University of Louisville: Have the Cardinals Been Grounded by Their Shoes?

During the first two weeks of preseason practice, eight Louisville Cardinal players missed some portion of time and now that the season is fully underway, only eight players are suited up on the bench available to participate in games.

Starting point guard Peyton Siva, an honorable mention 2010 All-Big East member who was second in the conference in steals and fourth in assists, sustained a concussion, and several weeks later the junior sprained his left ankle. Junior forward Rakeem Buckles was recovering from a torn anterior cruciate ligament in his right knee that occurred in a victory over the Pittsburgh Panthers last February and just returned to the court last Wednesday night. Another forward, junior Stephan Van Treese is nursing a left patellar tendon strain, and freshman Wayne Blackshear, a McDonald’s All- American who averaged 32.6 points and 14.6 rebounds his senior year at Chicago’s Morgan Park High School, tore the labrum in his right shoulder and could quite possibly never place a sneaker on the floor of the Yum Center in 2012.

The latest casualty is junior forward Mike Marra, who is out for the season after tearing the ACL in his left knee in a victory over Lamar on November 13.

After criticism that the Cardinals looked winded in the second half against Long Beach State on November 28, coach Rick Pitino, known for instilling conditioning in his players, admitted to the media his team might not possess an extensive reserve of stamina due to alterations in their practice regimen.

“We’ve gotten a little out of shape to play that racehorse style,” he explained to the Louisville Courier-Journal on November 30. “All we’ve been trying to do in practice is just execute and avoid injuries.”

Instead of running full-court, the Cardinals have been practicing primarily half-court sets and the tempo has not been overly quick.

“At one time we had 15-16 people out there. We haven’t seen that since summer, so we have 10-11 guys,” senior guard Kyle Kuric, who is eighth in the Big East Conference with an average of 35.2 minutes per game, said to the Courier-Journal. “We’re not going up and down as much. We’re not as conditioned as we normally are, but we can’t let that be an excuse. We have to get back to running and go back to our game.”

Over the last several years Cardinal fans have agonized over why their team has fallen prey to such a lengthy list of injuries. Could it the intensity of Pitino’s practices? Are the players following a sufficient year-round exercise plan? Are the team’s trainers not up to snuff?

Or could the plethora of injuries stem from what the players are sporting on their feet? Could their sneakers be the culprit or at best a contributing factor?

Last June the University of Louisville opted to sign a five-year contract extension with Adidas, the German shoe giant that supplied Jesse Owens with footwear for the 1936 Berlin Olympics and became the shoe of choice for Muhammad Ali when he entered the ring. Adidas has provided shoes, training gear, accessories and uniforms for all the University’s athletic teams since the 2001-2002 academic year.

"The partnership between Adidas and the University of Louisville continues a relationship of two powerful sports brands with rich traditions that stand for performance and excellence," said Chris McGuire, Director of Sports Marketing, Adidas in press release issued by the University on June 21. "Adidas is dedicated to making products for athletes that will make them stronger, lighter and faster and we are excited to showcase these products on the student athletes of Louisville. We are thrilled to extend our relationship with Louisville as part of the family of Adidas schools and look forward to their continued success."

While Nike persists as the leviathan of shoe contracts in college athletics, Louisville joins the University of Michigan, The University of Tennessee, University of Wisconsin, University of Notre Dame, UCLA, University of Nebraska and Kansas University in holding exclusive contracts with Adidas. The company is also the official uniform and apparel provider for the National Basketball Association and Major League Soccer, as well as a marketing partner with the National Football League.

"Adidas has been a great partner and the performance products they provide for our athletes helps us achieve continued success on the court," Rick Pitino said in the June 21 press release. "They've worked closely with our players and equipment staffs to ensure our players' needs are being met on the court and we look forward to continuing the relationship."

