Kansas forward Drew Gooden knows all about scaphoid bone injuries. Not as much as Jerod Haase does, however.
“I’m an expert,” said Haase, a former KU player who is now in his second year as an administrative assistant on coach Roy Williams’ staff. “I wish I wasn’t an expert, but I am.”
Gooden, a 6-foot-10 sophomore forward, missed five late-season games after it was discovered he had a small break in the scaphoid bone in his right wrist.
Haase played the entire 1996-97 season with a break in the scaphoid bone in his right wrist.
“It’s the same bone,” Haase said, “but in the X-ray you can’t see Drew’s fracture. The main difference is they caught his right away.”
Haase first injured his right scaphoid bone in the Nov. 22, 1996, season opener at Santa Clara.
“I don’t know what caused it,” Haase said. “All is know is that after the Santa Clara game, it was real sore. Then we went to Maui and it was sore there, too. It was a roller-coaster after that. Sometimes it would be all right. Other times it would be sore.”
Then came the Nebraska game on Feb. 1, 1997, in Allen Fieldhouse.
“I came down pretty good on it,” Haase said. “It was hurting, so they X-rayed it and found out it was broken.”
Haase had two options 1) suck it up and finish the season, or 2) undergo surgery right away and miss the remainder of the season.
Missing the rest of the season was not an option for Haase. He was a senior, and 1996-97 was the year the Jayhawks lost only one regular season game a 96-94 double overtime decision at Missouri.
Haase and everybody else was thinking NCAA championship, and the 6-3 guard couldn’t stand the thought of not being a part of it.
At the time, Haase said: “I have an opportunity to basically live out my childhood dreams this year. I won’t pass that up for a bunch of ifs in the future.”
Doctors told Haase it didn’t matter if he had the surgery in February or in April, that his chances of recovery would be the same. So Haase played on.
During the last month of the 1996-97 season, his wrist remained on the roller-coaster. “It’d be either sore or feel like not much more than a sprain,” he said.
Haase survived three Big 12 Conference Tournament games, but it was obvious he was struggling. The NCAA sent the Jayhawks to Memphis where they pounded Jackson State, 78-64, then disposed of Purdue, 75-61.
By then, Haase knew the damaged wrist “was definitely affecting my play.” Haase played 23 minutes against the Boilermakers, took five shots, made one and finished with two points.
Kansas had about a week off before it was scheduled to meet Arizona in a Sweet 16 game in Birmingham, Ala., and a decision was made to give Haase a cortisone shot.
“It backfired on me,” Haase said. “The cortisone was supposed to take away a lot of the pain and it didn’t. I don’t know why.”
Nevertheless, Haase was in the starting lineup when the Jayhawks tangled with Arizona. He played only 14 minutes, however, in what would be his last game as a collegian.
“I really couldn’t even hold the ball,” he said in reflection. “I wanted to play, but offensively I was a problem out there. I was a liability.”
Haase took three shots and made one it was a layup in the crushing season-ending 85-82 loss to the Wildcats.
On that memorable 34-2 Kansas team, Haase wound up as the third-leading scorer behind Raef LaFrentz and Paul Pierce with a 12.0 average despite averaging just 4.4 points in the last five games.
Today Haase, who had transferred to Kansas after spending his freshman year at Cal-Berkeley, assists in the day-to-day operation of the KU program while he pursues a graduate degree in business.
His basketball playing consists mostly of pick-up games in Allen Fieldhouse and Robinson Center. His right wrist, for whatever reason, has never healed completely.
“I don’t have the flexibility I had,” Haase said. “I’ve had two surgeries on it, and they say it’s not healed, and that I’ll get arthritis in it someday. Whether it’s now or 50 years from now, they can’t tell me.”
Those three-point goals that used to electrify Allen Fieldhouse crowds are merely a memory now.
“I can still play basketball,” Haase said, “but my shooting is more of a guess than anything.”
