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Healing hands

After working with pro players for two decades, Hap Hudson helps high school athletes rehabilitate.

Hap Hudson wants to help.

That's what David Kelly "Hap" Hudson is all about. The 43-year-old has spent 20 years helping injured athletes from Venezuela to Japan using what he learned as an athletic trainer with the St.Louis Cardinals and Philadelphia Phillies.

During his time in the major leagues, Hudson worked with - or worked on - Willie McGee, Terry Pendleton, Ozzie Smith, Curt Schilling and Darren Daulton.

Now Hudson helps a different clientele.

He is the director of sports medicine for Sports and Orthopedic Rehabilitation Services Inc., and works with the Winning Inning Inc., the Clearwater-based youth baseball school. He still finds time to work with some old pro clients. He's helped Cardinals third baseman Scott Rolen rehab a bad back and shoulder and train the past three years.

Because that's what Hudson does: help.

"My goal is to make them better than they were when they came to me," Hudson said. "Our whole goal is to fix 'em. I have a passion for that. I'm a competitive person, and to me the challenge now is help people get better."

Hudson did just that Tuesday, as the Times spent a day in the life with an athletic trainer.

Is there room for one more?

Hudson's morning started hours earlier, calling doctors and patients. Now he's at Sports and Orthopedic Rehabilitation Services' New Port Richey clinic, trying to squeeze in a Crystal River kid.

His day will end here. By 10:24 a.m., Hudson is on the road.

Hudson wants to visit a friend and future patient at St.Anthony's Hospital in St.Petersburg. Driving his white 1989 Jeep Cherokee, he scans his list of patients, appointments and tasks. He exchanges voice mails.

Born in Clinton, Miss., Hudson got an early start as an athletic trainer when he broke the growth plate in his left elbow, ending his baseball career in the ninth grade. "That was my first rehab," he said. "Me."

His father, Joel "Hap" Hudson, was a football coach and athletic trainer at Mississippi College. David Hudson graduated from there in 1983. While he was a trainer at the Blue-Gray game, his father sent out his son's resume without telling him. The younger Hudson was surprised when he got a call from the St.Louis Cardinals. Soon, he was off to the Class A Johnson City Cardinals in Tennessee.

Back in the present, his cell phone rings.

It's Casey Weldon.

Weldon, an ex-Florida State quarterback, nine-year NFL veteran and former XFL player, is rehabilitating his surgically repaired shoulder so he can attempt a comeback in the NFL.

So, of course, he calls Hudson.

Hudson arrives at St.Anthony's and heads to the sixth floor. Sitting in a chair in his hospital room is an old friend: former major-league catcher Glen Brummer, who now coaches. His last assignment was with the Texas Rangers. The Clearwater resident just had his hip replaced.

"I don't feel any pain," Brummer said, amazed. "You should have seen the old hip. It had bone spurs on it and everything."

Hudson talks to the hospital staff about Brummer's rehabilitation. But first there are issues to be ironed out with the Rangers' front office.

Brummer will come to Hudson's clinic after a six-week rest, and Hudson reassures his friend in his best Mississippi drawl.

Sitting in Sonny's Bar-B-Que in New Port Richey, Hudson explained his approach.

"I love to push them," he said. "I'll challenge them. I tell them, "I'll make you work.' Then there's the fear. They're wondering, "Will I ever be able to throw again?' You need to help them get over that."

To do that, it helps to compare their injuries to major-league players he's worked on.

"It can be a motivating thing when I say so-and-so had this injury and went through what you're going through now," Hudson said.

Hudson is back at the clinic and quickly greets the staff. Two patients are doing their exercises.

Mitchell tennis player Gregg Strange, a 16-year-old junior, had arthroscopic surgery May 8 to repair a torn anterior cruciate ligament in his right knee. Mustangs sophomore Tony Shaffer, 15, is rehabbing both shoulders. The baseball player separated his right one and has tendinitis in his left (throwing) shoulder.

Strange is wearing weights on his injured leg, lifting it up and down. Shaffer has weights around his wrists, repeating a complicated series of arm exercises.

"I didn't know I'd come back this quick," Strange said. "It was so stiff when I first started. Now it's the second week and it's just starting to loosen up."

Gulf junior football player Blaise Simon arrives at the clinic. The 16-year-old has a sprained right medial collateral ligament. He begins leg lifts.

"They pretty much know the routine," Hudson said.

James Noto, a 15-year-old sophomore catcher from Ridgewood with bicep tendinitis, arrives and starts the exercises Shaffer has finished.

This is the atmosphere Hudson wanted to create, athletes working side by side. One of Hudson's biggest challenges is to keep up their spirits.

"That's what we want," Hudson said. "They like working and talking to each other."

Using weights, exercise bands and stability balls, they do proprioception exercises. Hudson uses them to build balance and strength.

"You're making your body adjust to the challenge of balancing itself," he said. "Any time you work on developing balance, you're really stimulating multiple muscles. You want to develop individual muscles, but you also want to teach them to work together."

Hudson is stretching Shaffer's shoulder. The trainer's hands manipulate the joint as he checks its function.

"Any pain?" Hudson asked.

"I feel fine," Shaffer said.

"You heard it here first," Hudson said.

Next, Hudson's trained hands check the stability of Simon's knee. A 1993 National League championship ring, earned with the Phillies, gleams on Hudson's right hand.

"You check the structure, the ligament, the knee, what the knee can do," Hudson said. "What the patella is doing here, and is it in approximation with the knee? When the knee cap bends, what is the patella doing? What's it's strength?"

Hudson's enthusiasm is contagious. His Southern drawl is missed when he steps away.

"It got quiet here all of a sudden," clinic manager Brian Nicholson said. "Hap must be on the other side."

Kristi Hooper, a 13-year-old basketball prodigy who will be at Mitchell in the fall, arrives. She had reconstructive knee surgery to repair her left ACL and meniscus, both injured when she went up for a block in a state AAU tournament.

Two weeks after surgery, she's doing leg lifts.

"I want to be back for varsity ball," Hooper said.

Hooper still wears a knee brace, but she doesn't need it to exercise. Her father, Joe Sr., can't believe how far she's come.

"She is way ahead of the game," he said. "That guy (Hudson) is the reason why. He's just unbelievable. He knows what he's doing. I'm so glad I brought her here."

Hudson has finished manipulating Hooper's injured leg, checking for neural tension and joint mobilization. Now electrical stimulation from the H-Wave machine is reducing the swelling in her knee.

At the beginning of the examination, Hudson started on her right leg. "Uh ... you do know that's the wrong leg?" she said. Hudson laughed.

The clinic closes, and the patients go through their last round of exercises. Hudson demonstrates his techniques for adjusting shoulder joints on members of the clinic staff, then examines some older patients.

He is here every Tuesday and Thursday. On Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays he's in the East Lake office. He travels to the firm's 23 local clinics, from Sun City to Beverly Hills.

The location changes, but not the methods.

You get better if you do the work.

"You can't teach effort," Hudson said. "Everyone has a different switch. I choose my words carefully, but I love to pump the kids up. With any age I work with, there's always a motivator there. If someone wants to get well, I won't quit if they won't quit.

"You just need to make them work. Ozzie Smith once told me, "Whatever you put into it, you'll get twice back out of it."'