Dear readers:Wash U guard Sean Wallis provides his latest Insider update. 
First things first: As a lot people already know and have been speculating, I got injured in our game last Tuesday at Maryville. I currently have a displaced tibial plateau fracture and a partially torn MCL. Winning by 20 points midway through the first half, I drove down the lane and Cam’s [Smith] man stepped over to help onto me. His defender accidentally stepped on my right foot then the rest of his leg crashed into my leg. Since he was on my foot—my leg had no way to give at the contact so it kind of just snapped and I heard a crack.
Luckily my dad was in town for the game and drove me to the emergency room for x-rays. I got looked at right away and got an appointment with our team doctor from Washington University Physicians, Dr. Matt Matava, early Wednesday morning. He’s an orthopedic surgeon and one of the head physicians for the St. Louis Rams and St. Louis Blues, so I’m very lucky that he’ll be working with me. Within an hour of the appointment, he squeezed me in for an MRI and within an hour after that we had the MRI results back.
The injury is going to require surgery by Dr. Matava this Tuesday to put a screw in my leg to fix the fracture. During the surgery there’s no plans to touch up the MCL—as he feels that will heal on its own through rehab by the time the fracture is better. Post surgery, I’m going to have to be on crutches for six-eight weeks most likely since I can’t put any weight on my right leg. After that the rehab will be strenuous for a few months. Doing the math: November + 4 months = March. To say there’s 100% chance I will not play the rest of the season would be a lie, but I’m not approaching the situation with expectations of coming back because it seems pretty unlikely.
Yes it sucks and yes I’m pretty bummed. But I will be miserable if I keep talking about the negatives so as my family says, I’ll tell you how I’m going to attempt to make lemonade from the lemon life has handed me:
-I have the options for this year being a medical redshirt year. The NCAA, I’m assuming, would grant me the redshirt since I played in less than 25% of the season. The issue here is whether or not after next year I would want to graduate with my peers and start “real” life (hopefully living back in Chicago with friends with a real job in the financial world and begin being a quasi-adult) or stay in St. Louis an extra year and pursue higher-education options such as an MBA or a MS in Finance and play basketball here. I’m going to meet with people in our business school (which I’m currently enrolled in as a Finance and Accounting major) to explore my opportunities if I’m looking to stay a fifth year. The good thing is I don’t think I need to decide this any time soon, but knowing the redshirt is an option is definitely nice.
-Next, one thing I’ve always thought about doing when I grow up (am I still allowed to say ‘when I grow up’ if I turned 21 last week?) is being a basketball coach. We’re down an assistant coach from last year so I’ve talked a lot about it with Coach Edwards and [Tim] Whittle with regards to working on scouting reports, sitting with them on the bench and really trying to be another set of eyes with them as opposed to sitting on the end of the bench. I haven’t been able to do as much this first week as I hoped with regards to scouting and preparation but post-surgery I know I can use this opportunity to better our team while determining if pursuing a coaching career is something I may want to do.
-Lastly, I’m thankful that this is an injury that will definitely heal in a reasonable period of time. With a torn ACL or a blown Achilles rehab can take a year and still sometimes people aren’t back to their full initial strength. Since the brunt of my injury is a fracture it seems like soon enough I’ll be back to full strength which is fantastic.
Moving on, with or without me, the team had a big weekend. We opened up Saturday against #5 Augustana. Tyler [Nading] said, “We kind of looked like chickens running around with our heads cut off.” We all knew there’d most likely be a transition period trying to find who was going to fill the point guard void and Augustana didn’t really give us much room to figure it out or seem to care that we were searching for an answer. They played some stifling full court pressure defense en-route to a 17-point halftime lead in which we had 12 turnovers. We did some things to really slow them down in the second half (they shot 29% from the field) while handling their pressure much better and cut the lead to two points with just over 40-seconds left– but they hit free throws to seal the deal and win by six.
We came back Sunday and got a great win against UW-Platteville. Tyler was UNBELIEVABLE. He completely dominated and put our team on his back with a career high 31-points, eight rebounds and school-record seven steals. It wasn’t even like he was on-fire or not missing, he just had a refuse to lose attitude that was contagious and we’re going to need that out of him the rest of the season.
I’ll be back next week with a surgery update and a recap from THE CLASSIEST tournament in the country- the 24th annual Lopata Classic.
