Stress Fracture

This was not the senior football season that Shawnee offensive lineman Tom Smith had in mind, especially after such a successful junior year. The 6-foot-4, 257-pound Smith was a first-team all-conference choice as a junior. During the summer and into preseason camp, he was limited by a sore back. Smith finally got it examined the first week of September and was told he had a stress fracture. Doctors suggested he rest for two to three months. So while Smith isn't out for the season, there is no guarantee he will play this year, either.

It appears St. Joseph's will have to nurture Delonte West for the remainder of the season, hold its breath, and hope its leading scorer can maintain his outstanding level of play during the Hawks' drive toward March Madness. West, the 6-foot-3 sophomore guard who is averaging 19.2 points a game, learned yesterday that he has a stress fracture in the lower part of his right leg. The injury was confirmed when West had a magnetic-resonance-imaging test. After missing Saturday's 76-72 win over St. Bonaventure, West returned to action last night against La Salle at the Palestra.

Losing the Big Hurt is turning into a bigger loss than expected for the Chicago White Sox. The Sox, chasing Cleveland in the American League Central, learned yesterday first baseman Frank Thomas, the major league RBI leader (85), will miss at least three weeks. Tests revealed Thomas, one of baseball's most durable players, has a stress fracture of the long bone of his left foot from the ankle to the toe. The two-time Most Valuable Player, in so much pain he couldn't compete in the home run contest or the All-Star Game in Philadelphia, was placed on the 15-day disabled list - his first trip to the DL since entering the league in 1990.

Phoenixville's Stacy Robinson had been waiting, and not very patiently, for this to happen. "My coach (Jack Kraynak) kept telling me that one of these days I would surprise myself and run a good race," said Robinson, who has been slowly rounding into shape after suffering a stress fracture in her shin in the fall. On Friday night at the girls' indoor track Meet of Champions at Lehigh, Robinson's wait was over. She ran well from start to finish and won the 1,000- yard race in 2 minutes, 38.58 seconds.

Saint Joseph's junior forward Dave Mallon will be sidelined for at least 2 weeks with a stress fracture in the second metatarsal of his right foot, the school announced yesterday. Last season, Mallon had a stress fracture in the third metatarsal of the same foot, which caused him to miss the first seven games of the season. Mallon will be re-evaluated by doctors after 2 weeks to determine his return to practice. The Hawks open at Kansas on Nov. 23 and host Davidson at the Palestra on Nov. 27. St. Joe's also announced the signings of three players - wing Edwin Lashley and forwards Alvin Mofunanya and Ahmad Nivins - to national letters of intent.

With jagged steps, her shoulders hung high atop crutches, Thais Serrano moved through the hallways of Central High yesterday. She hurt every time her weight shifted to her upper right leg, where a stress fracture was crawling through her femur. And she was aching because she won't be able to run and feel the wind brush her auburn hair for eight weeks. "But I'm OK. I'm OK," she told her cross-country teammates yesterday, with a heroine's grimace. Only a day before, Serrano ran through injury, set a school record, finished second in the Public League cross-country championships and led Central to its first girls' title in the sport.

Egg Harbor Township graduate Jen MacNeill has sat out the first five games this season for the Drexel University women's basketball team, and coach Kevin Murphy can't wait to get her back in the lineup. MacNeill, a senior forward who was a preseason first-team selection in the America East Conference (formerly the North Atlantic Conference), has a stress fracture in her right leg. "We really miss her court presence," said Murphy, who hopes to have MacNeill back when the Navy Classic is held Dec. 20-21 in Annapolis, Md. "We just miss having someone on the court who has been there, done that.

Villanova forward Jason Fraser will be sidelined indefinitely with a stress fracture in his left heel, the basketball team said yesterday. "We'll reevaluate it in three weeks to see if it's healed or on the mend, and then we'll make a decision on what comes next," Wildcats coach Jay Wright said. With four players due to serve suspensions of varying lengths at the beginning of the season - they were among a group of players who violated an NCAA rule involving the use of phone cards - Fraser's loss will further hinder Villanova as it navigates its early-season schedule.

Villanova point guard Jonathan Haynes, on crutches for the second time this season, talked with Alvin Williams on Saturday night, trying to prepare the sophomore to take over his job. "I told him, 'You've got to step up; it's your team now,' " Haynes said yesterday. Haynes will learn more today about the aggravated stress fracture in his right foot, which started to bother him in the preseason. He reinjured the foot in the first half of Saturday's 88-67 victory over Providence at duPont Pavilion.

Council Rock's Stacey Johnson has braved a hurricane and disregarded a stress fracture in the pursuit of her athletic dreams. As rain generated by Hurricane Floyd pounded Newtown on the morning of Sept. 16, Johnson and her parents, Ed and Sue, packed their Chevrolet van and drove 712 miles to Columbia, S.C. They didn't want to break their appointment to tour the University of South Carolina, one of two schools besides Penn State offering the 5-foot-10, 180-pound athlete a four-year scholarship to play softball.

