Word: namath
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Lifting the Leg. No less important than the actual surgical repair of Namath's knee will be the retraining of his muscles to make his right leg at least as strong as his left. Even as he first opened his eyes after coming out of the anesthesia, the 195-lb., 6-ft. 2-in. athlete found Dr. Nicholas holding his ankle and ordering him to raise his right leg. When he tried to do so, the effort was almost as painful as his original injury. But Namath gamely kept trying. No matter how much it hurts, he will have...
...early October game against North Carolina State, Namath had rolled out on an option play and dropped suddenly as if poleaxed. No other player had even touched him. Under the strain of a sudden stop, his tensed knee had simply collapsed. First aid consisted of ice packs, and a couple of days later Alabama Surgeon Ernest C. Brock Jr. removed some fluid ("water on the knee") by inserting a hollow needle in the swollen joint...
...Florida game two weeks later, Namath's knee collapsed again; then it went out a third time in late-December practice for the Orange Bowl game against Texas. Incredibly, Namath, his knee taped and padded, played brilliantly through most of the game...
...With his fat contract in the vault, Namath flew to New York for surgery. He had felt pain mainly around the back and outer side of his knee. But at Manhattan's Hospital for Special Surgery, X rays taken after air and dye had been injected into the joint showed that the main trouble was on the inside. The medial meniscus, one of the two pads of cartilage that lie between the thigh and shinbone (see diagram), was torn and rolled back in a tight wad. This explained why Namath had not been able to straighten his leg completely...
...fluid. But in his examination of the joint, Dr. Nicholas found that a ligament had been pulled and stretched. To shorten and thereby tighten it, he doubled it back on itself and "plicated" (pleated) it with sutures. To be sure that there was nothing wrong with the outside of Namath's knee, where he had had pain, Dr. Nicholas made a second incision and took a careful look. It was in good shape...