For guard Bryce Tennison, the SMU Mustangs' 2009 loss to the Houston Cougars was doubly painful.
The first reason is obvious: as a competitor, Tennison hates to lose. But in addition, he also suffered a strained abdomen in the game, an injury that kept him out of the Ponies' next three games.
"I came in that Sunday kind of sore, and when I started doing abs, it didn't feel right," Tennison said. "Then, in practice, when I'd get fit up on someone in practice, I told (offensive line) Coach (Adrian) Klemm something was wrong. I ended up missing the games against Rice, UTEP and Marshall."
Tennison played in the regular-season finale against Tulane, and then took some needed time off before playing in the Ponies rout of Nevada in the Hawaii Bowl. The injury, he said, didn't bother him too much in Honolulu.
"I took an anti-inflammatory and I put heat on it, and then there was my pride and just the rush of being in a bowl game," he said. "There's no way I wasn't going to play."
Four months later, Tennison's abdomen is not fully healed. He is missing the Ponies' spring workouts after having shoulder surgery and because of a broken bone in his foot. But while those injuries are healing — Tennison has done some light running in practice — his abdomen remains somewhat painful.
"I thought it was just a strain," he said. "But after a while, they said it might be a sports hernia. That's one of the hardest injuries to detect and diagnose."
Tennison was told that if his injury is, in fact, a sports hernia, he might have to undergo a surgical procedure in which a piece of mesh would be sewed into the muscles in his abdominal wall to accelerate the healing process, a procedure he said SMU soccer players Leone Cruz and Arthur Ivo had when they suffered sports hernias.
Tennison saw a specialist Friday, and a sports hernia was not diagnosed.
"I'm on another anti-inflammatory, so they said I don't need surgery, at least not yet — we're going to see how that goes," he said.
But he is not yet out of the dark. If the anti-inflammatory doesn't eliminate his discomfort, surgery will be considered again, but even if that is the route doctors recommend, he has no concerns about being ready for the upcoming season, when he is expected to replace the graduated Mitch Enright as the Mustangs' starting center.
"We're going to see how that (anti-inflammatory) shot works," Tennison said. "K-Rob (cornerback Keith Robinson) had the same thing, and a week after he got the shot, he was good. That would be nice. If not, they'll go in and put some of the mesh in. If that's the case, I'll still be up and running in six weeks."
