eleven Athletes Whose Promising Careers Were Derailed past Injuries

Quondam Patriots running back Robert Edwards looked similar a star before a articulatio genus injury ruined his career. Globe file photo

By Jack Andrade

Few things haunt athletes and fans similar wondering "What could have been?'' yr after year and few things atomic number 82 to such lingering "What if'' scenarios similar injuries.

For all their rare able-bodied gifts, athletes are people too. They can exist injure, their bodies can intermission downward. Their dynamic talents and and hard-earned opportunities do non guarantee long-term success. Information technology'south rigorous and demanding to ask even these most chiseled humans to endure the wear and tear that comes with beingness a professional athlete.

Recovering from nevertheless another knee surgery, Chicago Bulls star Derrick Rose is the latest athlete with a potentially legendary career that seems jeopardized by an inability to avert injury. The 26-year-old suffered a medial meniscus tear in his correct knee in February, and basketball fans in Chicago and beyond fear he'll never regain the form that made him the youngest MVP in NBA history.

While Rose has a risk to recover and dominate again, non every phenom slowed or halted past injury has been so lucky. Here are 11 examples of dynamic athletes whose careers were cut short or irrevocably altered by injury.

11. Brandon Roy

A three-time All-Star in his commencement four NBA seasons, Roy was establishing himself as 1 of the game's top guards earlier articulatio genus issues caused him to retire — twice — earlier his 29th birthday.

The 2007 NBA Rookie of the Year had a procedure to remove a slice of cartilage in his left knee in 2008, and he tore the meniscus in his right knee in 2010. Roy was having trouble with a lack of cartilage in both knees during the 2010-xi season and had arthroscopic surgery on both of them. He retired later on that season due to his degenerative knee status and his comeback attempt with Minnesota in 2012 lasted just 5 games before he needed season-ending surgery on his right knee. He retired for practiced subsequently that season.

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10. Robert Edwards

The Patriots drafted Edwards in the first round of the 1998 draft, and he paid immediate dividends. The rookie running back out of Georgia rushed for more than i,100 yards. His promising career was forever changed by a freak knee joint injury in the "Beach Basin'' game during Pro Bowl near led to his left leg being amputated beneath the knee.

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Edwards fabricated information technology dorsum tgo the NFL every bit a reserve for the Miami Dolphins in the 2002 season, just would just manage 20 rushes across 12 games. He played four years in the Canadian Football game League earlier hanging it upward for skillful.

9. Daunte Culpepper

Daunte Culpepper looked similar the next large matter at the quarterback position in the early 2000's. A Pro Bowler in 2000 and 2003, Culpepper had his finest season in 2004, leading the league with 4,717 passing yards and completing 69.two percent of his passes. The 27-year-old added over 400 yards on the ground, threw 39 touchdown passes, and had merely 11 interceptions in a standout campaign.

A year later, Culpepper shredded his right knee, tearing his ACL, MCL, and PCL. He was traded to the Dolphins in 2006, and played just 24 more games over the last four seasons of his career, throwing 14 touchdowns and twenty interceptions in that span.

Every bit Tom Brady and Peyton Manning continued to play at a high level into their late-thirties, it'south easy to forget Culpepper was once on a like path every bit one of the peak young QBs of his era.

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8. Clayton Weishuhn

Weishuhn vacuumed upwards opponents in his brief NFL career, and he still holds the Patriots' unmarried-flavour record for tackles with 229 in 1983. That 229-tackle entrada was just Weishuhn's second season in the league, but it was the terminal full flavour he'd play.

A knee injury in Calendar week i of the 1984 flavour cost Weishuhn his third twelvemonth, and genu problems persisted and caused him to miss the 1985 flavour likewise. Groin and hamstring injuries limited him to just 4 games in the 1986 season, his last in the league.

Despite essentially having a two-year career, his impact on the record books is however felt today.

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7. Penny Hardaway

Over his commencement NBA seasons playing aslope Shaquille O'Neal with the Orlando Magic, Hardaway looked like a hereafter Hall of Famer. Not only was he a dynamic point guard who was a threat for a triple double every night, simply his "Lil Penny'' ads were making him a superstar away from the court, too. A serious left knee injury early in the 1997-98 season put him on the shelf, and he'd have four more than surgeries on that same knee earlier his career was over.

Hardaway moved on to Phoenix in 1999, and he meshed well with Jason Kidd in the backcourt. Simply microfracture surgery on his pesky left knee and the trade that replaced Kidd with Stephon Marbury didn't bode well for Hardaway. His days as a star were over, and he fabricated unceremonious stops in New York and Miami before retiring. Hardway never made another All-Star team after sustaining his outset knee injury.

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vi. Marc Savard

Savard arrived in Boston by way of Atlanta in 2006, and chop-chop made an impact as a top line middle and once of the tiptop play-makers in hockey, averaging but under 90 points per season from 2005-06 through 2008-09.

