Lack of Speed concerns Cavaliers
Torn ACL benches Cavaliers star player
Kyle Speed, starting point guard on the men's basketball team, will lead from the bench after tearing his ACL. Speed is expected to miss the entire 2008-09 basketball season. Photo by Dane Kaplan.
One of the college’s best basketball players is done for the season and classes aren’t even in session.
Sophomore guard Kyle Speed suffered a torn anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) during a summer workout in what appeared to be a routine play.
“He was in the open floor and he just planted to make a cut to the basket and it was gone,” head coach Mike Jeffers said.
Speed knew his injury was severe but refused to believe it was as bad as it actually was.
“I had a feeling in the back of my mind it was my ACL,” he said.
“But I didn’t want to believe it until they actually told me.”
Speed had surgery on his ACL on July 31and started rehab on Aug. 4.
The recovery process will take around six months.
He knew going into the season hopes were high and he was going to be a big part of the team’s success.
“You work so hard to get to this level, to finally be playing and to be a big part of this team like my role was,” Speed said.
“It was just heart breaking.”
Jeffers’ coaching career was void of any sort of ACL injuries, until recently.
“I was real fortunate for 28 years to not have any players have any kind of ACL problem and we’ve had two in the past two years,” he said.
Kyle DeBerg is the only other player to suffer an ACL injury.
Jeffers said these injuries are inevitable at this level, especially to the best players because they are the ones who work the hardest.
The full effect Speed’s injury will have on the team remains to be seen.
Jeffers believes recruiting at a community college is different from four-year universities because instead of having a couple of new faces, half the team is made up of freshmen.
In most cases, an upperclassmen injury would not hurt some of the newcomers, but Speed is an exception.
He was an active part in the recruiting process by getting to know some of the younger players while embracing the teammates he played with last year.
Of all his years coaching, Jeffers said, this particular team is hurt more on an emotional level than past teams would have been.
Jeffers said now that Speed has left his coaching position from the court he will have to become a coach from the sideline.
“I’m a leader on this team,” said Speed.
“I’m just going to have to lead in a different way.”
Contact Corey Thibodeaux, staff reporter at cthibode@jccc.edu