TAKING PAINS TO SUCCEED : Marcus Hopkins of Sunny Hills Bounces Back From a Non-Stop Series of Injuries

Marcus Hopkins regards seventh grade as a milestone in his life.

Sure, it’s a time when a kid’s life changes--amid confusion, self-doubt and pain.

The wonder years.

But what Hopkins remembers most is a little less abstract.

“I didn’t have to go to the emergency room that year,” he said.

For Hopkins, that’s something worth remembering. Maybe even celebrating.

Since the fifth grade, Hopkins, a senior on the Sunny Hills High School basketball team, has had an unusual run of bad luck. From concussions to broken bones to torn ligaments, almost every year has been a (mis)adventure.

But 1988 has been the worst. A year of confusion, self-doubt and pain.

Hopkins is trying to recover from a torn rotator cuff he suffered in January. He spent 4 hours in surgery, 3 days in the hospital and 8 months rehabilitating.

Through it all, Hopkins wasn’t sure if he would ever play basketball again.

“I was thinking all the time how I had worked hard for 3 years and now I was out,” he said. “I wasn’t going to get to play my senior year. It was a tough year.”

It started, innocently enough, with a rebound.

Playing against Buena Park, Hopkins, a 6-foot 6-inch center, went up for the ball but got sandwiched between two players and fell to the floor.

All that caused was a separated left shoulder. The killer was when Buena Park’s Gary Hunter, all 220 pounds of him, landed on Hopkins’ shoulder while he lay on the floor.

“Hunter just caught him in the right spot, and as big as he (Hunter) is, that’s going to cause some damage,” Sunny Hills Coach Steve White said. “If Hunter had landed anywhere else, all Marcus would have had was a few bruises.”

But the fact it was a freak accident didn’t make the injury any less severe.

“I tried to play, but I just couldn’t,” Hopkins said. “I ran back down court, but I couldn’t move my arm. The pain was tremendous. I walked to the sidelines and left the game.”

And went straight to the emergency room.

The doctor told Hopkins it was a separated shoulder and that he could probably play again in a week. Good news, just like the time he cracked a bone in his ankle but missed only 2 sophomore basketball games.

But the next day, the pain was so bad that Hopkins’ mother, Lauren, drove him to Martin Luther Hospital Medical Center in Anaheim, where she works as a nurse in the critical-care department. There, Hopkins received the bad news.

“The doctor said the rotator cuff was torn and that I needed surgery,” he said.

Now, Hopkins has been through a lot of injuries, resulting in many trips to the Martin Luther emergency room. It started in the fifth grade when he fell off his bicycle and suffered a concussion.

But nothing, not even that knee injury between his sophomore and junior years, compared with this one.

“All I knew was that rotator-cuff injuries usually happen to pitchers, and it usually ends their careers,” he said. “I was scared.”

Hopkins underwent surgery in March. But the shoulder injury was not limited to the rotator cuff. H had ligament damage and arthritis, which had developed since the injury.

A month later, Hopkins began rehabilitation. It was slow, painful work.

“They had pulled the ligaments tight, so I had to do a lot of stretching before I could even begin working out,” he said. “It hurt just to move my shoulder around. I lifted some weights, but mainly it was stretching exercises. For a while, I didn’t think it would ever get better.”

The hours spent in rehabilitation at Martin Luther Hospital, as many as 4 per day, became tedious. Hopkins often came home tired and depressed.

He thought about giving up basketball or sitting out the season and resuming at a community college. But neither idea really appealed to him.

“My family really helped me through that time,” Hopkins said. “I would come home and they would see I was tired. They would help me with my homework or try to cheer me up. They’d tell me jokes, wrestling around with me, anything to get my mind off it.”

Said Lauren Hopkins: “We could see he was discouraged. We just tried to support him and help him get through his rehabilitation.”

Hopkins made a rapid improvement in late summer, and by the time school started, he was sure he would play again. His schedule was to return in mid-January, but in November, Hopkins felt ready to play.

He was in the starting lineup for the Lancers’ season opener against Cerritos.

“The first play of the game, I go up for a rebound and get knocked to the ground and land on my elbow,” Hopkins said. “It really hurt, and my first thought was, ‘Oh no, not again.’ I got up and ran down court. It still hurt, but I wasn’t leaving another game.”

Hopkins hasn’t left one yet. He’s averaging 16 points and is the team’s top defensive player.

Said Lauren Hopkins: “We figure Marcus has had everything possible hurt, so this will be a great year. We’re due for a good one.”

Overdue, perhaps.

At age 11, Hopkins was riding his bicycle when a rope got tangled in his back tire. He was thrown over the handle bars, landing on his head. He was rushed to the emergency room, where it was determined he had a concussion.

That began a string of visits to Martin Luther.

In the sixth grade, Hopkins was involved in a fight after school and broke his hand. Again he was taken to Martin Luther, where his right hand was placed in a cast.

Two years later, Hopkins was elbowed in the back during a basketball game at school. Another trip the hospital, this time with a severe back strain.

A pattern was forming.

“Some of the nurses started to recognize me on sight,” Hopkins said. “I’d come walking into the emergency room, and they’d start shaking their heads.”

In high school, Hopkins continued his demolition-derby ways.

As a freshman, he broke his left ankle. As a sophomore he cracked a bone in his right ankle.

Then, between his sophomore and junior seasons, Hopkins was playing in a pick-up basketball game at Cal State Fullerton. He came down from a rebound when another player landed on his knee.

Sound familiar?

“I was lucky that time,” Hopkins said. “I got away with arthroscopic surgery on my knee. The way I’m going, I might as well get a membership for the rehab room at Martin Luther.”

Couldn’t hurt.

AN INJURY WAITING TO HAPPEN

With one exception since fifth grade, Sunny Hills’ Marcus Hopkins has made at least one trip a year to the Martin Luther Hospital Medical Center emergency room. Here’s a list of how he got there:

GRADE INJURIES Fifth Concussion from falling off bicycle. Sixth Broken fist in fight after school. Seventh No major injuries. Eighth Strained back in basketball game at school. Ninth Broken left ankle. 10th Cracked bone in right ankle. 11th Partial tear of ligaments in right knee playing basketball. 11th Torn rotator cuff playing basketball. 12th So far, so good.