LJ FB: Stratton already throwing

By Ed Piper

It's probably a well-known secret around the La Jolla High football team, but senior quarterback Jackson Stratton, healing from a right scapula fracture, is already throwing the football as part of his rehab from the injury Sept. 10 in the Viking-Del Norte game.

"Jackson has been throwing the football," revealed Cindy Stratton, the athlete's mother, Thurs., Sept. 30, in a conversation before the annual "Tangle in the Tank" fun event between the La Jolla football team and the varsity boys water polo team.

The younger Stratton confirmed the information when asked before the water polo game that same afternoon.

The scapula, as explained both by Jackson Stratton and two team doctors officially or unofficially consulting on the injury, is behind the shoulder.

From the beginning, Jackson told reporters that doctors gave him a "four week" estimate of the time it would take to be healed from the fracture and to be back on the field. Four weeks to the day would mean the La Jolla-Lincoln game this Fri., Oct. 8. But that would seem to be premature. Who knows?

The fracture wasn't diagnosed until at least the Monday following the injury, Sept. 13. Then, according to LJHS coach Tyler Roach, the quarterback saw a specialist for a follow-up appointment on Sept. 15.

With the bye week last Fri., Oct. 1, and no game that day to miss, Stratton might return Oct. 15, 22, or 29--any of which would enable him to get in some game experience before the CIF playoffs scheduled to begin Fri., Nov. 5.

"It wasn't a (severe) break," said one doctor who has seen Stratton's X-rays. And Mrs. Stratton agreed that the time not playing has been devoted to a big opportunity for her son to sit back, observe his teammates, encourage them and even coach up his replacement, Kevin Steel.