ACL Repair a
THREEPOINTER for Kendall Sadler When Kendall Sadler ruptured his ACL playing basketball, he was determined to return to the court. He did, thanks to a skilled surgeon, savvy physical therapist and his own hard work.
After watching Michael Jordan play basketball on television one day, Kendall Sadler, then age 4, told his father, “That’s what I want to do.” The next day, his dad got him a Little Tykes basketball set and soon after a standup goal.
“I felt my left knee pop,” he says. But he was able to walk, run and do a little jumping, so he didn’t seek medical care. “It just kind of hurt. I didn’t think it was anything serious,” he says.
“I would play all day and night, in rain and snow,” recalls Sadler. The practice paid off. As number 21 for the Rossville High School Hornets, he achieved a long-time goal his senior year, breaking the school’s 23-year record for the most assists in any game—a whopping 16.
A couple of weeks later, his basketball buddies headed to the Harrison High School courts.
“It was a record I wanted to break. I’d been staring at it all year,” Sadler recalls. “With four minutes left in the game, I made a pass, we scored and there was a timeout. Then I heard ‘Congratulations to Kendall Sadler. He just broke the assist record.’”
It was a ruptured ACL, a common injury, he learned.
The love of playing still keeps the Purdue University student, now 22, on the court in games with friends. The usual group was shooting hoops at the university’s co-rec facility during spring break in 2011 when Sadler drove to the base line, jumped up, tried to pass the ball and came down. 10
DEFINING MOMENTS
“I went for a lay-up, came down on it and heard something pop. That time I knew something was really wrong.”
MORE ACTIVITY, MORE INJURY “Kids are playing more sports, and they’re playing all year round,” Dr. Peter Seymour, IU Health Arnett orthopedic surgeon, says of the high incidence of ACL tears he sees. He repaired Sadler’s ACL arthroscopically. “Even if they are focusing on one sport, they are playing longer seasons,” Seymour says. “That increases the number of exposures and fatigue. The more risk you take, the more you can get an injury.”