Iowa's Cordell Pemsl walks well-known road to recovery

IOWA CITY — Cordell Pemsl despises the pool workout.

Recovering from sports hernia surgery in May, the 6-foot-8 incoming sophomore doesn't mind the stretching or the work on the bike, but get him in the pool to do lunges, karaoke, vertical jumps and swim some laps?

'I hate the pool,' Pemsl said, trying to hold back a laugh.

Team trainer Brad Floy directs Pemsl's recovery, and said this summer hasn't been a stressful one for the Dubuque Wahlert grad. Floy said Pemsl is responsive to direction and honest in his assessment of how he feels — which is the only way a trainer can move forward with treatment.

It's not hard for Pemsl to be honest, though. He said he hates the pool while Floy stood a few feet away chuckling to himself, after all.

Pemsl has been through this before, so there's no wool over his eyes. He's also been through much more than outpatient surgery for torn groin muscles. Multiple surgeries on his knee and leg — the latter of which was intentionally broken and realigned — came with a much steeper potential price and a much thinner margin for error.

A sports hernia is nothing to be taken lightly, and Pemsl acknowledged as much, but he's unfortunately a pro at this by now.

'For this one, I was to the point where it was just, 'Let's get it done,'' Pemsl said. 'I've been through this multiple times. I wasn't worried. I was laughing before surgery with my mom in the waiting room. It's not that I didn't care, but I knew what was going to happen. I knew it was the right time for this to happen.

'With this one, it was difficult, but it was something I knew I could handle.'

Pemsl played most of his freshman season with that sports hernia.

On his way to a Big Ten-leading 61.8 percent shooting from the field, 8.9 points and 5.0 rebounds per game, Pemsl had a lower abdominal strain, a torn left groin muscle and a partially-torn right groin muscle. He suffered the injury during the Emerald Coast Classic last fall, and played the rest of the season thinking it was just a strain.

He stretched a lot and did what he could to warm up and lessen the pain he was in — which was considerable at times. Coach Fran McCaffery said Pemsl's personal management of the injury was as impressive as anything. His fluidity in the post and ability to finish around the rim required lateral movement directly affected by his injury.

When Pemsl got the call with the results of the MRI — an unknown number woke him up at 8 a.m., so it took him a minute to get his bearings — his mood went from surprise to humor to simple realization of what was to come.

Fast forward from that late-April phone call to his rehab in July, and it's been a slow, patient process, but he's seeing the gains he wants. McCaffery said he's impressed with how Pemsl looks and where he's at. Floy said he's to the point where the next goal is to get Pemsl on the court and closer to live activity with his teammates — straight ahead running, side-to-side and vertical movements are next.

'I like to take as many different methods as we can,' Floy said. 'This is a relatively short one, but some of the longer ones like an ACL, it gets boring for them doing the same thing every day. I try to get different things used.

'We can use the antigravity treadmill, we can use the underwater treadmill. We can do on-court stuff. Sometimes it's just the bike. I try to incorporate a lot of different things for cardio, a lot of different things for the exercises, just to keep them from getting too bored with it.'

Compared to what he's been through in the past, Pemsl said this surgery and rehab has been far from stressful.

His first surgery in high school was for a torn meniscus in his right knee. He rehabbed that and came back to Wahlert, only to suffer another one six months later. That conversation with doctors at UIHC still is one that sticks with him today.

Doctors told him then that intentionally breaking his femur and permanently realigning it would prevent further tears — tears that were almost certainly going to recur without the surgery.

Pemsl turned 20 on Saturday, but that leg surgery came when he was 17. That may not be a long time ago, but it signaled a necessary jump in adult decision-making for him. Coming from a single-parent household, Pemsl relied on his mom, Katy, sure, but had to grow up in a hurry in a lot of ways.

These surgeries have helped him grow more — to where the latest round has been nothing more than a step forward.

'I went from not knowing anything — I didn't know the seriousness of a surgery and what goes into surgery,' Pemsl said. 'The first one and the third one were pieces of cake. The second one, I wasn't just getting a scope anymore. They're telling me they're going to break my leg. I was scared about that. It's so much more serious than a scope or putting a piece of mesh in your groin. It was six months and a lot more challenging for me.

'I handled all three like I knew I could. I've always been a little more mature for my age. I knew I could trust the people that were operating on me.'

Pemsl's attitude is the tide that raises the boat.

Floy said he's seen athletes go through rehab with the wrong mental approach, and it's severely affected the process. Pemsl is an expressive person, and one who uses positivity as his weapon to take on the world.

'It's about everything really,' Floy said. 'If he goes into it thinking he's not going to get better or not wanting to get better, or not enjoying the process of getting better, it's tough to get better quickly. If he takes the right approach to it from a mental aspect, then everything else has a better chance for success.'

So yeah, Pemsl hates the pool workout. But he did it — and all the other parts of his rehab.

Like every other surgery he's had, there's a timeline he and the training staff are shooting for, but there's also no urgency. If Pemsl is ready when the Hawkeyes leave for their trip to play in Germany, great. If not, that's fine too.

That he's handling this process and that timeline with relaxation permeates the locker room. Pemsl showed up to the opening games of the Prime Time League to watch his teammates — and even made a guest appearance as a scorekeeper — and was as positive then as at any point of his freshman year. Despite his feigned annoyance at getting in the pool, he did that with no complaints.

Having a guy like that in the locker room is invaluable to McCaffery and his staff. The power of positive thinking has been written about many times, but McCaffery and Co. don't need a book to tell them that. They have a walking — albeit gingerly during rehab — example.

'I think it's a lot harder than everybody thinks it is,' McCaffery said. 'Just being around him, he handles it about as well as you could ever imagine. He never complains. He never mopes. He never gets down. He's always got a smile on his face. He's always positive about where he is and where he's headed.

'If that's what he's doing, that's what we're going to do. It just typifies the kind of people we have. They do respect him and love him and care about him. He would do the same for someone else if they had a hard piece of adversity to go through.'

Pemsl gave that credit to his mom.

Many people can relate to Pemsl's upbringing and the sense of us-against-the-world he has because 'I've got my mother and me.' He said her constant positivity, 'even when times were hard,' made him believe things would be OK. That made him the positive person he is now, he said.

That means that when he's faced with a surgery — whether it was as daunting as his leg or routine as his groin — 'I never looked at what could go wrong.'

Pemsl wears his emotions on his sleeve. He said 'if I'm mad, you'll know I'm mad. If I'm happy, you'll know I'm happy.' Being able to appreciate things comes from both his life and basketball experiences.

The injuries tested that ability, but Pemsl, his coach and his trainer believe he's passed easily — and even grown because of them.

'There's a lot more to life than basketball,' Pemsl said. 'So if I've got a bad day going and it involves basketball, I try not to worry about it.'

What comes of his career now is up to Pemsl.

No one has any doubt the surgery will get him back to 100 percent health, and McCaffery added everyone might see more explosion from Pemsl this season. Maybe that won't mean windmill dunks or playing above the rim, but Pemsl won't have to be as crafty or shifty to make up for torn groin muscles.

Regardless, Pemsl can go into his sophomore season without wondering and without worrying.

'Unless it's like a heart surgery or something with my brain, I know I'll be able to handle whatever comes my way,' Pemsl said. 'Being put in those situations early on made me who I am today and I know not to take things for granted.

'I want to prove to people that wasn't the best Cordell you're going to see. He was hurt and still doing what he was doing. Regardless of whatever comes when I'm fully healthy, I want to show people there is another level that's going to be pressed when it comes November.'

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