VALDOSTA — As he drops a three-point shot from the sky, twirls his way to the hoop for a layup or fires off 30 points, Mike Crain seems more accustomed to soaring toward the basket than walking.

Just a year ago, however, both seemed to be far-off thoughts.

After Valdosta State claimed a hard-fought overtime win against Alabama Huntsville in 2005 in which Crain took two charges, he woke up the next morning in pain.

That night, Crain and some of the Blazers went to the movies to see “Coach Carter.” The pain in his legs would not allow the 6-foot-2 guard to leave the theater under his own power.

“I didn’t walk out of the movie theater,” Crain said. “Some of the players on the team had to carry me out.”

For the first week after being carried out of the movies, Crain was treated for a hamstring injury or a pulled muscle in his leg.

“The pain was all in my legs,” Crain aid. “We thought I had pulled a muscle.”

It turned out that Crain’s injury had nothing to do with his legs and was a degenerative disc in his back.

“It’s something in between my discs,” Crain said. “You have spongy stuff, and the spongy stuff got real thin, and the bones were almost touching each other on the vertebrae.”

The injury kept Crain bedridden, and he couldn’t walk again for a month.

Once a disc is found degenerative it will never fully heal, and the amount of time needed to recover is unknown.

“It will never go back to the way it was before it was disturbed,” Crain said. “It just got better to the point where I could function again.”

Luckily for Crain, after a month he was able to walk again. This season he is not only playing for the Blazers again, but leading them with 18.8 points per game.

“I really didn’t know how I was going to bounce back and recover from it,” Crain said. “I didn’t know how I was going to recuperate. It was just a whole lot of prayer, people taking care of me and the right attention from doctors.”

While Crain was able to recover, the thought of re-injuring himself lingers.

“More mentally,” Crain said. “I try not to think about it. I’m more cautious on the floor when I’m playing. If I fall backward, I try to land on my hands before I land directly on back.”

Even though Crain has been more cautious on the floor, one would never notice as he has had the biggest year of his career.

Crain has led the Blazers in scoring nine times and has scored a career-high 30 points twice this season against North Alabama and Florida Gulf Coast.

First year VSU coach Mike Helfer is glad to have Crain back and in top form.

“Watching tape on him from last year, he has really developed his game,” Helfer said. “He’s much more aggressive and will probably be more aggressive yet.”

Helfer’s system creates more opportunities for the team to score — which plays into Crain’s game.

“Coach Helfer really puts an emphasis on me shooting the ball, and wanted me to score more,” Crain said. “I didn’t take that for granted. I listened to him, and it turned out to be for the best.”

Crain has proven himself as a viable scorer for the Blazers, and as the game winds down the ball will end up in his hands as sure as the fact that the clock will wind down to zero.

“I think the thing is that he knows he can get his own shot basically whenever he wants,” Helfer said. “He doesn’t shy away and that’s a credit to him as a player and a person, that he is willing to take it.”

Crain not only comes up big on the court, but off the court he defines the total student-athlete.

“He really honestly is the complete package,” Helfer said. “He does well in the class room, does community service and is a great basketball player. I never have to worry about Mike Crain.

“It’s a coach’s dream when you have the whole package together and don’t have to worry about anything outside the floor. It’s a great situation for a coach.”