No pity party for injured Sipes

Andrew Sipes needs surgery, not sympathy.

After all, as the kid whose maturity belies his age and youthful face will tell you, this isn't life or death. All he did was rip the anterior cruciate and medial collateral ligaments, plus the meniscus, in his right knee.

In the big picture, it's nothing.

He'll heal.

In 6-8 months, the Grayslake Central junior might be as good as new. Might.

"It could always be worse," Sipes said. "My nurse's daughter has leukemia."

Sipes, who started on Grayslake Central's varsity basketball as a freshman and then averaged 13 points and 6 rebounds in an All-Area campaign last season, popped for 17 points in the Rams' season-opening win over Mundelein. He followed up by netting 16 against Loyola.

As expected, he was playing even better than he did his sophomore year.

In the Rams' third game, against Jefferson, Sipes performed a routine spin move on a drive to the basket and, somehow, his knee buckled on a play he's done time and time again without so much as a tweak.

Tests performed on Sipes' knee revealed the worse - he needed reconstructive surgery.

"I was devastated," said Rams coach Brian Moe, who was devastated more for his young star.

Suddenly, Moe started feeling better.

"He was trying to cheer me up," Moe said of Sipes.

"He's got a great outlook."

Sipes has made the adjustment from basketball star to basketball fan amazingly well, seemingly.

During the Rams' 92-44 blowout of visiting Lakes last Wednesday night, Sipes sat behind his team's bench with a yellow pad to keep stats. His wounded knee featured a brace. His crutches were at his side.

And yet he could barely sit still. He was too busy cheering when Kevin O'Rourke dunked, when Mike Brumm and Aaron Snyder kept hitting 3-pointers, when 6-foot-7 Troy Manley (a lineman-sized kid wearing a basketball jersey) got in the game and immediately ripped down a rebound.

"You want to talk about a kid with a great attitude," Moe said.

Funny thing is, since Sipes has been out of the lineup, the Rams are 4-0. They even beat Jacobs on Friday night, snapping the Golden Eagles' 34-game winning streak against Fox Valley Conference opponents.

Talk about a team kicking it up a notch with maybe its best player sidelined.

"We need a lot of guys to fill his shoes," Snyder said of Sipes. "He's a great player. We don't have one player that can do what he's done, so we need everyone to step up and play their game."

The Rams are doing it.

And, rest assured, Andrew Sipes feels great about it.