Guman Is a Veteran at Playing the Waiting Game on Injured Reserve

What Mike Guman wouldn’t do right now for the chance to dirty his game uniform, to send Ram laundry men shrieking into the night as they found, say, his jersey number obscured by fresh grass stains, his pants decorated with caked blood, his socks laden with sweat and grime and assorted filth. The way Guman figures it, you’re not really in a game unless you send these men whimpering afterward to their boxes of Tide.

But there’s the rub. Guman’s duds look like new. You could serve dinner on his jersey. Wrap a newborn in his pants. Clean the chandeliers with his socks. That’s because Guman and his uniform last saw action during the exhibition season almost six weeks ago. Arthroscopic surgery on his right knee saw to that, as well as the Rams’ decision to place the veteran fullback on the team’s extended injured reserve list, which means Guman has to wait at least another two weeks before he is eligible for re-activation. By then the Rams could be 6-0 and in no hurry to make personnel changes. By then . . . well, Guman tries not think about it.

“You can let it drive you crazy,” he said. “It can just drive you nuts. So you have to learn how to deal with it.”

Of course, this is like telling someone to deal with multiple root canals: It’s easier said than done. Guman would know, because this is his third trip to the purgatory that is injured reserve. You know you’re going to get out--but when? What do you during the wait? How do you cope with the uncertainty of the future?

This time it was some maintenance work on his troublesome right knee. The time before that, in 1986, there was a problem with his medial collateral ligament. In 1985, it was an injury to his posterior cruciate ligament that sent him to the injured reserve. So he is six-year veteran of both play and pain, which doesn’t make the wait any more easy, just more familiar.

“The time really goes slow,” he said. “It goes super slow. It seems like a week takes about a month to go by.”

Guman isn’t alone, of course. There’s linebacker Jim Collins, who also was placed on the six-week list, punter Dale Hatcher, cornerback Cliff Hicks, special teams player Tim Tyrrell, offensive tackle R.C. Mullin, among others. Tailback Charles White is off the active roster because of a substance abuse suspension. But the company doesn’t lessen the misery or the frustration that comes with watching. Stay on injured reserve long enough and you find yourself undergoing changes, some self-imposed, others caused by the nature of the game.

Guman said he has felt himself slipping slowly away from his teammates, from the weekly game plans, from the coaches and the intimacy of the game itself. It’s easy to see why. One moment you’re a starting fullback on a team destined for victories. The next you’re limping around the fringes of the sideline, your right knee puffy and swollen from another surgery. Things happen. Relationships are altered.

“You tend to wind up unconsciously ignoring a guy,” Ram Coach John Robinson said. “He becomes part of the woodwork. I think it’s one of the worst times in an athlete’s life.”

Back in college, some coaches used to make their injured players wear red jerseys, the better to identify those who could not play. With the Rams, it’s the stationary bike or another workout in the weight room or a quiet vigil on the sidelines. You’re part of the team and yet, you’re not.

“I think inherent in this game is (the mentality of), ‘Oh, he’s gone. OK, so-and-so will play,’ ” Robinson said. “I think the game is such a team game that you have to have the mind-set that no matter who we lose, we can still win. If you mourn the loss of someone very long, you create that situation where you say, ‘Oh, we can’t do it.’ I’ve always been a believer that a team has to have a psychological makeup of, ‘It’s too bad so-and-so is hurt, but we’ll be OK.’ ”

Guman understands this. “It’s part of the game,” he said. “Usually, if you’re around it long enough, you’re going to get injured.”

Just the other day it was defensive end Gary Jeter who went down. He’s out for possibly a month. There will be someone else. And someone else after that. There always is.

But how to deal with it. Guman simply tries to ignore the inactivity. He continues his rehabilitation. He attends all of the daily meetings. He studies the weekly game plan. He watches film with other players. He travels with the team. He does what he can to help out his replacement, rookie Robert Delpino. Recently he began practicing with the Rams again.

But there are limits to his involvement, which is the curse of the injured reserve. There are simply some things you can’t do.

Guman, expert that he is on the IR, has broken the experience down into phases. Beginning with . . .

Surgery and the aftermath: “In the beginning, you’re still injured, you have a cast on, maybe. You know you can’t be out there because you feel pain in your knee, your leg and you know you have to rehabilitate it.”

Separation: “I think when it first happens (being placed on injured reserve), you distance yourself. I mean, maybe a week will go by and then it’s like you’re getting removed a little bit, and then it just sort of happens.”

Frustration: “The hard part is when you start getting back and you’re at the point where you’re ready to do things and you still can’t play the games yet. You get anxious.”

Which is where Guman is right now. Patience can last only so long before the competitive desires of someone like Guman begin to take over. Most of the time, Guman is able to suppress the disappointment. But on occasion, he might take it out on his wife Karen, or one of his three children, who don’t have the foggiest idea why daddy is so upset. “They also help you keep things in perspective,” Guman said. “They let you know that even though you’re hurt and you’re not playing football, you’re still really important.”

Soon, perhaps by Game 7, Guman will be back on the Ram active roster. He can hardly wait. Even the laundry men are pulling for him.