Desperate Measures

For an instant, his future passed before his eyes and it was ugly and full of doubt.

Shaun Williams could be playing safety in the NFL, but it would be as a rookie third-round draft choice, or a fifth-rounder or even a seventh-round pick, and he would have had to miss his senior season at UCLA, miss a final chance at being a kid. And there were a lot of years as an adult in front of him.

It was going to be fun, a last hurrah with people he had gone to school with for four years. One more shot at a Rose Bowl.

There were games and awards to be won, because he had read the magazines and newspapers and seen the television shows that said he might be the best safety in college football.

And then . . . a punting drill, and a body was blocked onto his right leg, and it bent the wrong way and the pain was excruciating.

And so were the thoughts racing through his mind as he was carted off Spaulding Field, a towel over his head.

The Tennessee game, a personal challenge against quarterback Peyton Manning, was three days away.

“The problem in my mind was, I didn’t know what [the injury] was, but my ankle, my whole leg, was hurting,” he said Monday. “I didn’t know what it was, and when I got up and couldn’t put any pressure on it, I was like, ‘How long am I going to be out?’

“It was really scary. I was really frustrated, just disappointed, not sure what the future would hold, what the X-rays were going to say, what the doctors were going to say, how bad it was. I just really wasn’t sure.”

A 20-year-old thinks he’s invincible until he gets hurt.

“Any time a competitor is hurt, I think he’s going to be frustrated because you feel like you’re invincible out there,” Williams said. “Then, when you get injured, it’s kind of like a reality check and you just realize your body’s not invincible, that you can be injured just like the next guy.”

The verdict? A sprained ankle and Williams still doesn’t know the extent of it. He has missed two games--the two he perhaps most wanted to play--and has become a medical guinea pig. It’s a four- to six-week injury, and he’s trying to get back in less than three, to play Saturday against Arizona.

His fondest hope is that the hyperbaric chamber works.

It’s an old device getting a new use. The chamber has been used for years to help divers with the bends recover the use of their joints, and more recently, the Vancouver Canucks used it to deal with the jet lag that comes with being a West Coast team.

UCLA Hospital Medical Center got one to try on cancer and diabetes patients.

A patient sits in the chamber, which force-feeds oxygen. The theory is that more oxygen in the blood will hasten the healing process.

Williams is the first Bruin football player to try it, and it seems to be working. He was running at half speed in the second week, and tests will be conducted this week to see if he can go full speed because the Pacific 10 Conference schedule awaits.

“You can’t lose your best football player and be as good as you were with him,” said Coach Bob Toledo. “When you lose a guy like that, you drop off.

“[Backup free safety] Glenn Thompkins did OK. He lacks a little size and speed. But you’re not going to replace Shaun Williams. We don’t have a guy on our team that can replace Shaun Williams. He’s one of the better safeties in the country, I think.”

Williams wanted a chance to prove it.

“I saw myself . . . as a consensus All-American by the end of this year, and I knew that nationally televised games such as Washington State, Tennessee and Texas were key games, as far as that is concerned,” he said. “I think it kind of hurt my chances, especially as far as earning the Jim Thorpe award as the best [defensive back] in the country.”

He also wanted to prove it to NFL scouts, who saw him as a third- to seventh-round draft choice as a junior and have been revising that assessment upward in dealing with a senior class that is shaky at safety.

“That’s when you can go out there and show the scouts that you can play against the best,” Williams said of games against Tennessee and Texas.

The Bruin defense couldn’t really replace him, so coaches compensated for his loss, using subterfuge at safety, moving Thompkins and strong safety Larry Atkins, and roverback Wasswa Serwanga, around as the ball was snapped, to keep quarterbacks guessing.

It worked in a 30-24 loss against Tennessee when UCLA gave up only two field goals in the second half. And it worked at Texas, where the Bruins were 66-3 winners.

It has worked without Williams, and with the linemen and linebackers playing in-your-face defense against Manning and Texas quarterbacks Richard Walton and Marty Cherry.

“I didn’t expect anything less,” Williams said. “Football is a team sport. . . . One man does not make an offense or a defense. It’s not like tennis, not like track. It’s a team sport, and you can play the game of your life and the team can still lose.”

Or not play at all and the team can win.

The discouragement of the first week was replaced by optimism in the second, but the optimism has been supplanted by uncertainty.

Through it all, there have been visits to the chamber and daily six-mile turns on a stationary bike.

“This week, it’s a little bit harder because it’s still up in the air if I’m going to play against Arizona,” Williams said. “I’ve talked to family and friends. . . . I want to stay positive, but it’s very hard.

“I could have had two great games, against Tennessee and Texas, but I can’t think about it that way. Maybe it was good for me. Maybe my body will be that much more rested, more durable throughout the season.”

Maybe the pros will get more chances to take a look. Maybe there will be more games to validate All-American status. Maybe there will be more victories, a bowl game, more fun as a college senior.

The mind still races. It’s part of the healing process.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

NEXT FOR UCLA

WHO: Arizona

WHERE: Rose Bowl

TIME: Sept. 27, 12;30 p.m.

TV: Fox Sp. West

RADIO: XTRA (1150)

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