Aren't you sick and tired of it? Aren't you upset and frustrated? Isn't it about time we went straight to the source and asked what's going on?
|  | | Tamika Catchings, left, and UT trainer Jenny Moshak had a lot to talk about during the Lady Vols' practice Tuesday. |
OK, let's do it. Today, we're going to talk to an anterior cruciate ligament and demand an explanation for why it continues to wreak havoc on women's basketball.
Now, it just so happens that I have two of them nearby. One never bothered to return calls. The other says it's willing to talk, if I will just calm down and stop the inflammatory rhetoric. I agreed.
But I lied.
MV: Hello, ACL.
ACL: You didn't say it.
MV: Say what?
ACL: What you really call me.
MV: Fine. Hello, freakin' ACL. Let's get right to the point. I think I speak for everyone by saying I really hate your guts.
ACL: Oh, nice, good way to get things started.
MV: You deserve it.
ACL: That's not what I mean. I'm talking about you publicly displaying your ignorance of biology. Don't you realize the deficiencies of your brain reflect badly on us other body parts? I'm a ligament, duh. I don't have guts.
MV: It's a figure of speech, duh. And everyone's well aware of your lack of guts. You fold all the time. Somebody makes a cut, you fold. Somebody lands on somebody else's foot, you fold. Somebody jump stops, you fold.
ACL: Oh, yeah, right. So everyone who plays has a torn ACL?
MV: It seems like it.
ACL: I know when women's basketball followers see any player get hurt, they're upset. When they see a great player like Tamika Catchings get hurt, they're beside themselves. But calm down. Sure, my ACL colleagues and I have gotten a lot of negative publicity. But it's the media's fault. Things get exaggerated, taken out of context, blown out of proportion.
MV: Florida coach Carol Ross played at Ole Miss from 1977-81. I asked her, "Are there more ACL injuries now, or do we just think there are more because women's basketball finally has some semblance of national media coverage?" And she said, "I've thought a lot about that. And I'm sure there really are more now."
ACL: Yes, but ...
MV: Want me to start naming names? Just since the end of last season? Oregon's Shaquala Williams, Old Dominion's Lucienne Berthieu, Penn State's Chrissy Falcone -- you've blown up on her three times, you louse -- Louisiana Tech's Catrina Frierson, Stanford's Susan King, N.C. State's Terah James, Boston College's Kim Mackie, Evansville's Shyla McKibbon ...
ACL: Very unfortunate, I agree ...
MV: Shut up! I'm not done. Tulane's Tymeka Moore, San Francisco's Carey Sauer, Florida's Tara Taylor, Ohio State's LaToya Turner -- that's No. 2 for her, isn't it, you punk -- Youngstown State's Brianne Kenneally, Purdue's Mary Jo Noon ...
ACL: Sure you don't want to blame me for Jamie Carey, too? How about Bush getting elected?
MV: Don't try to change the subject. You tear, you rupture, you snap faster than Norman Bates in "Psycho II." You're a disgrace to body parts. Look at the elbow -- the brave, noble elbow. In basketball, it gets jammed into ribs, and breastplates and foreheads and nostrils and stuff and what does it do? How often does it give out?
ACL: That is almost too stupid for me to comment on, but I will. You know as well as I do that nothing takes more of a beating in any athletic competition than the knees do. What you humans have decided to do with yourselves, the knees never agreed to. No one asked. You all just keep jumping and running into each other and going down mountains and doing crazy stuff ...
MV: What on Earth are you talking about?
ACL: I have two words for you: Picabo Street.
MV: All right, you jerk, nobody rips Picabo ... wait a minute, this is not about skiers. I love 'em, but I agree with you, they are crazy. This is about basketball, and what you've done to ruin it. Tamika Catchings wasn't going down a flippin' mountain, you craven piece of crap! And in 1998, Kristin Folkl wasn't ...
ACL: Ah-hah! Ah-hah! Ah-hah! You're never going to get over that one, are you? Your St. Louis girl didn't get to play in the Final Four in your back yard, after you'd been yack-yack-yacking about her all season. Did you even know the name of another Pac-10 player that year?