Take care,
Sean
p.s. Since it is Thanksgiving-week and all—and most would guess I’m down in the dumps—here are some things I’m VERY thankful for:
-The Facebook messages and words from players/friends on Calvin, Carnegie Mellon, Illinois Wesleyan, Chicago, Rochester, Emory and both the players and coaches on UW-Platteville, Webster, Augustana, and Lake Forest expressing their distress about my injury
-WU Trainer Rick Larsen for taking care of me at the game and WU Dean of Students Justin Carroll for staying with me in the emergency room and hooking me up with a handicap parking pass on campus
-My sisters Jenna and Amanda (both on Glenbrook North’s 3-1 girls varsity basketball team!) and parents still coming down this weekend to hang out and see me even though I didn’t play
-All my closest buddies, friends, and family from home for their phone calls and texts
-All of the WU athletic family (C-Mitch especially) for support and kind words this week
-A few of my friends writing obnoxious responses to my last blog with regards to my love life, FIFA ‘08, hanging off-speed pitches from sixth grade travel baseball and calling Jon Scheyer for help with women (what a joke that would be—he needs all the help he can get!)
-My teammates and coaches for making me feel like I’m still a part of the team
-And lastly, Tyler for being the greatest roommate and best friend anyone could ever have. At the beginning of this week I was thankful for his ability to finish lay-ups on my full court passes, and now I’m thankful he’s willing to take care of me and help me put on my right sock.
Oh Sean, that hurts just reading it! I guess that only that would be worse would be a “youtube” of Joe Theisman. The human body just doesn’t bend that way.
My prayers to you during the “human carpentry” episode tomorrow! (And I vote for you to take the medical redshirt and come back next year. I am sure that you can find another 30 hours of coursework that you would like to take!) 🙂
Sean:
Thanks for writing this despite what must have been a very difficult week for you. I really enjoyed your humor and maturity in looking at the situation. Good luck with surgery tomorrow and we’ll look forward to following the Bears through your eyes.
Sean – I am sorry to hear about your injury. I can only say I am thankful, as are you, it wasn’t your ACL – as initially feared. I have injured my MCL, but not as severely as yours or with the tibia complication… so I can understand the fear, but can’t imagine being in your shoes.
I would say go for the medical redshirt so D3 basketball can have a player of your standards and skills around a year longer. However, since this is D3… the fact you are already considering your future outside of the sports certainly says more about you as a person. I am sure everyone will support your decision, not matter which you go for.
Good luck to your team and I wish you a speedy and healthy recovery!
Also, thanks so much for your insight and I look forward to whatever posts you decide to give us in the future.
Sean,
I’m sorry to hear about your injury. That’s a tough one to take but I trust you will be resilient and battle back, hopefully for the playoffs. You know, if one of your buddies didn’t throw you off a tube a couple years ago… well, I’ll just leave that alone. I also hope Tyler will be cooking you dinner as well as putting on your socks. Good luck in the recovery.
Ps. Scheyer can’t hold your jock in terms of love life.
Sean,
I’ve been reading your blog for the past couple of weeks on d3hoops.com and was stunned to hear about your injury. I did the radio broadcast for Hope College in the sectional final against Wash U. last year at Stevens Point and marveled at your performance in that game, how you controlled the tempo and hit seemingly every 3-point attempt you put up. It sounds to me like you have tremendous support from all corners. I wish you well on your recovery and hope you get an opportunity to return to the court. I’ve certainly enjoyed reading your entries and look forward to reading more from you. Best of luck to you.
Sean,
I was heartsick to hear the news about your injury and you have all the best wishes from my family and the staff at your junior high alma mater, Wood Oaks! You all think Sean is great now, you should have seen him in sixth grade! Best point guard and ‘coach on the floor’ I ever had, even though I sat him on the bench in our first game for taking a 17 foot jump shot the first time up the floor with no passes. Sorry about that dude! Sean played some hellacious D too. And he can dance! He beat Maple (Maple sucks!) on a last second shot in overtime and the whole team did the Horah in the locker room! I hope for a speedy recovery and lessons learned while sitting on the bench as an assistant coach. Now you’ll get to watch the best Wallis play some ball…Amanda! See ya buddy, all my best. D
1) Upside: more time to get together with the Carebears over Christmas break (yup, we can call it that here at ND).
2) Maple does kinda suck. Our colors were orange and blue, and that’s just ugly. Even if they are Illini colors. But, in 8th grade, both the girls’ and boys’ teams at Maple swept the Northbrook schools. And I rode the bench on the girls’ team, so that makes me pretty sweet.
3) I can’t believe you like to be made fun of publically? I am not down with that, so I’ll just make fun of Justin cause I am down with that. Oh, wait, I am ridiculously not funny. So, Justin sucks, the end. I love you both.
4)
http://www.dailynorthwestern.com/home/index.cfm?event=displayArticle&ustory_id=448c2195-84c6-4bd2-b761-5e3f7cd14e12
GBN male athletes/academic all-stars/all around good people and their bromances with roommate/best friend/teammates named Tyler and knee injuries. Kinda weird.
5) From your religiously-confused friend at America’s most Catholic university: Gam zeh ya’avor; this too shall pass.
See you soon!!!