Bo Runs in Water to Run on Land : Therapy: While football any time soon seems out of the question, rehabilitation in a pool is being tried to help him heal for baseball.

The marketers of Bo Jackson made us believe he could master a sport at a moment’s notice. Remember Jackson racing his bike toward that Tour de France thing?

So, as Jackson continues a comeback from a serious hip injury that threatens his career as a two-sport star, his best hope of recovery might be in a swimming pool.

The Chicago White Sox, who took a chance on Jackson after most medical experts concluded he should retire from professional sports, have enlisted the services of Lynda Huey, a former sprinter and Santa Monica-based water therapist who has helped rehabilitate some of the world’s most famous track stars.

“He has a better chance of coming all the way back in water than anywhere else,” Huey said. “Because you can’t get hurt in water.”

Although his agent has denied reports that Jackson’s football career is over, a medical source close to the situation reiterated again this week that Jackson will not play again.

That would leave baseball for Jackson, who struggled through a late-season comeback as the White Sox designated hitter, batting .225 in 71 plate appearances with no stolen bases.

Once one of the game’s swiftest runners, having been clocked from home to first base in 3.8 seconds, Jackson’s speed had slowed to 4.4 seconds since the injury.

Looking to restore some of Jackson’s speed, White Sox trainer Herm Schneider contacted Huey while she was conducting a clinic in Chicago in early September. After the White Sox signed Jackson, the team installed a Multidepth Hydrotherapy Pool in the trainer’s room at Comiskey Park.

Huey, 44, a former sprinter at San Jose State in the late 1960s, was introduced to water therapy after breaking her foot on a trip to China in 1975. George Starke, a Washington Redskin offensive lineman who was on the trip, recommended water rehabilitation. Thus, a career was born.

Huey has since written for several publications on water resistance therapy. She has helped rehabilitate such athletes as Carl Lewis, Mike Powell, Florence Griffith Joyner and Wilt Chamberlain.

Huey says she can help Bo Jackson.

“I feel very confident that it’s possible,” she said. “What you can do in water--you can do a lot more training without trauma; maybe four times the workout that you can do on land. But nothing I’m going to devise is going to repair the hip.”

Huey taught Schneider 15 water exercises to strengthen all Jackson’s muscle groups. A White Sox staff member videotaped the exercises as they were performed by relief pitcher Scott Radinsky. Huey also showed Schneider how to hook Jackson to an elastic tether for sprint work in water.

While most world-class runners perform water sprints of decreasing intervals of 60, 30, 20, and 10 seconds, Huey said her baseball workout was refined to intervals decreasing from 10 seconds, because “they only need short bursts of speed.”

The White Sox are the first major league team to acquire a hydrotherapy pool. It occupies less than 200 feet of the team’s training room and drives more than 25,000 gallons of water per minute through side channels.

Huey said Jackson can do his exercises in any back-yard pool. When trying to devise a workout program for Jackson, Huey said Schneider was reluctant to admit how much pain Jackson was experiencing during the player’s rehabilitation workouts.

“He hemmed and hawed about it,” Huey said. “But I said if there was any discomfort or pain, then he should train two days in water, then one on land. As he gets stronger, he should go water/land, water/land. Then, one day on water and two days on land.”

Huey does not know whether water therapy will allow Jackson a full recovery, but she said she has learned something about rehabilitating world-class athletes.

“I haven’t been following his case that closely, but I don’t figure anyone is out of the game,” she said. “When I heard that Bo Jackson would never play again, I said ‘Don’t count him out.’ A top athlete will find a way to heal.”