Waterman facing more ankle surgery> UM guard expects to be healthy by late June

While his teammates gather every day to play pickup basketball and tinker with their games, Tom Waterman is spending his spring putting his body – or at least his ankles – through a total overhaul.

The University of Maine point guard has already had an operation on one ankle and will undergo a procedure by Dr. John West on May 10 to repair loose ligaments in his other ankle.

“They’re tightening the ligaments up, so they’re not so stretched out,” said Waterman, who is getting around in a protective walking boot and will begin rehabilitation drills later this week.

Waterman said he expects to be playing all out by the end of June and expects his “new” ankles to help him in his quest to earn a starting job in the fall.

“I’m thinking if I can come in this summer and work out and improve my game a lot, I can come in and show them I can play,” he said. “It will be a battle between me and [recruit] Tory [Cavalier] for that position.”

Waterman played in 18 games for the Black Bears last year, scoring 1.0 points while averaging 4.7 minutes per contest.

Waterman said the problem with his ankles began during his sophomore or junior year at Bangor High.

Since then, Waterman’s ankles have gotten progressively worse. The situation became bad enough this season – Waterman’s first competitive year at Maine after sitting out his first year – that he and trainer Paula Linder sat down and talked about options.

“During the season I sprained my ankle almost every day during practice,” Waterman said. “I couldn’t go all out all the time without something going wrong with it.”

UMaine coach John Giannini said it became increasingly obvious that Waterman had a serious problem.

“The ligaments were extremely unstable,” Giannini said. “I think there were times where he couldn’t go maximum speed because the harder he went, the more likely it would be that he would go down.”

The result, Waterman said, wasn’t a particularly painful injury, but was a major nuisance.

“I’d be in pain for 10 minutes, but then the pain would go away and it would be real stiff,” Waterman said.

Now, though, Waterman is looking forward to beginning rehab work on the ankle with Linder, the team’s trainer.

“She works her magic and everything works out,” Waterman said.