MIKE LUCAS Senior Writer Related Content • Varsity Magazine

BY MIKE LUCAS
UWBadgers.com Senior Writer

What would Corey Clement give to be playing again? To be running the ball again?

What would Clement give to be in the huddle again? To be the focus of the offense again?

"If it was my last wish on earth," he said, "that would be my wish."

Clement has not played since Wisconsin's Sept. 5 season opener against Alabama.

"I just want to run again -- be me again -- and be confident with every stride I take," he said.

It goes beyond what he wants for himself. He wants to help Wisconsin win football games.

"I want to be the catalyst for the offense," said Clement, a junior from Glassboro, New Jersey.

Until then, he's counting his blessings after underdoing sports hernia surgery.

"Some people aren't fortunate enough to play this game again," he said. "I have to be thankful."

Thankful that he's not dealing with something much worse -- like a career-ending knee injury. "I'm still able to walk," he said, "and contribute."

Clement was medically cleared to play last Saturday against Purdue and suited up for the Homecoming game at Camp Randall Stadium. He even led the players out of the tunnel before the opening kickoff.

"With what I did in the pregame warmup," he said, "I felt great."

"He was excited to be back in uniform," added UW coach Paul Chryst. "That's part of it."

Part of making his way back to the lineup. But he didn't see any action in Wisconsin's 24-7 win.

"I'm only two weeks and three days out of surgery," Clement was rationalizing Monday. "It's a mental process that I'm still going through -- building confidence back."

There's also a physical component after a bilateral procedure like Clement's.

"I need to get back to 100 percent," he said.

How will he know for sure when he's back? There's no guaranteed timetable.

"He'll know … we'll know," Chryst said.

•  •  •  •

When Clement first heard about the minimally invasive surgery, he was curious. When he learned the sports hernia specialist was in Germany, he was incredulous.

"I thought it was a joke," Clement admitted. "Who's going all the way to Germany? For what reason? And why when we have great surgeons here?"

Clement's reaction was understandable. But then he found out more about the world-renowned, Munich-based surgeon, Dr. Ulrike Muschaweck. "She's very special in her practice," he discovered.

From his point of view, Exhibit A was a teammate: Nick Thomas, a freshman from Florida.

When Thomas was getting ready to leave for Germany to have the sports hernia surgery, Clement wished him good luck. As in "good luck with that."

"I didn't think mine was that bad at that point," said Clement, adding that his mindset was that he would recover from his groin injury with normal treatment and "I don't need to go over there."

That all changed in a matter of weeks.

"They did more MRIs," Clement said, "and I had the same thing he (Thomas) had."

After Thomas got back to Madison, Clement took note of what he was able to do.

"Seeing how Nick was progressing so fast," related Clement, "I said, 'I need that treatment.'"

"We were really intrigued by her (Muschaweck's) procedure and technique," said UW assistant athletic trainer Brian Lund. "We vetted her with multiple other schools that had used her and they loved the outcome. Two weeks before Corey, we went there with Nick for five days and came back (to Madison)."

Soon after, Lund was packing his bags again to go back to Germany; this time with Clement.

The NCAA has a policy on such things, a bylaw which reads, "An institution, conference, or the NCAA may provide medical and related expenses and services to a student-athlete."

Wisconsin senior associate athletic director Justin Doherty brought clarity to the bylaw by noting that once the best course of action was determined by the medical staff (team physicians and athletic trainers), UW would be able to pay for any costs not covered by the athlete's insurance policy. 

"Basically we presented to Corey who we thought was the best surgeon to deal with this issue," said Lund, "whether that was in Munich, Germany, or anywhere else. We found who we thought was the best person to treat his injury."

Lund stressed that the No. 1 objective is to provide the best care for all of Wisconsin's student-athletes, not just high profile ones, like the starting tailback. The Nick Thomas example is illustrative of that point; he's an unproven first-year player, a linebacker who's redshirting this season.

"It's not about who he is or what position on the team he is," said Lund, who was the head football trainer at Indiana University from 2007 to 2012 before coming to UW. "Whether he's a walk-on or on scholarship, whether he's a starter or a reserve, we're going to treat them the same …

"… and everyone did a good job -- our doctors and medical team -- saying we don't have the answers here, we need to go somewhere else. And I give all the credit in the world to our staff to find the best spot to go."

