March 10, 2005

By TIM BOOTH Associated Press Writer

BELLINGHAM, Wash.---Genetics and history suggested Grant Dykstra would be a basketball star. The teeth of a grain auger nearly twisted his story - and his arm - in a different direction.

Fueled by his love of the game, Dykstra grew into an accomplished player anyway. On Friday night, the 6-foot-4 Dykstra leads Western Washington against BYU-Hawaii in the first round of the NCAA Division II tournament.

Despite a right arm with inch-wide scars on the forearm, a wrist that can't fully rotate and a hand unable to make a fist, basketball comes naturally to the junior forward.

His effortless play and fluid left-handed jump shot remind many in northwest Washington of his father, Glen, a high school star in the mid-1970s.

Grant Dykstra was a first-team All-Great Northwest Athletic Conference selection this season, averaging 17.4 points and 5.3 rebounds per game. He was second in voting for the Division II West Region player of the year, after the Vikings went 21-6 during the regular season.

"I still don't think I'm that good," the 22-year-old Dykstra said. "I'm just out there and it sort of happens."

The ease with which Dykstra plays the game hides a young life filled with surgeries and struggles, and a basketball career that nearly ended before it started.

If he ever needs a reminder of what he's endured, Dykstra just looks at his traumatized right arm - which is a hand's-length shorter than his left.

"I've had that my whole life, where people said I couldn't do it," Dykstra said. "When people said I couldn't do it, that's more fuel in the fire for me."

On May 29, 1984 - two days after his second birthday - Dykstra got his arm caught in a grain auger.

His family ran a dairy farm in Sumas, Wash., near the Canadian border. Dykstra was playing in a hayloft with his siblings. Suddenly, his mother heard screams.

"One of them came running down saying Grant was hurt," Alice Dykstra recalled. "My initial reaction was to run after him, but something stopped me, made me turn around and turn the switch off that runs this auger system. It's so bizarre it happened like that."

At that moment, she saved her son's life.

Grant's red jacket was caught in the auger. His right arm was pulled into the machine and ripped apart. When Alice shut the power off, GRANT's head was at the gear box, near the machine's teeth.

"You couldn't do anything," Alice Dykstra recalled.

Paramedics were called but couldn't extricate the arm. They considered amputation to free Grant.

Eventually, Glen Dykstra and his father disassembled the auger. About 90 minutes had passed. Amazingly, the coat that most likely caused the accident also saved Grant Dykstra's arm.

The sleeve had knotted, creating a tourniquet near the boy's shoulder. Despite the trauma, his arm didn't bleed.

At a hospital, the arm was saved, but doctors doubted Grant would ever use it effectively. Over the next few years, he underwent 13 surgeries.

Dykstra has no memory of the accident or many of the surgeries.

"I don't remember anything about it, and I think it's a good thing," he said. "I was around awesome kids my whole life, and they always treated me like everyone else."

A natural right-hander, Dykstra learned to dribble and shoot left-handed. The basketball genes took over from there.

Western Washington coach Brad Jackson has known Dykstra since his youth. Jackson's son, Kyle, is the same age and the two played against each other as kids. Even then, Jackson saw something special in Dykstra.

"He was always the best player on any team that he played on," Jackson said. "That was the thing that always stuck out."

He became a two-time All-State selection, led his team to the state title and was the Class 2A state player of the year as a senior.

Dykstra hoped to play college basketball, but schools shied away because of the injury. Jackson recruited Dykstra, but first consulted several coaches about his ability to contribute at the college level.

"There were a lot of people that didn't think he could take the next step and play college basketball," Jackson said. "I don't think the thought ever crossed Grant's mind that he couldn't play."

At next month's Final Four in St. Louis, Dykstra will receive a courage award from the U.S. Basketball Writers Association. He's also a finalist for the V Foundation Comeback Award for the second straight year.

"He's worked so hard to overcome it," Jackson said. "The mere fact that you don't notice it is a great testimony to what he's been able to overcome."