HARVARD GAZETTE ARCHIVES

Staying Centered

Crimson's shot-blocker extraordinarie, Bill Ewing, struggles to the top after dramatic knee injury

By John Veneziano
Special to the Gazette

By now, we should know that nothing could have blocked Bill Ewing's drive to become a standout college basketball player.

Not a near-tragic injury suffered before the start of his freshman season. Not the pain and slow recovery that hindered his progress for nearly a year. And not the tough academic workload of being a chemistry major.

The senior center is an important cog in Harvard's frontcourt rotation, his slender 6-foot-9-inch frame looking like it was built to block shots.

But an injury suffered just weeks prior to coming to Cambridge nearly sidetracked his career for good. The Springville, N.Y., native was returning from a summer league game in Buffalo with his parents, enjoying the high of a 28-point performance in his team's victory.

"We were on Route 219 and I was stretched out in the back seat of our family minivan," recollects Ewing. "We went beneath an overpass and all of a sudden there was a crash through the front windshield."

The crash was a brick thrown at the car, and it happened at a time a few years ago when such cowardly acts were taking place throughout the East Coast.

"It grazed off my dad's right arm and hit me square in my left kneecap. In a way we were lucky. We could have all been killed.

"We headed right to the hospital," continues Ewing, whose father, Peter, is a 1969 Harvard grad who works as an internist in the Buffalo area. "At first, it felt like I had knocked knees with someone, but when I tried to get up, I just crumpled in pain."

The diagnosis was a fractured kneecap, forcing Ewing's leg to be immobilized for six weeks. The timing couldn't have been worse. He was preparing to attend Harvard after a fabulous senior season at the Nichols School, where he led his squad to the 1995 state title.

"I thought the coaches wouldn't want me with the team," says Ewing. "I came to school on crutches and with my knee in a brace."

When he finally got off the crutches, he could wrap his hand around his left leg. Yet he was determined to play basketball.

"It affected my strength, no doubt, and in practice I had to push around with Kyle Snowden every day," says Ewing, referring to the 1997 grad and Harvard career rebounding leader. "I figured if I could get through that, I could make it through anything."

Practice might have been the easy part. Ewing arrived an hour before workouts each day for treatment from then-trainer Anthony Cerundolo. Afterward, he stayed an hour for another session. When he returned to his dorm, Ewing would have four bags of ice wrapped around his knee.

"My approach to basketball is to get up higher and faster than other big men. But in my freshman year, I couldn't do either," Ewing says.

Despite his injury, Ewing answered the bell. He appeared in nine games as a freshman, then played in all 26 his sophomore season when he led the Crimson with 17 blocks. Last season, he saw action in 25 contests and drew four starts. In a February game against eventual League-champ Princeton, he scored a career-high 12 points on perfect 6-of-6 shooting from the field.

Ewing has grown with a senior class that is five players deep, and one that has the opportunity to make this the most successful four-year run in the history of the program.

Head Coach Frank Sullivan has only praise for this team player: "He's been passionate and determined to get the most out of himself from day one. More significantly, he has taken the good with the bad with an even keel, complemented with a will to be better the next day."

Aside from seeing the Crimson challenge for this year's Ivy League title, Ewing's individual goals include toppling the single-season blocked-shot record of Bill Mohler '88, who swatted away 50 as a senior. In last month's 84-70 victory over Holy Cross, he tied Mohler's mark for blocks in a game with five.