According to data collected by the National Collegiate Athletic Association’s Injury Surveillance System from 1988-1989 to 2003-2004 and which was published in the April-June 2007 volume of the Journal of Athletic Training, injury rates for all the 15 sports examined, which included men’s basketball, were pointedly higher in games (13.8 injuries per 1,000 athletic exposures) versus practices (4.0 injuries per 1,000 athletic exposures) and elevated in preseason practices (6.6 injuries per 1,000 athletic exposures) rather than in regular-season (2.3 injuries per 1,000 athletic exposures) or post-season sessions (1.4 injuries per 1,000 athletic exposures).

More than 50 percent of all injuries were to the lower extremities of the body, with ankle sprains comprising 15 percent of all reported injuries and while no change was noted in the rate of injuries for games and practices for all 16 years of the study, the incidence of concussions (up 7 percent) and anterior cruciate ligament injuries (up 1.3 percent) did increase significantly. This could be due to a better understanding and diagnosis of these injuries over the period of time, as well as an increased participation rate in college sports.

In men’s basketball ankle sprains accounted for 26.6 percent of all injuries, anterior cruciate ligaments 1.4 percent and concussions 3.2 percent. Player contact was responsible for 58 percent of the injuries in games as well as 41.6 in practices. Non-contact injuries occurred at a rate of 36.8 percent in practice as opposed to 17.7 percent in games.  

Testing has shown bracing or taping the ankles and neuromuscular/balance exercise programs can diminish the rate of injury by as much as 50 percent.

“In randomizing testing,” stated a report based on the NCAA’s study published by the British Columbia Injury Research and Prevention Unit. “The lowest incidence of ankle sprains is for basketball players with prophylactic taping of the ankles AND high top shoes. In randomized testing, the use of ankle stablizers (braces) significantly reduced the frequency of contact ankle injuries across all player positions.”  

Listed under vendor number UL-39-1289, the University of Louisville’s contract with Adidas is not readily available on its website and the press release does not state how much money the company is supplying the University with for the right to market its products, but in 2010 the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) signed a contract with Adidas worth $7.5 million a year.

Nike, Adidas’ main competitor, actively discourages athletes from taping or “spatting” their shoes and players are required to wear the footwear under the terms of the contract. In fact, Nike’s contract with California University clearly states “spatting” or otherwise taping, so as to cover any portion of the NIKE logo, the NIKE athletic shoes worn by members of the Team during practices, games, exhibitions, clinics, sports camps and other occasions during which Team members wear athletic shoes, is inconsistent with the terms of this Agreement and the benefits to be derived from it by NIKE and is a material breach of this Agreement.”

In its contract with Washington State University, Nike states it will retain 10 percent of the Cougars yearly cash payment if coaches allow tape to keep logos from public view and increases the penalty to 15, 20 or 50 percent if it should happen repeatedly.

Although Adidas’ renewed contract with UCLA has no clauses specific to taping, the company did attempt to sue the NCAA in federal district court in 1999 (Adidas America, Inc., v. National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), 64 F. Supp.2d 1097 (D.Kan.), Aug.16, 1999.) claiming the NCAA restricts the sales of promotional rights through the enforcement of Bylaw 12.5.5. This limits the amount of advertising that may appear on a student athlete’s uniform and equipment during intercollegiate competition. Adidas felt the NCAA unreasonably restricted trade by violating sections 1 and 2 of the Sherman Antitrust Act. Ultimately the case was dismissed.

Adidas reissued the Crazy 8, which was a modification of a shoe originally intended for Kobe Bryant, who signed with Adidas and not Nike, his rookie year and this is the footwear the University of Louisville men’s basketball team sports.

Nearly every performance review of the shoe has been overwhelmingly positive and the company must test its products thoroughly before they are marketed, but after the contracts discuss mainly contributions to the various team coaches for attaining various goals, such as capturing a conference or national title and a top 25 ranking, and various other perks, there still is no mention or concrete data even alluding to how the sneakers do or do not contribute to a player’s performance or how it prevents injuries.

Obviously, year-round physical fitness, a coach’s exercise philosophy, the environment the sport is played in, a healthy dose of bad luck and of course, what the athletes wear on their feet could all be contributing factors to explaining why the Cardinals have been decimated by injuries over the last several seasons, but one thing is for certain: there simply isn’t enough evidence out there to rule them out.