Work to recovery pays off
Last year the Ferris Saxons went unbeaten on their way to the state 4A boys’ high school basketball championship. For the first half of the season, forward Evan Ewing had the best seat in the house, sidelined with a dislocated kneecap in his left leg.
“He had knee problems as a sophomore and worked really hard to get back,” said Saxon coach Don Van Lierop. “Then he dislocated his knee. It was a really painful dislocation in one of the first couple games of the season. I know he was extremely frustrated because he had worked so hard trying to strengthen the knee and did what he was asked. He just didn’t get to see the payoff and that is so frustrating for anybody.”
With the same determination he showed in his first rehab, Ewing fought to get back on the court with his teammates in time to hold the state trophy wearing a uniform, and not street clothes. The journey back didn’t come without its frustrations, though.
“It was hard, because when I got back it was kind of like restarting from where I was the year before that,” Ewing said. “I was watching everybody else get better and watching the team do well, and I was stuck where I was at. I did a lot of physical therapy that year, sometimes during practice, sometimes afterward. I’ve been doing some lifting and other things to get my legs back in shape. My physical therapist has given me a lot of exercises I can do to keep them healthy and strong and I’ve been trying to do those as much as I can.”
The hard work has paid off, as Ewing is close to being back to the level of play he wants.
“It does feel good,” Ewing said. “There’s no more soreness in it at all. I think it will very soon be back to 100 percent, actually. I’m sure there are times when I’m up in the air for a rebound, I kind of think about how I’m going to put my feet when I land, so I don’t come down weird. It’s kind of always in the back of my mind.”
“Coming back, he was limited in what he could do,” Van Lierop said. “He worked really hard at the end of last year, and this year he strengthened it more. I don’t remember any problems with it in the summer at all. I’m sure you have to go through something like that to fully appreciate being healthy again. The guys know he’s done everything he can do, too, and it’s great. We want him to be an inside presence. We want him to draw fouls. Evan is very fundamentally sound. He can go right or left, and has excellent quickness.”
Along with fellow seniors Beau Brett and Jared Karstetter, early in the season the 6-foot-5 Ewing was asked to fill the void left by the departed DeAngelo Casto in the middle. But Casto was recently declared eligible after transferring from a Seattle high school this fall.
With his final season at Ferris under way, Ewing’s health frustrations are firmly behind him and he looks forward to helping the Saxons back to the Tacoma Dome in March.
“It’s obviously a lot of work, and a lot of work mentally as well, but it’s worth playing with this team,” Ewing said. “I really like the group of guys that I’m with. It’s been worth it all of these years, even without playing and just being around them, but it’s definitely a lot more fun when you get to play. Confidence has never been something we’ve really lacked. Once you get a taste of it, you just want it that much worse the next year. This year we’ve set up to get the same thing we had last year. It’s everybody’s goal right now. It would be really nice. We’d like to do it and show that we’re for real again.”