Werner Regains His Health--and Spirit

Bryan Werner is acting like a kid again. Goofing around, hanging out with his friends, smarting off to his parents in fine teen-age fashion. Bryan, a defensive lineman at Esperanza, has an answer for everything now, his father says. He’s a regular comeback kid.

Bob Werner says this as only a proud father could, as if sassing back were some kind of Boy Scout virtue. Fact is, like the rest of the Werner family, Bob is more than happy to see that old Bryan spirit. It has been quiet for too long.

Four years ago, Werner and a friend were pedaling their 12-speed bikes home from school, zipping along, side by side, down the residential streets of Yorba Linda. The two eighth-graders had big plans that afternoon--homework and weightlifting. Freshman football was only a few months away. It was time to get strong.

They were riding fast--20 miles per hour if they were to believe their speedometers--and preparing to lean into a turn when a car horn blared behind them. Werner wanted to veer right, but his buddy was already as close to the right side of the road as possible. So he veered left, figuring the car would pass between them.

But the driver veered left, too, sideswiping Werner’s bike. Bryan flew over the handlebars, landed on his side and slid. He tried to stand up. The new clothes he had received for his 14th birthday four days earlier were torn and tattered. The pain in his left ankle was excruciating. He limped over to a patch of grass, laid down and cried.

Police and paramedics arrived and took him to the emergency room. Attendants checked and rechecked his neck. Werner assured them it wasn’t the neck that hurt. He pointed to his left ankle. They started cutting off his right shoe.

The confusion settled, X-rays were taken, the reality was this: Werner had a fractured growth plate in his left ankle. And a traffic ticket stuffed in his shoe. The final move on his bike was ruled an illegal left turn.

A lot has happened since that accident, most of which Werner would rather forget. It’s an understandable reaction. Five operations, countless doctor appointments, hours and hours of physical therapy . . . not exactly the high school career of which every boy dreams.

But for the last 3 1/2 years, getting healthy has been Werner’s only after-school activity. Several doctors told him early on to give up, that his ankle had been rendered so immobile he would never run or jump or backpedal again. At least not without considerable pain.

Werner listened carefully, nodded politely and tried to convince himself it wasn’t true. He was Bryan Werner, the big kid with the big future. The kid with all the tools. Coaches told him so. So did college recruiters. Every time they called for his older brother, Matt, they had a special message for Bryan. “Hey, kid,” they told him. “In a few years, we’ll be calling you.”

But his freshman season passed, then his sophomore season, then his junior. Each year brought new hopes, then more complications. The ankle would heal, but bone chips would surface and require surgery. The ankle would feel OK, but overcompensation would cause problems with his toes. Werner spent hours stretching, strengthening and icing--to what seemed to be no avail. Medical expenses hit the $40,000 range.

“Let’s just say,” Bob Werner says, “that we never had a problem meeting our deductible.”

About a year after Werner’s bike accident, Bo Jackson suffered a career-threatening hip injury. Werner stared up at Jackson’s poster on his bedroom wall. Then looked over at his poster of Michael Jordan.

“I was waiting for Michael Jordan to get hurt, too,” Werner says. “I almost took his poster down. I figured I was bad luck.”

After awhile, kids at school stopped asking Werner what was wrong. It was a relief. He was tired of explaining a situation he could hardly explain to himself. He didn’t go to football games, didn’t go to postgame parties, didn’t buy a letterman’s jacket or pose in a team photo. Last year, when Esperanza played Los Alamitos for the Division III title, Werner stayed home, watched TV and did homework.

“I had waited my whole life to play football,” he said. “It was too painful to be around it.”

So he surrounded himself with books and papers and calculators, and earned a straight-A average. He scored 1,380 on the SAT. He was an honor student, and had received just one “B” since his freshman year.

Still, he felt the void. The trophies of his youth--from soccer and Little League and basketball--were old and tarnished. He went out for water polo as a junior, got into great shape through the team’s summer conditioning, only to have surgery No. 4 end his water polo career before it started.

The fifth and final (he hopes) surgery--for the removal of one last bone chip--came last December. He started rehab early this year. With the help of his brother, Matt, now a junior tackle at UCLA, Werner sprinted, jogged and lifted weights, running stairs at a nearby elementary school and putting himself through agility drills.

It all added up to a starting position, among other things, for Werner, a 6-foot-6, 245-pound senior. Game days are now a big thrill. Team photos are a big event. His mother can finally start putting together that long-awaited Bryan Werner Football Scrapbook.

Esperanza defensive coordinator Bill Pendleton calls Werner the best lineman in the county--if you don’t count that super-recruited Aztec, Travis Kirschke. Certainly, Werner’s the most tested.

At an early-season game this year, Pendleton noticed Werner had something written on his arm. It wasn’t “Death From Above” or “Aztec Power” or any of the other Magic Marker tattoos the Esperanza linemen are known to wear. This one simply read: “Jude.”

Pendleton figured it referred to the name of a school. Or perhaps someone Werner looked up to. He was partially right.

St. Jude, Werner said quietly, is the patron saint of lost causes.

Barbie Ludovise’s column appears Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. Readers may reach Ludovise by writing her at The Times Orange County Edition, 1375 Sunflower Ave., Costa Mesa, 92626, or by calling (714) 966-5847.