In high school, Clement went to Spain for about a month as a foreign exchange student, so he already had a passport. Or at least he thought he still had a passport.

"It was almost the scariest moment of my life -- I flipped my room upside down and I could not find it," he said. "I'm thinking, 'Maybe I'm not going to get this surgery. Maybe I'm going to be done for the rest of the season.'"

Lund remembered getting a panicked call from Clement at 2 a.m. on the day of the flight.

"That was the most stressful part of the entire trip," said Lund, fearing an unexpected delay.

Staff were sent to Clement's apartment to look for the passport. It was under his laptop.

"And it was smooth sailing after that," said Lund.

That was particularly true logistically since Lund had gone through all of this with Thomas.

"The second time was incredibly easier," he said. "It was, 'OK, you get your train tickets here. You take this train to this subway. And here's the walkway to get to the hotel and her office.'"

There was one notable difference on the return trip to Munich.

The Germans were celebrating Oktoberfest, the world's largest beer festival.

Millions from around the world attend the annual 16-day event.

"It was hectic," Clement said with an impish grin. "You could tell where people were going because they were dressed in lederhosen -- and everybody dressed the part. Watching everyone get off the trains, I thought Madison was crazy, but they were much crazier."

Clement bought a souvenir beer stein. And dined on brats and sauerkraut, which he had never eaten before in the States. As for his German, he took a language in high school, but it was Spanish. Did he pick up anything from the natives? He nodded and said that he mastered "Do you speak English?"

But in an attempt to mouth, "Sprechen Sie Englisch" it came out "Speak-ah-day-English?"

"I said that a majority of the time," Clement confessed. "It was probably horrible, wasn't it?"

He answered his own question. "It was bad. But I got along just fine," he said.

He did learn one word, "Nein."

As a college athlete, it's always more beneficial to say no than yes.

And he was recognized as such -- as Corey Clement -- in Munich.

"There were some Badger fans over there, I was very shocked," Clement said. "Some from Chicago, some from Madison, some graduates."

Clement and Lund wore Wisconsin gear wherever they went. That drew some stares, of course. And a lot of questions for Clement about what he was doing in Germany -- in-season, no less.

"I answered that question about 30,000 times," he said with a sigh.

But he tried to take advantage of this unique travel experience.

"You want to be able to appreciate the different culture that you're around," Clement said. "As a tourist, you wanted to look at as much as you could. We saw some monuments. I wanted to try and make it to the Alps but it was too far of a drive. But you could see them from a distance."

On the flight to Munich, Lund and Clement discussed the game plan. Lund was meticulous in mapping out everything and creating an itinerary for Clement's family and the UW medical staff, documenting everything that they were about to do with times and dates.

"Me and Brian have gotten a lot closer," Clement said. "There was a lot of mileage and a lot of time spent together on the plan and the strategies and the new methods brought to our attention."

Namely he got a quick history of the Minimal Repair Technique before the surgery.

"I met a great doctor (Muschaweck) who broke down the whole thing on what she was going to do," Clement said. "Her practice has been around for a long time (since 1993) and she has been very successful in doing these surgeries on a lot of other athletes."

That put Clement's mind at ease. As far as the surgery itself, Clement recalled being in a "twilight" state. "I remember waking up basically," he said.

Lund pointed out that the prescribed rehab immediately following the surgery was to walk. So they morphed into American tourists while walking and seeing the sights of Starnberg, a Munich suburb.

But neither could ignore the fact that the Badgers were opening the Big Ten season against Iowa at home and they were 4,518 miles away from Camp Randall Stadium.

The initial plan was to view the game on the WatchESPN app at the hotel. But when it wouldn't load, Lund read the fine print: Not Available Internationally.

"So we got on Google and found a sports bar with ESPN," Lund said. "We jumped into a taxi and went over to a Marriott hotel -- a Champions bar and restaurant -- and got a table in front of a big TV."

