Photo from Google Images
With 6 minutes and 33 seconds left in the first half of Sunday’s Elite Eight game Louisville’s Kevin Ware, a 6-foot-2 sophomore guard broke his right tibia bone in two places trying to defend a shot by Duke’s Tyler Thornton.
His leg was quickly covered. But the reaction from the team was as raw and real as the bone popping out of Ware’s shin. Teammates Smith, Blackshear, and Behanan all fell on the court in the sight of the gruesome injury and the devastation of seeing their teammate in pain. The Louisville bench players jumped back and covered their faces. Behanan and Coach Pitino both had to wipe away tears as Ware was laying down crying. Before Ware was carried off on a stretcher he told his teammates to “win the game”.
CBS only showed the injury in slow-motion twice then focused the reaction on his teammates and those on the court. Sean McManus, CBS Sports Chairman said the decision was due to the graphic nature of the footage. The injury wasn’t mentioned during the halftime show either.
The image of Ware’s bone sticking out of this leg that was not shown looked like a scene from a horror movie. Because of the open fracture, Ware had surgery immediately to avoid the risk of an infection.
#PlayForWare starated trending on twitter and condolences were sent all over from the sports and entertainment world. Former Redskins quarterback Joe Theismann may be the only other athlete to experience this kind of injury in the national spotlight. Theismann called Ware to let him know that he would be there for him, ‘there are not a lot of us who have gone through this’. Theismann’s career ended in 1985 after his injury. Theismann told Ware ‘A year from now, you’ll be the comeback player of the year’ and Ware said ‘I’m going to work for it’. Theismann said he’d be watching. We ALL will be watching and rooting for the comeback.
The Cardinals led 21-17 when Ware went down. They came back after halftime with the mindset to win the game for Ware and they beat the Blue Devils 85-63. Behanan put on Ware’s #5 jersey in the final seconds of the game in triumph, they won for Ware!
Coach Pitino left the Midwest Regional Championship trophy with Ware in his hospital bed and if all goes as planned Ware will be back in Louisville in time to charter the team flight to his hometown, Atlanta, for the Final Four.
I picked Louisville to win the NCAA Championship, but even those who didn’t have Louisville in the center of their bracket are now rooting for Ware to hold up the NCAA Championship trophy on April 8th.