Sports Reporter
Photo: Leah Davidson
A misdiagnosis. Multiple season-ending surgeries. The end of a career. Zack Adair has experienced the highest of highs and the lowest of lows throughout his football career.
Born and raised in the Grand Valley, Zack Adair started playing football in the fifth grade. He attended Palisade High School, where he started at running back. During his senior year, he suffered what was diagnosed as a deep knee bruise, an injury that could be played on.
“It didn’t hurt that bad,” Adair said. “All I was instructed to do was throw on a knee brace. It took a little to get used to, but I played through it.”
Adair finished a successful high school career and was offered a scholarship to play for CMU. After redshirting his freshman year, Adair experienced his first playing time that included three starts for the Mavericks in the 2010 season. Adair totaled 185 yards and two touchdowns in the few games he played, yet his work ethic and hard-nose running style (despite his 5’9,” 185 pound frame) is what garnered respect from his coaches and teammates.
The 2011 season saw a change in the offense, and Adair was featured more at slot receiver. Adair totaled 201 yards and one touchdown in what would be Adair’s last season playing football.
It was in his third year at CMU when the knee complications started to come back.
“The knee bruise that was diagnosed in high school was a misdiagnosis,” Adair said. “I had actually torn my ACL, and since I didn’t get surgery at the time, it never really healed.”
Adair re-tore the ACL during the offseason going into his third season for the Mavericks. Adair would have to sit out the 2012 season after having surgery that spring.
“I just started working so hard,” Adair said. “I was determined to come back. Football has basically been everything. I’ve played it for over half of my life so far. I needed to come back.”
After months of rehab and conditioning, Adair returned to the game. During the spring football camp of 2013, Adair’s worst nightmare returned.
“We were doing special teams drills, and I planted wrong, and it just gave out,” Adair said. “I knew right away.”
Later, an MRI would reveal a partial tear of the ACL.
“I was told I could either get surgery and sit out another year or wear a brace and just try to play on it,” Adair said. “It wasn’t torn all the way, and I felt I could do it.”
After a summer of rest and light rehab, Adair entered fall camp.
“I felt really good,” Adair said. “I was wearing a brace, and I felt prepared and confident.”
Three days into fall camp, Adair planted wrong and fully tore his ACL.
Sitting in his back yard on crutches with his knee, torn three times and twice surgically repaired, wrapped and in a brace, it was difficult for Adair to retell the unfortunate events of his football career, now officially over.
“It’s easy to say it is the most frustrating thing I have ever been through in my life,” Adair said. “When you spend so much time, three hours a day, six days a week, only to have to go through it again, it’s the ultimate let-down.”
Coming to terms with the reality of the situation is something that Adair still struggles with.
“I still haven’t gotten over it… I don’t think I’ll ever be over it,” Adair said. “I’m still kind of ‘shell-shocked.’ Like, ‘damn I’ll never be able to play again’… it’s tough.”
The ACL (Anterior Cruciate Ligament) is one of four ligaments in the knee but is the primary stabilizer. According to the Department of Orthapedic Surgery, there are between 250,000-300,000 ACL injuries per year, and they are happening almost exclusively to athletes. With at least nine months to a year of recovery, an ACL tear is a devastating injury to an athlete’s career.
However, because of the advances in research, rehab and arthroscopic surgery, 96 to 98 percent of athletes return to sports. After three tears and two surgeries, that isn’t likely to happen for Adair, who will not return to the playing field, explaining that he wants “to actually be able to do things and walk when I’m older.
The national perception of ACL injuries in sports has been a little misconstrued as of late. Adrian Peterson, the All-Pro running back for the Minnesota Vikings, suffered a devastating knee injury, tearing both his ACL and MCL in the 2011 season, and returned after eight months to come just shy of breaking the single season rushing record with over 2,000 yards.
“For every one Adrian Peterson, there are thousands who don’t come back,” Adair said. “He is truly one in a million. One in a billion, probably.”
Adair plans on staying with the team through this fall to help coach and root on his Mavericks from the sideline,v and coach Russ Martin spoke volumes on the heart and work ethic of Zack Adair.
“Zack is one of the hardest working young men I have ever been around,” Martin said. “I think that ever since I have been here he has been in the process of rehab. He works his butt off and is a tremendous, upbeat young man. He is still a leader for us even though he can’t be on the field. I wish I could have him healthy because of such a great work ethic… just a phenomenal character.”
Adair praised the honesty and commitment from Martin, who has honored Adair’s scholarship throughout his injuries.
“Coach has been great,” Adair said. “He has always been in my corner, even when I couldn’t play.”
Adair intends to graduate in May of 2014 with a degree in statistics and plans to be a statistician for a sports team in basketball, football or baseball.
“Sports has always been my life, and I plan for it to always be.”
Things haven’t gone the way Adair may have planned, but he feels that everything he has gone through has made him stronger. He says that all that is left to do now is “to live a normal life.”
ksparkhu@mavs.coloradomesa.edu
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