How's A.J.? We asked John Smith
STILLWATER – We learned today that Oklahoma State All-American and defending NCAA individual wresting national champion A.J. Ferrari has been back at Gallagher-Iba Arena. It wasn’t for either of last weekend’s duals when the Cowboys lost to Northern Iowa on Saturday night and to Iowa State on Sunday afternoon. It was earlier this week as he came in and checked in with the coaching staff and with the medical staff. Ferrari was in that fiery head-on accident on State Highway 33 between the Ripley turnoff and Perkins city limits. He was with his close friend and Oklahoma State All-American distance runner Isai Rodriguez coming back from a youth wrestling practice in Cushing.
“A.J. is getting better every day, Robert, just like we hoped for,” Smith answered my question. “I don’t know, you just get jarred and the car rolls a few times and you hope none of us experience that.”
Ferrari was pulled out of the burning Dodge SUV by Oklahoma State football offensive coordinator Kasey Dunn, who was driving one of the cars Ferrari was trying to pass. Ferrari was flown to Oklahoma City by medical helicopter, but fortunately had no broken bones. It was a scary crash, but fortunately neither athlete nor the woman who’s vehicle they hit were seriously injured.
“You know it just takes some time (to get over it),” Smith said picking his words carefully. Reports last weekend were after he was released from the hospital, Ferrari really just slept a lot. There was a concussion reportedly and a lot of soreness.
“I think some of the things we were concerned with early, I say early on that was basically a week from Monday, so we’re into day nine or ten and what we’ve seen that we were concerned with are getting better,” said the Cowboys head coach. “We didn’t know how severe some of those areas where he had some pain in would be. All I can say is they’re getting better.”
No prognosis. You hope that Ferrari gets back soon. The team obviously needs him. You want to see him get a chance to defend his championship at 197-pounds from his freshman season and he was unbeaten at 10-0 when he was injured. You’d love to see him wrestle in the Bout at the Ballpark against Iowa. That seems very unlikely. He’s better, but it’s all still uncertain.
“They took X-rays of him and we know those things, we know his bones are good,” Smith added. “Ligaments and things like that we’re taking slowly, one day at a time. We really haven’t got an MRI. We’re getting him healthy and maybe give him a chance to compete sometime before the season ends. That may not happen.”