SNOHOMISH – The basketball season the Brockmans have talked about for as long as they can remember has ended before it had a chance to begin for senior Paul Brockman.
The Snohomish guard/forward and older of the two standout siblings, suffered a severe knee injury that will wipe out his senior season while playing in a fall league game. Brockman, a 6-foot-4 do-everything player, suffered a tear of the anterior cruciate ligament in his right knee when he landed awkwardly after driving to the basket and colliding with another player in the Edmonds Community College gym in late September. He will have surgery in the coming weeks to repair the damage, which also includes torn cartilage and the separation of his medial collateral ligament from bone.
This year was likely to be the final chance for him to play with his junior brother, 6-foot-7 center Jon Brockman, who most believe will be recruited by some of the top college basketball programs in the country.
“That’s the worst part,” said Paul, who averaged 18 points per game while leading Snohomish to its second straight seventh-place finish in the Class 4A state tournament last season. “It’s not the injury. It’s that we won’t get to play together this year.”
Brockman said many of the schools recruiting him before the injury are still interested, including Navy, Central Washington, Cal Baptist and Master’s College. Brockman said he should be fully recovered in time for his freshman year of college.
He was to be one of three major contributors returning to a varsity squad that lost eight seniors to graduation. Only his younger brother and Darrell Martin will be back. Snohomish coach Len Bone said the older Brockman has handled the injury as well as anyone could.
“That is very, very tough for Paul,” Bone said. “He’s mature and he realizes that he can’t do anything about it. He just has to move on, have surgery and get better.”
Missing a senior basketball season is nothing new for the Brockman family. Kirsten Brockman, a 2001 Snohomish graduate and a forward on the University of Washington women’s team, missed her senior season after tearing her ACL – also in September.
“We’re going to lock Jon in a room next September,” Paul Brockman said.
Led by the Brockman duo, the Panthers qualified for the last two state tournaments after a drought that went back to 1987. While Jon has done most of his damage near the basket, Paul has played all five positions for the Panthers. He excelled on the wing last season, displaying a sweet 3-point shot and aggressive drives to the basket. He was among the team’s leaders in every statistical category. He injured the knee while on a 2-on-1 fast break with a teammate. An opposing player stood his ground in the lane in an attempt to take a charge. Brockman said there was a collision “but nothing dirty” before he landed and hyper-extended his knee.
“I didn’t think it was that bad,” he said. “I tried to walk it off and loosen it up like you would after spraining an ankle. It just kept giving out on me.”
Brockman said there isn’t much pain with the injury, but he has “no lateral movement.” He has already begun the rehab process. He plans to remain active with the team.
“I’ll do as much as I can on the bench,” he said. “I can show some leadership and help them any way I can.”
Unfortunately, it will be in a much different capacity than he intended.
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