University of North Carolina Athletics
Now Healthy, Grant Ready to Rebound
September 25, 2003 | Men's Basketball
Sept. 25, 2003
TarHeelBlue.com continues an exclusive series focusing on the returning 2003-04 Tar Heel basketball players. Today, we focus on sophomore center Damion Grant. Check back each Thursday for updates on a different returning player.
By Adam Lucas, Tar Heel Monthly
CHAPEL HILL -- Damion Grant's freshman season was so frustrating that he was relieved to get bad news about his knee this spring.
It's not that Grant was happy that a postseason MRI showed a torn meniscus in his knee. It's just that after too many painful mornings and excruciating practices, the 6-foot-11 center was glad to finally know the source of his pain.
"Last year was tough because I put a lot of pressure on myself to perform," Grant says. "I just had to fight through it and keep playing, and then at the end of the year I found out I had a torn meniscus in my knee and I'd had that since the preseason."
ut the tear was just the beginning of the sophomore's knee troubles. He also suffered from tendonitis in both knees, a recurring problem that limited his ability to play or practice on back-to-back days. In early summer, he had a pair of surgeries -- one to correct the meniscus tear and another on torn ligaments in his thumb that proved bothersome throughout his freshman campaign.
The limitations were evident on the stat sheet. Grant played well in the month of January and heated up again in late February, but after a seven-point, six-rebound performance against NC State on Feb. 18 and five-rebound, five-point showing against Maryland on Feb. 22, he accumulated just two points and zero rebounds the rest of the year as the Tar Heels shifted to a smaller, quicker lineup at season's end.
Most of Grant's offseason activities were devoted to being able to contribute on a more consistent basis. Last season, any extended exertion resulted in a painful morning the following day.
"After practice I'd get up the next morning and hope and pray that by the next practice my knees would have calmed down so I could run," Grant says. "I couldn't walk up steps or down steps. I had a class on the third floor and it was like getting on the stairmaster. It got really annoying."
To reduce the annoyance, Grant and strength and conditioning coach Thomas McKinney have focused on improving his lower body strength. After arriving at Carolina weighing about 245 pounds, a few months in McKinney's strenuous weight program bulked Grant up to over 260, a weight necessary to bang with the ACC's biggest post players.
ut his relatively spindly legs weren't equipped to support that much weight, a problem the duo have been working to correct.
"In the past, he's suffered from poor lower body strength," McKinney says. "The biggest thing is for him to get his lower body in shape so that he can physically handle the pounding a seven-footer takes running up and down the court."
Head coach Roy Williams wants that running to result in more rebounds for the Tar Heels this season. Grant spent most of the summer at a relative's home in New Jersey, but Williams mailed his center several game tapes of Williams-coached Kansas teams to familiarize Grant with his role in the new Tar Heel offense.
He's played organized basketball for just three years after growing up playing cricket and soccer in Jamaica, but Grant is well aware of the expectations on a player who may be the only player equipped to play the center position exclusively on the 2003-04 roster.
"Coach Williams has talked to me a lot about rebounding," Grant says. "Last year we were outrebounded by over four a game, and this year that can't happen. Whatever he needs me to do, I'm ready to do it."
Adam Lucas is the publisher of Tar Heel Monthly and can be reached at alucas@tarheelmonthly.com. To subscribe to Tar Heel Monthly, click here.
