Nonstop Injuries Level USC Women

The feelings of helplessness come in waves, sometimes engulfing her athletes, who seem trapped in a basketball season without end.

“We have to fight it every once in a while, the waves of helplessness, but I keep telling our kids the same thing--let ‘em pass by,” said Chris Gobrecht, the USC women’s basketball coach.

“I tell them there’s no time for a pity party, that there are lot of good things we can make of this.”

Injuries are the issue. At this point, Gobrecht’s team is better suited to a hospital ward than a basketball court. The entire senior class is sidelined. Four backcourt players, each of whom had been a starter, are out for the season. Even more frustrating, these injuries are merely the latest in a string of sidelined players that includes:

* Two-year starter Rashida Jeffrey, once one of the Pacific 10’s best jumpers, who had to quit basketball after 1997 because of arthritic knees.

* Forward Jody Parriott, a 1997 starter and at 6-foot-2 a pro prospect, who had to give up basketball last year because of a degenerative kneecap.

* Two-sport athlete Kim Clark, a guard who was sidelined after breaking her leg during the last soccer season.

* Junior guard Kiyoko Miller, who suffered a separated shoulder in a freak practice mishap.

* Junior guard Erica Mashia, a onetime Pac-10 freshman of the year who was coming back from a hip injury when she blew out her knee in the 1998-99 preseason.

* All-conference senior guard Kristin Clark (Kim’s twin), who had surgery after suffering an anterior cruciate ligament tear Jan. 4 at Arizona in what was the team’s biggest loss of all.

* Senior forward Adrain Williams, who sprained her ankle in the Jan. 23 UCLA game, making her the fifth starter sidelined this season.

“Without any of that, we have a heck of a team,” Gobrecht said.

“In 20 years of coaching, I’ve never even heard of a team go through a string of injuries like we have.”

It’s a season, she says, that has literally made her sick.

“Losing makes me sick, sick to my stomach,” she said.

“That’s the only thing that’s taking a beating, my pride. In the mornings, sometimes I don’t want to get out of bed. And the games are so hard. But this will pass. I have to keep reminding myself that next year, we’ll have a heck of a team.”

USC has a 15-player roster, counting redshirts. Four of them are gone for the season with injuries. Williams, the fifth, may miss more games because of her ankle injury.

Down to nine players, Gobrecht recently recruited Antoinette Polk off the USC volleyball team.

USC is 2-7 in the Pac-10, 6-12 overall and in danger of registering its all-time worst conference record.

Through it all, Gobrecht, in her second USC season, maintains a bright vision of the future.

“My attitude is, from here it’s onward and upward, to Pac-10 and national championships. I’d kill myself to get that done.

“I absolutely feel that way. Our time will come. This was an incredibly freaky thing to have happen--an entire senior class wiped out--but all of us see light at the end of the tunnel.

“We have everything going for us, a great institution, a great women’s basketball heritage. . . .”

And maybe, sometime soon, a 10,000-seat on-campus arena--that’s No. 1 on the wish lists of both Gobrecht and men’s coach Henry Bibby.

The proposed arena, to be built at the corner of Jefferson and Figueroa, would be USC’s nugget in the so-called Figueroa corridor, anchored at one end by the downtown Staples Arena and at the other by the proposed New Coliseum.

“If we had that, a beautiful arena everyone could see driving by on the Harbor Freeway . . . it would be over for the rest of the Pac-10,” Gobrecht said.

In the meantime, USC plods on with three freshman starters.

“With our injury situation, some people think we ought to pack it up,” Gobrecht said.

“These kids are not going to do that. That’s one of the great things about having a young team, these kids are out there to play.”