OSU men's basketball: Asheville without big man
7-7 George still recovering from deadly infection
Monday, December 22, 2008 2:59 AM
By
Bob Baptist
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH
It was the second week in August, little more than a week before the fall semester began at North Carolina Asheville, when men's basketball coach Eddie Biedenbach heard his center had an infection. "An infection," Biedenbach said last week by phone as he and his team bused the third leg of a weeklong trip from Asheville to Durham, N.C., to Beckley, W.Va., to Buffalo and Columbus and back to Asheville.
An
infection. Biedenbach (pronounced BEE-den-baw) said it in such a way as to make it sound like a blister.
"You figure he'll be out two or three weeks and maybe be late to school," he said. "We actually fixed up his schedule for him with anticipation he'd be back before the end of the first week of classes."
Kenny George still isn't back. He may never be.
The 7-foot-7 senior -- 7-9 in his shoes and orthotic inserts -- had everyone in Value City Arena agape during a National Invitation Tournament game against Ohio State in March. But he won't be in the arena tonight for the rematch between the Bulldogs and No. 17-ranked Buckeyes.
The infection George contracted at the Pete Newell Big Man Camp in Las Vegas was MRSA, a potentially fatal staph that is resistant to antibiotics commonly used to treat such infections.
After returning home to Chicago, he was hospitalized for three months in Des Moines, Iowa, and, according to news reports, had two surgeries on his right foot as he fought for his life.
"That was the first four days he was in the hospital. His kidneys began to fail," Biedenbach said. "That's when I realized we had something here a lot more serious than an infection."
George had part of his right foot amputated while in the hospital. He was released Nov. 20, is home with his parents and plans to return to school in January and graduate next spring with a degree in mass communications.
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