Raveling Leaves Hospital, but Won’t Coach Soon

USC basketball Coach George Raveling was released Tuesday from USC University Hospital but said he will not return to coaching for at least six weeks.

Raveling, walking with a cane, said at a news conference that he would need more rehabilitation before he has enough strength to return to the sideline.

“Today I am on the side of the mountain--I am not on the top of the mountain--and I have a lot of work to do to get back to being a normal human being,” he said. “Right now, my No. 1 priority in life is my health, and it probably should have been that way for a long time before now but it wasn’t.”

Raveling, 57, suffered nine broken ribs, a broken pelvis and clavicle, and a collapsed lung in a traffic accident near USC on Sept. 25. He had been hospitalized since.

“My official weight is 125--wait a minute, 225, and I can’t tell you the last time I weighed 225,” he said. “I would imagine at the time I came in the hospital, I was about 260 or 265. So, now the challenge is for me to keep my weight off.”

Raveling said the accident had altered his viewpoint.

“From my perspective, I don’t see how you can go through an experience like I have and have your life ever be the same,” he said. “I think the situation demands that your life is going to be altered and you change the way you do things. For example, I’m going to put greater emphasis on the way I eat, I’m going to put greater emphasis on exercise and I’m going to place my health at the top of the realm, when to be honest, I never did before.”

Raveling will return for three days of therapy a week at USC University Hospital and leave coaching the Trojans to assistants Charlie Parker and Jack Fertig, along with Adrian Walters.