MV: Don't be ridiculous, of course. There was ... uh ... look, that's beside the point. For the last time, this isn't about anything but you and what a miserable failure you are. Yes, women's basketball has gotten much faster and more athletic. They're doing things they didn't use to do. But you give out often while people are doing a simple thing, something they've done a thousand times. Like driving to the basket. How many have you hurt? Take Monday's big game, Notre Dame's victory over UConn. Look at your victims there: Shea Ralph, Sue Bird, Niele Ivey ...
ACL: They all played, didn't they? Well, Shea didn't play much, but that's another story. Yes, I let all of them down -- but they all battled back.
MV: What about the time you took away from them that they couldn't get back? You took a postseason each away from Ralph and Ivey. You took almost a whole season away from Bird -- you caved after she'd already played too many games to redshirt. I'd like to punch you, I really would, except people sometimes get sent away if they start hitting themselves.
ACL: Well, you don't want to give any more gas to that engine, do you? But back to us ACLs -- yes, we let down all those women. Countless more. But what do they almost always tell you? Don't they say they learned from the adversity? And that things happen for a reason?
MV: People only say "things happen for a reason" when there's absolutely no good reason for them to have happened.
ACL: Oh, come on.
MV: It's true. They say that because they think every bad thing has to be cosmically counterbalanced by a good thing -- or else everyone would go nuts.
ACL: No, they say it because if something bad happens to you, it can only help to find the good. Didn't Kiesha Brown of Georgia tell you her ACL injuries at least let her realize there were other things in life besides basketball? And that she discovered she'd be OK even when her hoops career was over?
MV: She could have learned that without all the pain and rehab.
ACL: How do you know? And what about Ivey? She had to sit out a year in 1996-97? OK, the good is that it means this is her senior season, instead of last year, and maybe she'll get a chance to play in the Final Four in her hometown of St. Louis. Right?
MV: What, are we on "The Spin Room" now? Is there any length to which you won't go to deny that you're destroying basketball?
ACL: I thought you always say that the referees are destroying basketball.
MV: That's a future column. Stick to the point. Tell me what the good is in us not getting to see the rest of Tamika Catchings' senior season? Tell me how she benefits from this heartbreak? Tell me ... how do you sleep at night?
ACL: Do you think I like getting torn? And seeing kids cry and coaches in a daze? And watching parents wishing their leg had been cut off instead? I don't understand this any more than you do. Obviously, it affects women more than men. There are many theories: the U-shaped notch in the knee vs. the V-shaped notch. The wider pelvis. The strength of the quads. The menstrual cycle. Nobody has the exact answer yet. Maybe there isn't one.
MV: Don't say that. There just has to be.
ACL: Who knows? Maybe one day there will be a proper amount of medical research on concerns specific to women. Lord knows, we've got a ton of catching up to do in that area. Maybe they'll develop more effective preventative measures and equipment: better exercises, better shoes, some sort of vitamin combination ... Hey, maybe evolution takes care of part of this. Just as humans have lost certain things because they don't need them, they've gained other things when they do need them.
MV: Like what will they gain?
ACL: I don't know, I'm trying to make you feel better.
MV: Isn't there anything else we can do?
ACL: Perhaps not. Get mad, write these dumb columns where you're talking to yourself and then deal with it. Look, it really stinks. Tamika Catchings is such a great kid. She has worked hard, gone to class, already has a degree ... she's everything that's right about student-athletes. It really does tear you up. But the traits that have gotten her this far in life are what get her through this disappointment. Same with all those other kids.
MV: OK. But I want you to know this discussion hasn't changed anything between us. You're still a scoundrel. You're still the freakin' ACL.
ACL: I know. To a lot of people, that's probably what I'm always going to be.
Mechelle Voepel of the Kansas City Star is a regular contributor to ESPN.com. She can be reached via e-mail at mvoepel@kcstar.com.
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Catchings suffers torn ACL
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 Tamika Catchings drives to the basket, but falls to the floor with an injured knee.
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