For redshirt Earl, sitting out the season has been a pain

The pain in his back was there, and it couldn't be ignored. But he played through it.

The Nittany Lions needed him to help lead them through a 21-7 dream season, a tie for second place in the Big Ten, their first national ranking in 31 years and an NCAA tournament berth.

And he did all of this. He helped lead Penn State basketball to new heights and astounded many in the college basketball hierarchy who thought Penn State was only a football school. Life was good, and while success can help people forget many things, it did not help him forget the pain in his lower back. It was still there long after the dream season had ended.

But it was nothing a little rehab over the summer couldn't take care of, or so he thought. But summer came and went. The pain did not.

As summer faded into fall, Dan Earl knew the pain in his back needed to be addressed.

"At the beginning of last season I was feeling OK with some slight pain, but by the end of last year it was killing me," Earl said. "And I knew going into this year that it wasn't going to get any better. It was going to be the same or worse and, in my opinion, it could have been a lot worse without a lot of rest and rehab."

The one thing coaches value as much as anything in point guards, such as Earl, is their ability to make decisions. And now Dan Earl faced a decision bigger than any he had ever made on the court.

It was clear his back was not cooperating in his attempt to get it back in shape, and the basketball season quickly was approaching. He could either keep rehabbing and hope his back was ready by the time the season came around, or he could redshirt.

Redshirting would allow him to sit out, rehabilitate his back and return the following year refreshed and ready to play. But to an athlete such as Earl, it isn't always that simple. To athletes, playing sports is something they have done most of their lives.

"I've never not played an entire season," Earl said. "I've never not played any games."

There wasn't a time Earl could remember not playing with the little orange pill -- passing it, shooting it, just playing the game he loved. Not only would redshirting give him the option of resting his ailing back, it also meant for the first time in his life he would not be playing basketball. And that hurt as much as his back did.

He was at a crossroads. One path led to playing his senior year in pain. The other led to resting his ailing back while sitting on the bench. So like any good traveler who comes to a fork in the road, he asked for directions. He sought the counsel of specialists at Penn State and at home in New Jersey. He asked his parents for advice, and he talked with former teammate Matt Gaudio, who had been through a similar situation.

But one thing he never really did when it came to his back was talk about it. He wasn't being naive. He knew the stakes. He just didn't feel comfortable talking about it.

For Earl, the subject of his back was, and still is, something he guarded more closely than a Big Ten opponent.

"He's a man of few words as far as his back is concerned," his mother Janet said. "He really doesn't say too much about it."

In fact, he said so little that his brother Brian, a sophomore on the Princeton basketball team, never really knew how badly his older brother's back had gotten.

"He kind of kept it to himself, and I would hear things through my parents that his back was bothering him," the younger Earl said. "I really did not know how serious it was until he couldn't play."

And the fact was he couldn't play. If Dan Earl could not help his team by playing 35 to 40 minutes a game, he wanted to wait until he could. So on Dec. 18, after the Lions defeated Bradley, Earl announced he would redshirt.

That was two months ago. After he made the decision, Earl took some time off to reflect and get away. On the floor good point guards make decisions without much time to do so. But this time Earl had had plenty of time to make his decision and plenty of time to think about it after the fact. And to this day he steadfastly sticks by his decision.

"I never went back on my decision," he said. "Once I made up my mind, that was that, and I haven't really thought about it since then."

So with his mind made up he returned to State College, where a new life was awaiting him. Deciding if his back was enough of a problem to force him to sit out a year had been one part, fixing the problem was the second. It was time to begin rehabilitation.

Every other year Earl had returned to State College after Christmas to jump right into the Big Ten season. This year he was returning to State College to jump into a pool or onto an exercise bike to begin the long process of fixing his gimpy back.

Rehabilitation is not something Earl does whenever he feels like it. It is a five-days-a-week workout for him. He said in general the idea behind his rehabilitation is to strengthen the muscles in his back. That way, he added, as the season wears on, those built up muscles will not wear down, and his back will not deteriorate and bother him again.

"I have a big strengthening program that strengthens my abs and back muscles," Earl said. "The idea is that the stronger your muscles are, the less brunt on your spine and on your back."

A typical week for Earl finds him stretching and doing some strength training in the morning. Then in the afternoon he does cardiovascular work to try to get back into playing shape. The cardiovascular workout usually puts Earl on a Stairmaster or on a treadmill for several hours.

And while parts of his rehabilitation have him running in place, Earl is still moving forward and making progress. Considering where his back was when he began, any progress is another step away from pain. Earl said on a scale from one to 10, with one being where his back should be and 10 being excruciating pain, his back is about a two.

But while the pain in Earl's back has lessened, there is another kind of pain no simple rehab can rid. It is the pain of just having to sit and watch. Game after game he is forced to sit at the end of the bench in khakis and a tie instead of being on the floor in the blue-and-white uniform he has put on countless times over the years.

Just sitting there gnaws at him because he is a point guard. Being out on the floor creating and helping his team is what he does best -- sitting on the bench is not. It has left the man whose job on the floor is to be in control of most situations feeling kind of helpless.

"There have been a lot of different times that it has affected me this year," Earl said. "Especially the first game of the year when they were turning off the lights and everybody was running out, there was nothing I could do."

And then there was the team's first practice this season.

"(Penn State) coach (Jerry) Dunn called for the upperclassmen to demonstrate a drill," Earl said, "and I was just standing over there."

Earl's frustration manifested itself to his mother when he went home over winter break to watch some of Brian's games.

"It's been terribly hard for him to sit out this season," she said. "We were watching one of his brother's games and he said, 'Mom, I don't know how you do this.' And I said, 'What do you mean?' And he said, 'I don't know how you sit here and watch the game.' He was a nervous wreck watching his brother play, and he said it was much easier to be out there playing."

Although he cannot play, Earl can take solace in the fact he will be able to return to basketball. There was always the dark harsh reality this injury would be serious enough that he might not play again.

His doctors warned him about it and told him that was something he might have to prepare for. But he has kept that thought out of sight and out of mind and tried to stay positive.

"I haven't really thought about it, because I really believe that I am coming back and I am going to be fine," he said. "I don't think it is going to end my career."