Friday, March 29, 2024

Delvon Roe resigns due to traumatic leg injuries

September 29, 2011
Freshman forward Delvon Roe holds up one finger to represent that the Spartans are Big Ten champs after winning the MSU vs. Indiana game at Assembly Hall in Bloomington, IN on Tuesday. Gabrielle Moore/The State News
Freshman forward Delvon Roe holds up one finger to represent that the Spartans are Big Ten champs after winning the MSU vs. Indiana game at Assembly Hall in Bloomington, IN on Tuesday. Gabrielle Moore/The State News —
Photo by State News file photo | and Gabrielle Moore The State News

After three years of suffering through the pain of multiple injuries and surgeries, Delvon Roe’s basketball career at MSU has come to an end. 

Roe — who was set to be a senior forward for the men’s basketball team — made the announcement with head coach Tom Izzo on Thursday at Breslin Center. Izzo said he and Roe spoke Thursday morning and decided the injuries had taken their toll, and it was time for the Euclid, Ohio, native to hang it up.

“This was a hard decision for me,” Roe said. “It took a lot of thinking. And for me it really came down to I got the point where I didn’t want to just get through … get through games, get through months, weeks, seasons. I wanted to play and have fun.”

The chronic injuries that ended Roe’s career began before he even came to MSU as a freshman in 2008. Roe played in only three games his senior year of high school before he suffered a season-ending torn meniscus in his right knee. While preparing for his freshman year, Roe began to have issues with his left knee before playing through his entire sophomore season with a torn meniscus in his right knee again.
 
Seemingly never at 100 percent, many thought Roe did not become the player Izzo expected him to be, but he found an identity as a defensive specialist last season and finally had a healthy and productive spring. An ankle injury in June then forced him to be out of action for six weeks. 

Izzo said Roe had another setback last week when more fluid was found in his right knee and he had to have it drained — something Roe had done repeatedly throughout his career. However, Roe said those procedures typically happened at the end of the season. 

“This year, I felt like if this was going to happen the whole year, for six straight months of getting fluid taken out or getting shots and stuff like that … I didn’t think mentally I could take that,” Roe said.  

Roe finally was back from his ankle injury when he again felt pain in his right knee. After having the fluid drained last Saturday, Izzo said he knew it might be the end of Roe’s career. 

Despite the injuries, Roe never missed a game in his three years at MSU. Roe said he battled through the pain and kept his injuries from his coaches.

“He lied to us continuously on how he was,” Izzo said. “His sophomore year, he played with that torn meniscus from the start of the year to the end of the year — not telling us because he thought he’d have to have surgery again.”

Roe will retain his scholarship and remain with the basketball team, including its trip to San Diego for the Spartans’ matchup with North Carolina on the USS Carl Vinson on Nov. 11. Roe also will participate in senior night festivities at the end of the season.

Although he said he would have liked one more season, Roe said he has no regrets regarding his time in East Lansing and always will consider himself a Spartan. 

“I know I’m crying now, but at the same time, these past few years have been great,” Roe said. “If you would have told me that when I got to Michigan State, I was going to go to two Final Fours and win two Big Ten championships, I would have been happy. I’m still disappointed in how it ended, but at the same time, I wouldn’t take it back for nothing in the world.“ 

Support student media! Please consider donating to The State News and help fund the future of journalism.

Discussion

Share and discuss “Delvon Roe resigns due to traumatic leg injuries” on social media.