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Thanatharn All the Way Back
by Frank Burlison, Long Beach Press-Telegram
April 13, 2007
LONG BEACH - The minutes, hours, days, weeks, months and now years haven't
dulled Panita Thanatharn's memory of that early evening slide into home
plate at Mayfair Park on Feb. 9, 2003.
Compound fractures to one's fibula and tibia tend to leave an indelible
impression.
"I remember every detail," the 24-year-old third baseman for
the Long Beach State softball team recounted the other day before practice,
while smiling and - surprisingly - not grimacing.
Then not a month after turning 20 and just seven games into her sophomore
season, Thanatharn had a .526 batting averaging as she rounded third base
and headed home after a single to center field by a 49er teammate.
"The center fielder must not have fielded the ball cleanly, because
the throw never got there (to the plate)," she said, recalling the
game against Loyola Marymount which was going to be her final action for
nearly two years.
The catcher had moved up the line in an attempt to block home plate when
Thanatharn started her slide.
The next thing she felt was pain - considerable pain.
"Immediately after my (left) leg planted, I knew it was bad,"
she said, the smile leaving her for a moment.
"I cried like you wouldn't believe. The pain ... Some of the parents
said they could hear the `break' from the stands."
Then-LBSU head coach Pete Manarino was in the third base coaching box
at the time.
"I knew it was real bad right away," Manarino said Thursday
morning.
When she arrived at an emergency room "they were giving me morphine
and demoral," she said.
"I was asking them (medical personnel), `When can I come back? ...
When will I be able to play again?" she said.
By the time she took the field again, she was 22 years old and starting
what normally would have been her senior season.
Thanatharn underwent multiple surgeries, including the insertion of a
metal rod along her fibula and screws into her tibia four days after the
injury and, some 10 months later, surgery on her left foot to insert a
screw into her big toe and pins into the next two toes to compensate for
the nerve damage that had left her with hammer toes. She also had hours
upon hours of physical therapy and work on the softball field. A Todd
Hart Courage Award, Kinesiology degree and NCAA ruling later, Thanatharn
is having the kind of season she was bound for before that Feb. 9 evening
in Lakewood.
"I knew this was going to finally be my last year," Thanatharn
said. This season wasn't granted her until the NCAA ruled in early September
that, because of the injury that left her unable to perform for nearly
two full seasons, she would be awarded a rare sixth season of eligibility.
"I knew this was going to be it, so I worked so hard with the rest
of the girls in conditioning and the weight room," she said.
And, after struggling as a reserve the past two seasons (hitting .150
two years ago and .225 last season), Thanatharn is drilling softballs
the way she was 50 months ago. She's hitting .314 for the 49ers, who take
18-20 overall and 2-4 Big West Conference records into a weekend series
with Cal State Fullerton that gets underway Saturday at 1 p.m. on the
49er Softball Complex.
"She's just an amazing competitor," 49ers coach Kim Sowder said.
"When doctors told her they weren't sure how well she would run or
even walk again, well, that just sparked her."
Thanatharn's father Mike is an electrical engineer and her mother Toi
owns and runs a restaurant.
Her passion for softball is an offshoot of her competitiveness, which
was honed in sibling battles with older (by a year and a half) brother
Paveen.
Thanatharn is holding onto to her senior season - the much-delayed one
- as long as a possible.
"... I wasn't ready for it (softball) to be over for me yet. I didn't
want to end my career feeling shortchanged."
"That kid," Manarino said, admiration booming in his voice,
"has given so much to that program. It's unbelievable."
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