Back on Solid Footing : George Has Returned From Surgery to Produce for the Splash in Crucial Situations This Season
His season lasted only six games. He was the guy most everyone forgot about.
He watched his Splash teammates win the division title.
They did it, mostly, without him.
Sam George watched and wondered.
Wondered about his feet--no small thing for an indoor soccer player--and what might happen if he broke them again.
“Scared,” he called it.
But he never doubted he would come back stronger than ever--which he seems to have done--after surgery on his right foot last June and surgery on his left during the off-season.
He has had three foot surgeries in 15 months.
“I think there was skepticism by the coaches, some of the other players and the front office, but I never doubted it,” George said. “I always knew I could come back with a lot of hard work and optimism. It never crossed my mind that I wouldn’t be able to come back. . . .
“My attitude was that I was going to give it my all and if it happens again, my career is over. But I don’t think it will happen again--I’ve worked hard in the off-season in physical therapy to strengthen the muscles around my foot and take other precautions--orthotics, wearing different types of shoes.”
By season’s end, George was only a vague memory to all but those who followed the team closely. He fractured his foot so early in the season, in Monterrey, Mexico, that it was easy to forget him and his crutches were a familiar locker room sight at home games. His teammates went about compiling the Continental Indoor Soccer League’s second-best record--20-8.
But here’s a key statistic from 1994: With George starting at midfield, the team was 6-0; without him, the team was 14-8; including five playoff games, the team was 16-11.
George is now doing his best to make a lasting impression. After six games this season, the Splash is 4-2; George has seven goals and one assist. His goal count is second on the team only to Dale Ervine’s nine.
“He’s probably been our best player,” Splash Coach George Fernandez said recently. “He’s been very consistent. He does the little things you don’t recognize; he’s working his butt off defensively and offensively.
“It’s given us an added dimension.”
It took George only three games to match his scoring total (four goals) in six games last year.
George scored the winner in the team’s second game in overtime against Portland, stealing the ball from goalkeeper Jim Brazeau and kicking from the left side corner--with his left foot (his off foot)--at an extreme angle, about two feet off the end boards.
After that bit of heroics, Fernandez was asked, “What is the value of Sam George?”
Fernandez, who had watched George play in only eight games over two years, said, “It’s hard to know.”
But it’s becoming easier to figure out all the time.
George is a role player, who does the grunt work while higher profile players such as Ervine and Raffaele Ruotolo take in much of the glory.
“We have five or six of the top players in the league who are legitimate all-stars. They’re the ones who are going to score the goals and pick up our team day in and day out,” George said. “My job is to follow their lead, do a lot of the dirty work, to make the runs off them. My job is to get the ball to those guys, to work hard. When Dale Ervine misses a shot, it’s my job to get the ball back and give it back to him. If there’s a 50-50 ball, it’s my job to win it. If there’s a ball in the corner where both teams are fighting for it, it’s my job to go in and get it.
“You wouldn’t make Joe Montana do all the blocking for his running backs.”
No, but George has been on the scoring end of a fumblerooski or two.
Two weeks ago, he put away two goals--including his second game-winner--in a 10-6 victory in Houston, a timely performance because it came 19 hours and two time zones removed from the Splash’s most embarrassing performance since the franchise moved to Anaheim--a 7-3 loss to San Diego.
George seems to be ahead of his notable rookie season when the franchise was the Los Angeles United. George was its No. 1 amateur selection and had 15 goals and 16 assists in 28 games for the league’s worst team. The United had no practice facility and not much chance to be competitive beyond the third quarter.
He said he learned more in two weeks from Fernandez than in 28 games in Los Angeles. Then came the long layoff because of the fractured foot. He said it was frustrating and positive.
“I was still new to the indoor game, and being able to sit back and watch taught me quite a bit,” he said. “But I’m very competitive and hated sitting out. Last year was the first time I had ever missed a game at any level. If there’s any way I can play, I will. We had a good year, there was a lot of growing support for the team and I really wanted to be a part of it.
“[Still], I was able to learn quite a bit--the strategy of the game, where to make runs, what to do defensively, which is a lot more complex than it sounds.”
George, 25, had enjoyed success at every level. He was a two-time All-Southern Section player at Mater Dei, including the Division I player of the year in his junior year, 1987. He was the cornerstone (and captain) on UCLA’s 1990 NCAA championship team and ascended to fifth on the Bruins’ career assists list.
“[Winning high school and college] championships made me aware of what it’s like to win day in and day out and accept nothing less,” George said. “You can make excuses after any loss, but I’m not used to losing; I’d rather win and not make any excuses.”
