Evans’ Season Just a Footnote

Nancy Evans always knew that softball was important to her. But until about four months ago, she never knew just how much.

A hard-throwing junior right-hander for the University of Arizona, Evans was forced out of the pitching circle by a painful foot injury after she played in only six games in 1996. Her right foot did not heal correctly after surgery in September, missing the U.S. Olympic Trials that same month.

In the meantime, Arizona went on to win its fourth national title and Evans, watching nearly every game in uniform from the bench, caught a glimpse of what her future looks like without competitive softball.

“You don’t realize what you have until you lose it,” Evans said.

“Knowing that I couldn’t go out there and practice, that I couldn’t go out and play . . . knowing that and watching everyone else out there playing, totally redefined my whole outlook on it.”

Evans, who throws in the mid-60-mph range from 43 feet, says she doesn’t take the sport for granted any more. When she is able to practice again at full strength, it will be a pleasure, not a prerequisite.

“You could say I really grew up this year,” said Evans, a 1993 graduate of Hoover High in Glendale. “This really made me realize what it is going to be like [without softball] when I graduate. It was kinda scary.”

For the past 15 months, Evans has been in a holding pattern, waiting for her foot injury to heal; waiting for the pain to subside; and waiting for the NCAA’s decision on her appeal for a medical redshirt, which would allow her to play two more seasons.

As a three-sport athlete for four years in high school, Evans never missed a game because of injury. Not being able to play through this injury is what most frustrates the Southern Section’s 1993 and 1994 Division 4-A softball co-player of the year.

Her problems began in mid-March of 1995, while she was trying to score from first base on a hit down the right-field line.

“I was rounding third and I tried to round it real tight,” Evans said. “And when I planted on the base I guess I got a weird plant because when I pushed off, I felt it. It was like a tear.”

A school physician diagnosed a sprained ligament and gave her the option of sitting out on crutches for three weeks, or taping it up and playing after a week’s rest.

“Of course I wanted to play,” she said. “We had UCLA coming up the next week.”

After missing only a doubleheader against Oklahoma, Evans finished the season. She received therapy on the foot three times a day--in the morning, in the afternoon and after practice or a game.

Evans finished with a record of 31-4 and a 1.65 earned-run average, and batted .303 with 35 runs batted in.

Although she continued to perform at a high level, the pain in her foot never subsided--a fact she hid from teammates quite successfully.

“I didn’t even know that it bothered her,” said Amy Chellevold, a former teammate who became an assistant coach for Arizona last season. “I didn’t realize how much it was hurting her because she didn’t say anything and she was pretty tough through it all.”

But after Arizona lost to UCLA in the championship game of the Women’s College World Series, Evans sought relief and her ankle was put in a walking cast for three weeks. It didn’t seem to help. The pain did not subside.

In July, back home in Glendale for the summer, Evans was referred to the Kerlan and Jobe Clinic in Los Angeles. After examining a new set of X-rays, Dr. Phillip Kwong advised Evans that a ligament had torn off the metatarsal leading to the second toe and that bone chips were evident. She needed surgery.

After a failed last-ditch effort of wearing form-fitting insoles in her shoes, Evans had surgery.

Taking bone marrow from her left hip, the doctor used it to form a fusion between metatarsal bones in the foot and inserted a 2 1/2-inch screw to hold it all together.

For the next three months, Evans was on crutches, sporting an air cast from knee to toe. She was told to put no weight on the foot.

But the cumbersome cast didn’t keep Evans from throwing the ball. Kneeling on a cushioned bucket with the right knee, she worked on ball rotation, pitching with only arm strength. But that was nothing compared to taking a shower. For that she propped her right leg on the tub wall with her foot dangling outside the shower while balanced on her left leg.

“I found many ways to do certain things,” said Evans, who is a staggering 52-4 at Arizona. “I was creative.”

Home for the holidays, Evans was able to walk again without crutches late in December. By January, she was working out with the team, doing everything her teammates did except run. While they ran, she biked.

After six weeks of practice, Evans was on schedule and ready for the team’s opener Feb. 15.

“It [still] hurt and I was in pain, but it was pain I could deal with,” she said.

After playing in six of the first 10 games, she could deal no more.

Against Ohio State on Feb. 24 in the Arizona tournament Evans, who was seven for 13 in her short-lived 1996 season, hit a ball into left field but could barely hobble to first base.

Pitching was no picnic either. Her usual three-foot stride had shrunk to about a foot and a half. She could not push off the rubber without subjecting herself to excruciating pain in her foot.

“It just got worse and worse,” she said. “It got to the point where I was throwing low inside, low outside . . . low inside, low outside. That’s all I had. I was all arm. My rise was just flat.

“At the beginning of that tournament, I was running off the mound. By the end I was walking. Every inning I came in [to the dugout] I had tears because it hurt so bad.”

After the game, Evans removed her athletic tape to reveal a golf-ball sized lump on top of her foot.

“Girls on my team said it looked like an alien was about to pop out of my foot,” she said.

Another trip to the doctor in Tucson and she learned she had sprained another ligament in the same foot, compensating for the pain of the initial injury.

Her season was over.

Evans stayed on with the team, dressed for every game and experienced what it was like to be on the outside looking in for the first time in her life.

“I learned so many things I couldn’t list them all,” she said.

She also learned a thing or two about her teammates, who her friends were and who were not.

“Certain people thought I was faking it or milking it for all it’s worth,” she said. “People thought I was faking the pain so I didn’t have to run.”

Finally, on May 8, three weeks before Arizona won its fourth national title, Evans had the screw removed.

Nine weeks later, she is nowhere near 100%. Early in June, Dr. Kwong found a gap between the metatarsal bones that hadn’t completed fused. Six to eight more weeks he told her, then she can return to pitching.

She can only hope he’s right.