Giving Grant Hill antidote for what ails sports world

CLEVELAND -- He is on the court, playing basketball, no medical personnel buzzing about, no crutches leaning close, no wearing of hospital gowns instead of baggy shorts.

He is on the court, and if you are a sports fan, or simply a member of the human race, then seeing Grant Hill play basketball has got to make you smile.

After all his travails, Grant Hill is still a key contributor for surprising Orlando. (Getty Images)

Hill's Orlando Magic, on this recent night, are playing the Cleveland Cavaliers and Hill is shadowing the fabulous LeBron James. It is the clichéd old versus new storyline. But who cares about that. Hill is playing. He is running, shooting the ball, rebounding. None of that was supposed to ever happen again. None of that could happen again.

You may know of Hill. Or maybe you only know about the surgeries and sadness and seasons lost.

What you may not understand is that in an era of thugs and drugs in sports, it is Hill who has been one of the anti-oxidants, countering the floating free radicals that seem to dominate the headlines.

There are plenty of jerks, punks and creeps in athletics. There are also good guys. There are men and women playing sports at the various military academies while preparing for what seems to be eventual combat duty in Iraq. There will be athletes quietly volunteering in soup kitchens on Christmas Day and donating toys. Instead of participating in ugly brawls, they will be talking to war veterans. Or standing by friends, as Joseph Addai has done, remaining close to a paralyzed childhood buddy.

They are donating millions with no fanfare or even giving away a kidney to a former teammate as Everson Walls will do for fellow ex-Dallas Cowboy Ron Springs in March.

Sometimes it seems like it is nothing but a turd convention out there. It is not. Players like Hill are the reason why.

Possibly no professional athlete with the pedigree of Hill has ever endured such a disastrous injury history while simultaneously refusing to become caustic or ill-tempered.

"I've been frustrated of course," said Hill. "But I'm not the kind of person who becomes bitter or angry."

Six surgeries and seven seasons sliced short. The injuries have led to Hill, entering this season, playing in just 135 of a possible 492 games, meaning he has missed some two-thirds of his playing opportunities because he has been hurt.

There was the season-ending ankle surgery in 2000 and another one year later. Then another in 2002. There was the staph infection that almost killed him. In 2003, a year-long rehabilitation on his ankle kept him out a full season. That was followed by a season lost to ankle pain and a severe sports hernia.

The surgeries on the ankle have left it permanently disfigured. There are three screws and a metal plate in it.