METROWEST NEWS: Hip injury will not slow Nick DiAntonio!

Hip injury will not slow Nick DiAntonio . . .

By Eric Avidon
Daily News staff
MetroWest Daily News

    Injuries happen every day in sports.
    Runners pull hamstrings, basketball players roll ankles, pitchers tear rotator cuffs and have elbow trouble, and every athlete's knee is a ligament or two waiting to pop. But a little - or in some cases a lot - rest and rehabilitation, maybe an operation or two, and life goes on as normal. Maybe they're not 100 percent of the player they were before the injury, but in a lot of cases they are.
    And then there's the news Nick DiAntonio heard.
    The Milford native, now a sophomore at Assumption College where he maintains a 4.0 grade-point average and is a linebacker on the football team, hurt his hip early last season but played through the pain. After the final game he finally had it checked out, then had it surgically repaired.
    But it wasn't that simple.
    He'd torn the labrum in the hip, torn ligament teres in the hip, and developed bone spurs by playing with the injuries. No problem, surgery fixes all that, and Dr. Ti-Meng Yen performed an operation on March 6 at Children's Hospital in Boston.
    But the reason the hip was injured is a problem, and one surgery doesn't fix. He was diagnosed with congenital hip dysplasia. The hip socket is too shallow, can't properly absorb the wear and tear of every day life, much less football. Another labrum tear is probable. Eventual arthritis is a guarantee. Hip replacement is a distinct possibility.
    Football, of course, exacerbates all scenarios.
    "It crossed my mind to stop playing," said DiAntonio. "Before the surgery I said there was no way I was stopping, but then I talked to my uncle (a surgeon), my mom and Dr. Yen and realized I could do damage for life. I gave it thought, but after surgery changed my mind."
    The injury that led to the diagnosis happened in the very first game of DiAntonio's career at Assumption. He was wrestling with an opposing player on a punt return and felt the femur - the upper bone in his leg - pop out of the hip socket. He didn't think much of it, however, and played in every game the rest of the season.
    There was pain, and the hip clicked constantly, but injuries happen in football, players play with pain all the time assuming it's no big deal, and that's what DiAntonio did. After the season a conversation with his uncle, Dr. Peter Ennis, led to the thought that it might be a mechanical problem and he should get the hip examined.
    Then came the discovery that he didn't merely have a football injury, but a condition he was born with that will affect him the rest of his life.
    "I was a breach baby, and that was the first thing the surgeon asked me," said DiAntonio. "Most kids who are born that way have things that are screwed up."
    The feeling was that if DiAntonio played football, arthritis would set in pretty quickly - maybe in just three or four years - and another labrum tear was very possible.
    "My model is that I'd rather live 50 years as a lion than 100 as a lamb," said DiAntonio. "I have only two years left of football after this year, and then I'll coach but I won't have the chance to play after that. Not playing might have slowed the arthritis, but not much."
    DiAntonio is pretty good at football. He's just 5-foot-8 and 200 pounds, but he played in every game as a freshman, making 18 tackles, and this year has 14 tackles in five games. He was a standout at Milford, playing for the Scarlet Hawks when they made consecutive Super Bowls appearances, winning in 2007, and was a demon on the wrestling mat.
    You'd think a young man so involved in athletics would wonder why he has to deal with a hip that doesn't work at such a young age, not to mention the likelihood of arthritis and hip replacement - things associated with people in their 70s, not their teens and 20s. You'd think he'd be lamenting his lot.
    "My father passed away when I was 5," he said when explaining his perspective on his hip condition. "God blessed me with the hand I have, and I'm not complaining. I was granted the hips I have, and I'll play through it."
    After the surgery - which went so well that Dr. Yen hopes it will delay the onset of arthritis and potentially help DiAntonio avoid a hip replacement - there were weeks spent sleeping on a Continuous Passive Motion (CPM) machine, which is designed to prevent blood clots. The machine weighs 50 pounds, so it was set up at DiAntonio's home in Milford where he stayed over spring break, his brother Daniel - then a senior at Stonehill - sacrificing his own spring break to keep Nick company.
    After spring break came three weeks commuting back and forth to Assumption, Nick's mother Mary his constant chauffeur, before he could finally ditch the CPM machine and head back to his room at Assumption. Months of rehab at Sports and Physical Therapy in Waltham under the watchful eye of Carl Gustafson followed.
    Then came camp in August, the first football moves since surgery. And doubt.
    "When I first got back, I was tender with (the hip)," said DiAntonio. "It was the first time that I couldn't predict my movements. But it hasn't been a factor. It's clicked a couple of times in practice, but I don't think about it anymore."
    What he thinks about is winning a Northeast-10 championship before he graduates. He thinks about becoming a starter, and then all-conference. He thinks about that 4.0 GPA - more than he thinks about football - and striving for perfection each and every semester. He thinks about what he'll be doing after his playing days are done.
    He wants to teach. He wants to go home to Milford or one of the nearby communities and put his degree in math education to good use mentoring the next generations. He wants to coach football and wrestling. He's a theology minor, and wants to be involved in his church.
    He wants to take advantage of the what he has, living like a lion, and not worry about what he doesn't. No lousy hip is going to slow Nick DiAntonio.