Ford motors toward NBA return By Erik Brady, USA TODAY MILWAUKEE — T.J. Ford faces a bleacher full of kids at a neighborhood branch of the Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater Milwaukee. They are firing questions at the quicksilver guard with the NBA's most famous spine. A spine injury suffered 1 1/2 years ago has failed to keep Milwaukee's T. J. Ford off the court. By John Zich, USA TODAY Who's the toughest guy to cover? "Stephon Marbury," Ford says. "And A.I.," meaning Allen Iverson, who will be Ford's opponent Tuesday when the Milwaukee Bucks open at the Philadelphia 76ers. Do you like the people on your team? "Yes." Do you still have a chance of getting hurt? Ford, 22, smiles and shuffles his feet. It is the question he can't avoid, even here, where his inquisitor is 11. "That chance is always there," he says, "but not any more (for me) than anyone else." Questions of safety and health hover in the rafters wherever Ford plays these days. Tuesday he will walk onto an NBA court for his first real game since Feb. 24, 2004. That night, 20 months ago, the Bucks' high-flying point guard collided with the Minnesota Timberwolves' Mark Madsen on a drive to the basket and landed hard on his tailbone. Ford did not get up. He felt numb all over. He was taken from the court on a stretcher. He could walk in the months before surgery, but some numbness persisted. In May, Robert G. Watkins of the Los Angeles Spine Surgery Institute fused two vertebrae in Ford's neck. More than a year after that, last June, Watkins cleared Ford to play again. By Darren Hauck, AP T.J. Ford left the court on a Ford trained intensively for four months stretcher on Feb. 24, 2004. in his hometown of Houston under the tutelage of former NBA point guard John Lucas. They worked on Ford's jumper. They worked on his strength and stamina. And they worked on his fear. Now, according to Lucas, Ford is more ready to play basketball than he has ever been. "I tell him he's not T.J. Ford anymore," Lucas says. "He's T.J. Cadillac — on his way to being T.J. Bentley." Ford laughs when he hears this. He is sitting in a chair by the scorer's table in the Bucks practice facility. "I'm ready," he says. "I'm ready, and I'm fearless. I don't know any other way to play." Ford was born with spinal stenosis, which is a narrowing of spaces in the spine that results in pressure on the spinal cord and on nerve roots. He had symptoms late in high school and again in college. The Bucks knew about it when they drafted him. Landing hard on his backside that night in Milwaukee apparently jarred his spine and exacerbated his condition, though it is hard to know exactly because the Bucks do not allow the media to speak to Watkins. The Bucks instead provide the statement Watkins issued in June: "T.J. Ford has made a full recovery from his spinal cord contusion. He is cleared for full-contact basketball. His prognosis is excellent for a normal basketball career." Normal? Ford's career has been anything but. Willowridge, his Houston high school, won two Texas state championships. The University of Texas reached its first Final Four since 1947 with Ford at the helm. The Bucks were 29-26 in his rookie season before the injury. They are 42-67 since, counting the loss that night. "His teams win," Milwaukee general manager Larry Harris says. "He's really the machine that makes us go." Taking his hits Mary Ford, like mothers everywhere, used to tell her son to be careful or "you'll break your neck." She says she often told him that when he would jump off the living room coffee table at age 5 or 6 to dunk on a toy basket. Her warnings had nothing to do with his congenital condition, which she would not know about until years later. "He was a daredevil," she says. "I don't know why I used that particular (phrase). I guess all mothers do. It isn't like I thought it would really happen." As he got older, Ford took his daredevil act to real courts. Dunking is not his game, but driving the lane is. "You know what they say — penetration kills," Bucks coach Terry Stotts says. "He's able to do that for us." Ford is 6-0, 165, according to the Bucks media guide, although that might be generous. "The program always gives you an inch, if you need it," Ford says, grinning. He says the weight is accurate. Madsen, the player he collided with when he landed wrong, is 6-9, 236. "He goes to the hole among the trees and gets knocked down a lot," Bucks guard Michael Redd says. "This time he didn't get up." Ford recalls it vividly. "We did a side pick and roll, and I went in the lane. I kind of jumped up and jumped into Madsen. He tried to block my shot, and I kind of hung in the air. And as I was coming down, my legs came out from under me, and I didn't land on my feet." He knew immediately something was wrong. "Numbness in the body, that about sums it up," Ford says. "The impact of me hitting the floor from the By John Zich, USA TODAY T.J. Ford works out in the Bucks height I was, I think, was just so great weight room. that it caused the injury in my neck. And after that, there was this moment of sitting on the ground and thinking, 'This is the second time I've been through this.' " The first time was in a pickup game at Texas not long after the 2003 Final Four. He and a teammate tangled legs, and Ford was left on the ground, numb all over. He was taken from the court on a stretcher that time, too. That time was clearly different from the numbness in his arms he felt late in high school, which he thinks stemmed from an on-court collision months earlier. Ford's father, Leo, says doctors diagnosed spinal stenosis in the summer between high school and college. Ford says his family considered surgery then but decided against it when symptoms subsided. Ford's father says Texas did not learn about his son's condition until he got to campus. Ford says he felt fine in two seasons at Texas until that pickup game. "It felt numb all over, and I knew I was in a lot of trouble," he says. "The bad thing was I had just declared for the NBA and signed up with my agent. There was no turning around." The symptoms subsided after a few weeks, and the Bucks drafted Ford with the eighth pick of the first round of the 2003 draft. He signed a three- year deal that pays him $2.3 million this season. Friday the Bucks picked up the fourth-year option on his rookie-scale contract, and he'll make $2.93 million next season. Getting over the fear When Ford was carried from the court that night in Milwaukee, he says he felt sure he would be back playing in about three weeks. But as weeks turned into months and batteries of tests, Ford began to wonder if he would play again. "Just from being on the side and not being able to touch a basketball, it came across my mind," Ford says. "I was thinking, 'If I can't play, what am I going to do?' I always wanted to be in the community, so I just decided to start a foundation for kids. It wasn't something I was expecting to do until later in my career." The only basketball he played for many months was a video version with his older brother, Tim, in Houston. "You learn to cherish something more when it is taken away, and that's how it was with T.J.," his brother says. Ford says one thing about his injury turned out for the best: During his forced sabbatical, he met Candace Dixon in Houston. They had a baby June 7 and named him Terrance Jerod Jr. They are living with the baby in Milwaukee. Will they marry? "My parents are together, and that's the footsteps I want to follow," Ford says. "But the biggest thing for me was to focus on getting back on the court." Ford called on Lucas to give him that focus. "John Lucas knows what it means to come back, whether from injury or from a drug addiction," Ford's father says. "He knows what it means to come back, not just physically but mentally. Sometimes that's harder." Ford drives hard with kids MILWAUKEE — Milwaukee Bucks star T.J. Ford is wearing a Houston Astros cap at a sporty angle on the afternoon after his favorite baseball team was swept out of the World Series. He also wears a sweat suit and sneakers as he visits children for whom he bought school supplies last summer. The kids peer at him from bleacher seats in the gym of the comfortable, like this," he says. Lucas put Ford through a boot camp "If I don't follow the rules, I get devised specially for him: running, punished, just like y'all at school.