to get into the game with 2 minutes left in the first quarter.
“The first time I went in I was totally hesitant,” Milkert said. “I got over it. In the second half I went out there and was more aggressive.”
As Laux expected, Milkert has made an impact in just the limited number of minutes she’s played. In her second game back, against Hinsdale Central, she had 11 points in only 15 minutes. Laux said she’s been averaging about 11 points and five rebounds a game.
“Oh, it’s not over yet,” said Milkert, putting heavy emphasis on the not. “But I’ve definitely passed the hardest part.”
Sara Petersen passed that point a couple of years ago and, in a way, provides someone like Milkert an example of how well things can turn out.
In March 1994, Petersen was a starter on state Class AA champion Glenbrook South. She accepted a scholarship to play for UIC and never had any knee problems in high school.
“I was just dribbling straight ahead in a practice,” said Petersen, remembering the day she suffered not only a torn ACL but a torn medial collateral ligament in her left knee. “The coach (Eileen McMahon) said, `Five more minutes.’ “
It was within those 5 minutes that Petersen went down.
“I could tell from the look on (the trainer’s) face that it was blown,” Petersen said.
Three years later, Petersen is a senior co-captain for the Flames and averaging 10 points a game. Maybe more important, she said, her left knee “feels better than the one that’s healthy.”
“The rehab was hard, but it builds you up physically and mentally,” she said. “I’m almost glad (the ACL injury) happened.”