Clement was back in his element encouraging UW tailbacks Dare Ogunbowale and Taiwan Deal to "go outside, or hit this hole," according to Lund. "He was like coaching on the sidelines," he said.

Except for one thing. They couldn't hear him.

"I was frustrated, so I just had to sit back and watch," Clement said. "There were a lot of Americans there and everyone was there for the same purpose -- to watch American football.

"They had a lot of games on the TV sets. Alabama was playing right after us, so there were some Bama fans. There were also Michigan State fans, even Purdue. Everyone was enjoying the atmosphere."

Except for Lund and Clement. Iowa won 10-6.

"To watch us lose …" said Clement, without finishing the thought.

But he had nothing but praise for Ogunbowale, Deal and Alec Ingold -- the tailbacks that have picked up the slack in his absence -- and he was extremely proud of Ogunbowale.

"Dare has done a great job in his primary role being the mature one, the confident one and the new leader within that group," said Clement, hoping to soon reestablish himself in that role.

Until then -- and since his return to Madison -- he has been making up for lost time in the classroom. "Some days, I couldn't really make it out to practice," he said of his academic workload.

Sunday, he reviewed the campus production of a play called "Tea" for his theater class.

"It was an extra credit thing," he said. "I'm trying to do it to make up for the lost work."

That definitely applies to his football, too. Clement returned to practice last week on a part-time basis. He didn't do much.

As Lund put it, "He has been cleared to participate -- as he tolerates things."

Clement figures to be closer to full-go this week.

"A lot closer," he said Monday. "I had a timetable of a minimum of four weeks and I think that I'm way ahead of that schedule.

"I'm going to have to get tackled in practice and see how it holds up. Whether I like it or not, I'm going to have to go through that. I don't want my first hit to be against, let's say Illinois."

On Saturday, the Badgers will play at Illinois. But before that, he must dive headfirst into practice.

"We want him to get bumped," Lund said. "We want someone to thud him up a little. We're going to emphasize that to the scout team that when he comes through the hole, put your shoulder on him."

Clement is ready for it.

"I think it all starts in practice," he said. "As long as the coaches feel like I'm 100 percent -- and back to the old me -- everything else will become easier."

Lund will be monitoring his every move.

"I want to see him get comfortable," he said. "Comfortable in and out of his cuts. Comfortable accelerating, comfortable decelerating. He doesn't have the pain from the surgery, but he has the soreness. And he has to be comfortable with the amount of soreness that he has.

"I want to see him gain confidence going through practice … hitting the hole and trusting … trusting that his body will be there to back him up."

That's the last step.

"You can go through the rehab," Lund said, "and you can run in our pools or on our fancy treadmills -- or you can run on land -- but you have to have total confidence in playing your sport."

That goes for any sport, for any athlete, male or female.

"We aren't forcing Corey to go until Corey is ready," Lund said. "Corey has to be the one to step up and say, 'I'm ready to play.' We can clear him to play but he has to be ready to play.

"We would treat it the same way if it was an ACL or he was coming back from a rib or elbow injury. If an athlete is not ready to play, then they're not ready to play."

And that's where Clement is right now. He will know when he's ready.

"I can't be selfish, no matter how many games are left as long as I can still produce numbers with the short time frame that I have," he said.

Others have volunteered their opinions.

Besides his family in New Jersey -- "Who are in my corner no matter what" -- Clement has sounding boards in Chryst and UW running backs coach John Settle.

Clement has also stayed in touch with Thomas Hammock, who coached him as a freshman. Hammock, a Jersey native, is in the midst of his second year with the Baltimore Ravens.

"They've given me a lot of pointers," Clement said.

Everything points to the same thing as far as knowing when he's ready to let it go, cut it loose.

"Go off how you feel," Clement has been instructed. "No one knows your body as well as you do. If you feel like you're ready, go ahead and play. Just think about the moment that you're in now."

Clement's deep, resonant voice belies his age. He's 20.

"I think I'm starting to get some gray hairs," he said. "The stress has kicked in."

Yet, he still believes that this will all be for the best.

"The injury happened to me for a reason," he said. "I was taking everything too fast. I just needed to sit back and take advantage of the opportunity I have."

Whenever that time comes, whenever he's ready for it.