His career took a dramatic turn for the worse when he was blindsided past Pittsburgh's Matt Cooke in March 2010, sustaining a severe concussion. He returned for the 2010 postseason, but Savard suffered another concussion in January 2011 and was close down for the flavor. The Bruins went on to win the Stanley Cup, and Savard has not been able to play since. He nevertheless deals with the symptoms of postal service-concussion syndrome.

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v. Grant Hill

The 3rd overall pick in the 1994 NBA Draft, Loma established himself equally one of the all-time all-around players in basketball before multiple talocrural joint surgeries sabotaged his career. Ater six stellar seasons with the Detroit Pistons, Hill joined the Orlando Magic on a blockbuster deal. Rather than shine in Florida, Colina was besest by chronic ankle issues and and appeared in just 200 regular-season games between the 2000-2001 and 2006-2007 seasons.

Reinventing himself equally a player later on leaving Orlando to join the Phoenix Suns, Hill was able to play until age xl. After starting his career on a Hall of Fame pace, he would never make an All-NBA team after leaving Detroit.

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iv. Bo Jackson

A fixutre of any debate nearly the greatest accommodating athlete of all time, Bo Jackson was the offset athlete to ever be an all-star in both the NFL and MLB. A three-sport athlete at Auburn (he ran track too), Jackson was a fourth round draft choice of the Kansas Urban center Royals in 1986, as well as the number one overall pick in the NFL Draft by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers that same twelvemonth.

Jackson refused to sign with the Bucs and decided to focus on baseball game. Past 1987, the Heisman Trophy-winner had cracked the everyday lineup in K.C. and wowed fans with his strong arm, blazing speed, and powerful swing. Later the Bucs forfeited his NFL rights, the Raiders used a seventh round selection on him in 1987 and convinced him to play football during the baseball offseason. Early in his NFL career, Jackson crush out Hall of Fame running back Marcus Allen for a starting spot and exposed sometime Oklahoma superstar Brian Bosworth as something less than "The Boz.''

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Jackson led off the 1989 MLB All-Star Game with a monstrous home run, and he was named to the Pro Bowl in 1990. During the 1990 NFL playoffs, however, he was tackled from backside and dislocated his hip in a freak injury. Jackson never fully recovered from the injury and played just two more seasons in MLB in 1993 and 1994.

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3. Mark Prior and Kerry Woods

The Chicago Cubs have been through a lot of unfortunate situations over the last 100-plus years, just losing not one, but 2 blueish chip aces from the same squad seems unfair even past their standards.

At the age of 22, Prior went 18-6 with a 2.42 ERA in 2003. Wood, 26 at the time, went 14-11 with a 3.20 ERA. They were the top 2 strikeout pitchers in the majors, with Forest fanning 266 batters and Prior 245. With those two at the superlative of the rotation, the Cubs won the NL Central and were ane postseason collapse (featuring the infamous Steve Bartman play) from advancing to the Globe Series.

By 2007, Forest was out of the starting rotation and Prior was out of the major leagues. Triceps, elbows, shoulders, you lot proper name it – Forest and Prior were constantly battling the injury bug. While information technology looked like the Cubs had the best 1-two-dial in baseball for the foreseeable hereafter, the injury problems became the one opponent Forest and Prior couldn't strike out.

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2. Nib Walton

Among the greatest college basketball players of all time. Walton's UCLA teams won 88 straight games at one point. The large cerise caput's power to rebound, laissez passer, score, and block shots earned him the Naismith Trophy three times (1972, 1973, 1974) at the men's college histrion of the year and the No. 1 overall choice in the 1974 NBA Typhoon.

Selected by the Portland Trail Blazers with the No. 1 overall pick in the 1974 NBA Typhoon, Walton appeared in but 35 games equally a rookie so 51 in his second season. He improved that total to 65 games during the 1976-77 season, and so went on to announced in all 19 of the team's postseason games as it surged to an NBA championship. He would be named NBA Finals MPV and and so NBA MVP the following flavour despite missing fourth dimension with injury. Human foot and ankle injuries hampered Walton for the residue of his career. He played in just 47 games over the 4 seasons immediately after his MVP campaign. He did win the 1986 NBA Finals equally a valuable role player on the Boston Celtics, but NBA fans only got a blink of his immense talents.

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one. Tony Conigliaro

It's impossible to recall of tragic injuries in sports and not picture Tony C. The promising Red Sox slugger and Boston-area native hit 32 abode runs at the age of xx, and racked up 104 career dingers by age 22.

He was striking by a pitch only below his eye socket in 1967, and he did not play once more until 1969. His vision continued to deteriorate over fourth dimension, and Conigliaro was forced to retire after the 1971 season. He made a cursory comeback with the Red Sox in 1975, just he was never able to sustain the success he was once assured every bit a young superstar. Conigliaro suffered a massive eye attack in 1982 and died in 1990 at just 45 years old.

Tony C'southward legacy lives on in Boston and beyond. MLB named an honor after him to honor a actor each season for overcoming adversity. He finished his career with 166 abode runs, but he was probable missed out of hundreds more due to his misfortune.

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