Knee Injury Forced Chapman Goalie to Learn Patience
Craig Bennett was drawn to Chapman University by its soccer team and its athletic training program.
But last September after only one soccer game at the school, Bennett became acquainted with athletic trainers a little too quickly for his tastes.
Early in the second half of the season-opener against Christ College Irvine, Bennett jumped to catch a ball that was crossing in front of him. When he came down, his right cleat caught the turf and the anterior cruciate ligament in his knee ruptured.
“I grabbed the ball and just threw it out of bounds because I was in so much pain,” Bennett said.
Despite the pain, Bennett played the rest of the game--a 2-1 Chapman victory--and in so doing damaged cartilage in the knee.
It was the last game he would play that season. Reconstructive surgery came next, followed by months of painful rehabilitation. For the first couple of months, the rehab sessions were three to four hours, six days a week. It was exhausting work trying to retrain his muscles to do things that once were instinctive. He was sleeping nearly 16 hours a day to recover from the sessions.
“I sat for hours at a time in my room trying to lift my leg up off the bed and I couldn’t do it,” Bennett said.
“The biggest thing I learned was patience. I was constantly asking the doctor, ‘Can I run yet? Can I jog yet?”
Bennett believes his experiences will help in his career--he hopes to be a trainer for a professional team--when he must help an injured athlete recover.
“I’m going to understand what an athlete is thinking and I’m going to understand the mental strain it puts on somebody,” he said.
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Bennett’s mind is at ease this season. He has recovered completely from the injury and says his right leg is stronger than ever.
Bennett is one of the reasons the Panthers (8-3-3) are having an outstanding season. Despite having no players on athletic scholarship, they are ranked sixth in the NCAA Division II West Region. Wednesday night, their six-game unbeaten streak was ended by UC Irvine, which won 3-1.
Bennett, who hasn’t missed a minute of play in 14 games, has recorded four shutouts and allowed only 19 goals.
Chapman Coach Gregg Murphy said Bennett’s aggressiveness improves the defense.
“He’s the type to try to make something happen rather than waiting to prevent something,” Murphy said. “You can see a change in our defense because of that. They are more relaxed and confident knowing that he’s back there and that just spreads throughout the team.”
Bennett, a 6-foot, 170-pound sophomore, was a three-sport standout at Piner High in Santa Rosa. He was an all-league goalkeeper on the soccer team and an all-league pitcher on the baseball team and kicked field goals for the football team that advanced to the North Coast Section large schools championship game.
Bennett played soccer for Santa Rosa Community College as a freshman, helping the team to the State tournament, where it lost in the semifinals to eventual champion Orange Coast.
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Solid ground: The Panthers men’s soccer team will play its first game in the campus’ refurbished stadium Saturday night against Concordia. The Panthers have played all their home games so far at Glover Stadium in Anaheim.
Concordia is 0-12 and has only scored two goals all season, but Bennett still believes he has something to prove.
“I’m looking forward to that,” Bennett said. “I caught some slack about how tough I was from them when I went down. They made comments that I was faking it to stall time.
“I’m just looking forward to it being a tough and physical game Saturday.”
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Biola will join the Golden State Athletic Conference for the 1994-95 season. The move was prompted by a recent NAIA decision to award national and regional playoff spots to conference champions instead of district champions. Biola currently is an NAIA independent.
Notes
Concordia men’s soccer player Dan Smuts, the team’s leading scorer last year with 10 goals and five assists, returned to the team Saturday wearing a brace to protect his right knee that was operated on after last season. . . . The Southern California College women’s soccer team finally scored the first goal in the program’s history, 12 games into the season, against Biola Friday.
