Artificial resuscitation

Sporting News, The, August 21, 1995 by Terry Hutchens

You are Wendell Davis, a former wide receiver in the NFL, and you are tentative, moving with trepidation, gingerly. You are measuring your steps as you approach the artificial surface at the Colts' practice facility in Indianapolis. You want to play football again. You want it so badly.

You've fought back from the surgeries.

But not the anguish.

Nor the doubt.

You sigh as your feet make contact with the artificial surface. A chill moves up your spine.

It is October 10, 1993, a fall Sunday in Philadelphia. You are 27 years old and in your prime, your sixth season with the Bears. You are concentrating on what you do best, something you have done most of your life -- catching the football.

Now you are lining up. You glance forward at the defensive back opposite you. Now to the side, to your quarterback, Jim Harbaugh. The ball is snapped. You blow off the line.

Your route is a post pattern. You've run it hundreds of times. You're now at full speed, the ball is in the air. But the pass is a little behind you. No problem. You adjust. This is what you practice for. You plant your feet and prepare to jump.

But this time something goes wrong. Your feet stick in the Veteran Stadium turf as if they were glued in place. Your momentum, though, is pulling you upward, like a basketball player going for a rebound. Something has to give.

It will be your knees. Not one knee. Both.

You feel something snap. It is your patella tendons ripping apart.

You scream in pain. You can't move your legs.

Your trainers and team doctor rush to your side. They straighten your legs. They look for your kneecaps.

They find them somewhere in the vicinity of your thighs.

You are back on the practice field now. As you run, you can't help but glance at your knees. But everything is fine, another test passed. You are moving one step closer to a comeback most believed impossible.

"That was a mental barrier that I had to get behind me," you say. You knew this day would come, when you would step onto an artificial surface for the first time since the day you were injured. "Coming here, it was something I knew I was going to have to deal with, but I had to block it out. Now that it's behind me, I feel like things are going to get easier."

You owe a debt of gratitude to Bill Tobin, the Colts' director of football operations, who, as the Bears' vice president of player personnel, made you a first-round draft pick in 1988. He calls you "a guy you never get out of your mind." Without Bill Tobin, there might not be a comeback.

You attend a training-camp workout in late July in Anderson, Ind., and see how things play out. At the workout, you find that your speed isn't what it once was, but your vertical jump has returned. You also show you still have -- in Tobin's words -- "vacuum cleaner hands."

"I still have the basic instincts to be a receiver," you say. "I just think you have to have some type of average speed to compete with the defensive backs."

You reach another phase of your comeback: After the workout, you sign a two-year contract that will pay you the league minimum this season and a considerable raise in '96 if you are back to full strength. This season the Colts have little financial risk, and you get to find out if you still can play football. You are more than pleased; the Colts had been the only team to contact you.

You blend in with the rest of your teammates. You appear no different than the players around you. No noticeable limp, no confining braces to hinder your steps. Even the 12-inch vertical scars that run down the front of each knee are difficult to see.

The first time Harbaugh, now with the Colts, sees you walk onto the field at Anderson, he does a double-take. He is amazed every time he sees you in practice. "It's a great story. There's never been anything like it that I can think of where somebody has come back from an injury of that magnitude," Harbaugh says.

The Colts' message to you has been clear -- take your time, complete your rehabilitation and when you're ready the opportunity to play is yours.

By your own admission, you live in the training room, and you spend a considerable amount of time with strength and conditioning coach Tom Zupancic.

"To catch a pass in a game again would be indescribable," you say. "I sat home for the last year and a half and watched the game that I love. I watched the position that I love to play, and I still get excited when people that I played with catch the ball.

"I can't tell you what it would mean to me to do that again."

The reality, however, is you are not sure when you'll be ready to play in a game. Tobin would like to find a way to keep you on their 53-man roster and see if you can be effective by midseason but his expectation is for you to be productive in '96, not this season.

The Colts may be a perfect fit for you. They are only three deep at wide receiver with Flipper Anderson, Floyd Turner and Sean Dawkins. Tobin envisions how you could be utilized in the offense. "One of the things I thought of first was how effective he could be as an inside receiver in Lindy Infante's offense," he says.