Foster Doesn’t Have an Easy Road : Rejoining NBA May Be Tougher Than Recovering From Accident

It is two years to the day since basketball player Rod Foster stuck his left leg out of his Jeep as it flipped out of control on a deserted dirt road in the Arizona desert.

Foster’s leg broke in two places above the ankle. After performing the first of three operations, doctors for the Phoenix Suns described the injury as possibly career ending.

For two years, Foster has been believing the possibly, and not letting his career end.

Foster, who played on UCLA’s last Final Four team in 1980, had been the Suns’ first pick in the second round of the National Basketball Assn. draft in 1983. He was near the end of his three-year contract with the Suns when he had his accident March 23, 1986, after a day of riding the off-road trails in the foothills of the Bradshaw Mountains.

“It couldn’t have happened at a worse time,” Foster said from a friend’s house in San Jose.

He’s taking a little break, now, between the end of the Continental Basketball Assn. season and the start of summer leagues in Los Angeles. His last team, the Rapid City (S.D.) Thrillers, didn’t make the CBA playoffs, so the season there is over.

Rapid City?

With a little laugh, Foster said, “Well, I’d been to all the big cities, so now I’m seeing all the little cities. I’m becoming very worldly.”

At 27, Foster knows that he had better make his NBA comeback soon. He’s hoping that the emergence of two expansion teams next season will give him a bit of a break. “If I don’t get picked up next year, I’ll probably consider my playing days over,” he said.

On that warm spring night in the desert, as he was sitting propped up against the Jeep with bungee cords serving as an emergency tourniquet to stop the gushing blood, Foster had wondered if his leg would heal well enough for him to play basketball again.

He had plenty of time to think about it while Mike Sanders, his teammate with both the Suns and the Bruins, started walking in search of a ranch with a telephone.

Ed Pinckney, another teammate with the Suns, stayed with Foster until a fisherman happened by on his way back from Lake Pleasant and took them in his pickup truck to the Maricopa County ranger station at the lake. Almost three hours passed before an ambulance could get Foster to a hospital in Phoenix, and it was another four hours before he was in surgery.

Foster, despite the accident, has confidence in his ability.

“I know I can play,” Foster said. “I don’t think that’s the question. What I have learned is that it’s a lot easier to stay in the NBA than to get in from the outside.”

By the time Foster was able to play, he was on the outside--despite having made an astonishingly fast recovery.

“It was a nasty injury, the way it was broken, but everything went right in the healing process,” Foster said. “I was in the hospital for nine days, and I had two more surgeries just to get the wound cleaned out. They left it open so they could continue to clean out debris. A guy was called in to make sure all the bacteria was taken care of. I guess a lot of things can get into an open wound in the desert.”

Foster left the hospital in a plaster cast but wearing a brace that allowed him to bend his knee. About a month later he was working out in the weight room, trying to remain in condition and maintain his upper body strength.

In June, three months after the accident, he was enrolled in classes at UCLA, finishing work on his degree. He also got a lot of advice and help from UCLA’s trainers and doctors. That summer he had a removable cast and started working at rehabilitating his leg.

He also worked with Bob Kersee, the UCLA women’s track coach.

By the summer of 1987, he was ready to play again. But the Suns had had a coaching change and were not interested in even looking at him. He did get a tryout with the Denver Nuggets, but they didn’t offer him a contract.

Foster said his shot was there, his speed and quickness were there. Even so, Denver Coach Doug Moe told him that, although he had played well during the two weeks, there seemed to be something missing from his game.

“I think what was missing was timing,” Foster said. “I’ve spent a lot of time in pickup games in L.A. with former UCLA players and Lakers and Clippers, really top players. I thought I was playing pretty well.”

Last November he went to Savannah, Ga., to play for Coach Henry Bibby, another former Bruin, in the CBA. A month later, he was traded to the Quad Cities (Ill.) CBA team. And then he was released.

“They didn’t give me any reason,” Foster said. “The coach told me I had played well and had played hard. But they needed to make room on the roster for a big man.

“I wondered if that was the Lord’s way of telling me my career was over. I went home to my parents’ house (in New Britain, Conn.) for a couple of weeks. And then I got on the horn and called every team in the CBA.

“Tom Nissalke (a former NBA coach) gave me a chance in Rapid City. I ended up starting there in the same backcourt with Montel Hatcher (still another former Bruin). I’m glad I did that because I had to know if I still had talents and abilities.

“I racked up some pretty good numbers and got to work on my point guard skills.”

Whether it was enough to get him another shot at the NBA remains to be seen.

“I’ve always had it pretty easy up to now,” Foster said. “I played for the best schools. I had been in the limelight. I was drafted in the NBA. This has shown me that things don’t always come easy. It has made me grow a lot.

“My faith in God has gotten me through. Since the accident, I have become a born-again Christian. The Lord has really helped me. Whatever I do, I do it wholeheartedly and give it my all.”