Perth Wildcats co-captain Shawn Redhage made a surprise return on Saturday night to collect his sixth straight Gordon Ellis Medal as the club's MVP and he's looking forward to continuing the hard work to come back from his horrific hip injury.
Redhage is now back in Perth for the first time since he suffered his hip injury in Adelaide playing against the 36ers on January 23, and he's here to stay as he endeavours to get himself back to full health to be ready to play in the 2011/12 NBL season.
After the injury, Redhage was in hospital in Adelaide for several weeks before he went to the United States for further surgery on his hip in Nashville, Tennessee, and then some time back at home in Lincoln, Nebraska. Now he's back in Perth and was rewarded with his sixth straight club MVP award.
It is the first time any Perth Wildcats player has won the award six consecutive times, and it takes him to an equal number in total of all-time great Ricky Grace.
Redhage starred in 18 games this season for the 'Cats with 18 points per game and he acknowledged that this award was the most emotional for him. He was also glad to share it with Kevin Lisch.
"This one is probably the most emotional that I've had just with the season and everything that happened," Redhage said.
"It's a huge honour and to share it with Kevin, a fellow mid-west boy from the States, makes it a bit more special as well. We both started there and we have that connection."
While there were some doubts early on after the injury if Redhage would ever be able to play again given the devastating damage done to his hip, he's now confident that he'll be back even though he knows it's going to be a long road still from here.
"There's still a lot of work to be done, but I feel in my heart that I'm going to be back. Through this whole thing even with the odds against me of getting back, I've always felt that it would turn out positive," he said.
"I'm looking forward to the work I'm going to have to put in over the next five months and hopefully be back at the start of next season."
Redhage is already well ahead of schedule in terms of his recovery. He's feeling good after over three months of not being able to put weigh on his leg and is moving freely now that he's off the crutches.
That quicker than expected recovery has impressed, and surprised, his surgeon Dr Philip Kregor and Redhage now is just about ready to start some running, and from there he's hoping to progress into on-court work next month and then to be just about ready for full pre-season training come August.
"I saw the surgeon about two weeks ago and he said basically with where we are at now he couldn’t have asked for a better result. There's still some work to be done to build up that strength to get back to being able to play, but I'm on the right track that's for sure," he said.
"I reckon in the next week or two I'll be running on the treadmill, I'm that close. I've kind of done some jogging with a little bit of resistance and that's gone really well, so I'm way ahead of where I should be.
"They thought it would two to three weeks to walk, but I was walking on the first day off the crutches. That's a good sign after being on the crutches for 12 weeks and in hospital for over 30 days, and all that. I'm pretty positive with how things are going so far."
Redhage will now remain in Perth from here on out working closely with physio Dave Philpot to build back up to on-court work ahead of pre-season training starting in August. He's excited by the future with this Wildcats team and is confident he can work though any setbacks along the way.
"I love playing with this team and this group of guys. I'm hoping that we keep most of the guys together and our average age is about 23, so I'm the old guy in the team. Hopefully I can keep up with these young guys now and it's exciting how much better they can still get," Redhage said.
"I'm here for good. I start work with Dave Philpot this week and I'll put in the hours, and hopefully slowly work my way back. I'm hoping that by June I can start doing some stuff on-court and hopefully be back training at the start of August when we are back as a team.
"Then hopefully I can work my way back into game shape and see how it goes. There's probably going to be some setbacks along the way, but everything has been pretty smooth so far since the injury."