This was not the senior football season that Shawnee offensive lineman Tom Smith had in mind, especially after such a successful junior year. The 6-foot-4, 257-pound Smith was a first-team all-conference choice as a junior. During the summer and into preseason camp, he was limited by a sore back. Smith finally got it examined the first week of September and was told he had a stress fracture. Doctors suggested he rest for two to three months. So while Smith isn't out for the season, there is no guarantee he will play this year, either.

He is a World Series champion, a one-time all-star, and a runner-up for rookie of the year, but these days Scott Podsednik is simply hoping to become healthy enough to return to the place where he feels he still belongs. The 35-year-old outfielder is on the disabled list for the triple-A Lehigh Valley IronPigs, suffering from a foot injury. It's a different injury from the one to the same foot that ended his 2010 season prematurely with the Los Angeles Dodgers. When the Phillies signed Podsednik last month and assigned him to Lehigh Valley, he believed it was a chance to return to the majors with a contender that could use a capable spare outfielder.

Guard James Bell, one of two incoming freshmen on this season's Villanova basketball team, has stress fractures in the tibia of both of his legs and will miss an undetermined amount of time, the team announced Thursday. The 6-foot-5 Bell, from Montverde Academy in Orlando, underwent an MRI exam Wednesday to check out the problem. He will not be allowed to engage in any basketball activities until his next evaluation, some time in October. "We're disappointed for James," Villanova coach Jay Wright said in a statement released by the university.

When this season began, Ruben Guillandeaux figured to be the fourth La Salle senior to reach 1,000 points. When Explorers coach John Giannini imagined what this team might become, he thought of playing with four 1,000-point scorers and freshman big man Aaric Murray. Well, Guillandeaux may reach 1,000 points. It just won't be this season. Guillandeaux has not played since Nov. 22 and will miss the rest of the season with a stress fracture in his right foot. "Losing a veteran ballhandler and shooter who has played at a high level was a major loss for us," Giannini said.

Cycling's governing body is relaxing its rules to allow Lance Armstrong to make his road-race comeback in Australia in January. The International Cycling Union said yesterday that the seven-time Tour de France champion can compete in the Jan. 20-25 Tour Down Under, his first race since coming out of retirement after three years. Strict application of the rules would have prevented the 37-year-old American from competing until Feb. 1, six months after he filed paperwork with the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency.

Jamaica's Asafa Powell ran his fastest 100 meters of the season and Yelena Isinbayeva broke her own world record in the women's pole vault yesterday at the Herculis Super Grand Prix meet in Monte Carlo, Monaco. Powell had no help from the wind on a humid night, winning his event in 9.82 seconds - six-hundredths of a second faster than he ran in Stockholm, Sweden, a week ago. The time was eight-hundredths of a second slower than his previous best of 9.74, which set a world record in Reiti, Italy, in September.

Joe Paterno is lobbying again for a major college football playoff system, calling the reasons against it "bogus" less than 3 weeks after the Bowl Championship Series decided to maintain its current format for the foreseeable future. The 81-year-old Penn State coach said yesterday he doubts if a playoff system would be enacted soon, particularly after a May 5 meeting of the 11 Football Bowl Subdivision conference commissioners and Notre Dame's athletic director ended with a decision to reject a four-team playoff and begin negotiations with the television networks with the current system in place.

Sophomore center Casiem Drummond, who has missed Villanova's last six games with a stress fracture in his right ankle, received clearance yesterday to resume practice with the team on a limited basis. While noting there was no timetable for Drummond's return, Wildcats coach Jay Wright said the coaching staff "will monitor his progress on the practice court this week and make a judgment [on] when he returns to the lineup. " The 6-foot-10, 275-pound Drummond last played Dec. 9, going only six minutes against Temple because of pain in his right ankle.

Randy Wittman is who Maurice Cheeks might have been. Wittman is the head coach with the .143 winning percentage, the shell-shocked team full of youngsters and the prospect of help in some distant year, from some kid who's probably in 11th grade right now. While the Sixers, to their credit, have continued to play competitive basketball most nights after trading their star, and are still near .500 in the Eastern Conference, Wittman's Minnesota...

The 76ers' players admit that they often try to get into the head of center Samuel Dalembert, giving him constant encouragement because of his vast potential. At times, he can play like an all-star, and on other occasions, he tends to disappear. Last night was one of those times when he showed up in every sense of the word. Dalembert came one block short of a triple-double during the Sixers' 98-94 win against the visiting Minnesota Timberwolves. It was the fourth consecutive win for the Sixers, who are 9-13 overall and 6-7 at the Wachovia Center.