Did you know I used to be an athlete?
It’s true. There was a time when I glided across fields. Back in my youth, I could jump out of the gym. I could dunk a basketball as a freshman in high school. I had a nice blend of speed and quickness. I even made a few bucks racing guys who never thought a tall, skinny kid could be faster than they were.
That all changed on that fateful day in February of `98. It was my last basketball game of the season. It was a recreational league, and my team was playing a bunch of guys who went to my high school, so we all knew each other, which only heightened the desire to win. No one gave us much of a chance to win, but there we were in the second period, winning by eight points.
Then it happened.
One of my teammates stole the ball in the backcourt and saw me streaking down to the basket. He flipped the ball over my way and in an instant my athletic world came crashing down.
It would have been so perfect. Catch the ball, turn around, go right back up and slam the ball home, then turn and scream my head off about how cool I am. It felt like a good idea at the time. The first part went OK; I had to jump to catch the ball, and I caught it clean. Then I must have been just a bit too excited because I next tried to turn and jump at the same time. For some reason, the lower part of my right leg seemed to move just a little bit slower than the rest of my body.
Pop.
That is the only word that could describe it. Or maybe it could be described as intense, excruciating pain. However you want to describe it, I never made it to dunking the basketball. I ended up on the ground, clutching my knee and screaming every nasty word in the book.
As an added bonus, my dad and 10-year-old brother were sitting right there to see me and, unfortunately, hear me.
Having a torn ACL is almost like belonging to an exclusive club. Every member even comes with his or her very own identifiable mark; a nice scar down the center of the knee. I have shared my story with countless others like me. I cringe when I see any athlete go down with a knee injury because it always brings back a glimpse of my experience and that is something I would not wish on anyone. There is also a level of respect that every member has for each other because we all know how bad rehab can be.
Ahh, the ACL rehab, one of the most frustrating things I have ever had to go through in my life. I knew it was bad on the first day when I had to lay down four separate times so I would not throw up. I never thought I would see the day when I could not pedal a bike, but there I was, unable to get enough bend in my knee to get my leg high enough. There were the countless hours of stair-stepping and underwater aerobics. I will never forget the first time I went running, who would have thought a seven-minute jog would be so satisfying, yet so painful at the same time.
People have asked me what the worst part of the whole experience was. For the longest time, I thought it was having to stay off the basketball court for 10 months. It wasn’t the initial injury or the agonizingly painful therapy that followed. It was the command I received from the surgeon every time I went to see him, ordering me to stay off the court.
That used to be the worst part. However, over the past year and a half, I have come to realize an even more painful realization; I will never be as good as I was before.
I am no longer quick. I have lost a lot of my speed. I can still dunk the basketball, but it’s not the same as it was before. I’ve lost a lot of athleticism, and not only physically, but mentally as well. There is always the worry in the back of my mind that it could happen again. Every tweak of my knee brings about a flash of worry, every time I make a cut on the field or court, I’m think about not getting hurt. I still get glimpses of my former self on the field, but those are few and far between.
This whole experience has left me amazed at the abilities of today’s athletes. Thinking back to how hard I had to work, just to get back to where I am today, I know that anyone playing a college or pro sport had to work twice as hard as me. Medical breakthroughs along with hard work have provided athletes with torn ACLs the opportunity to play sports again. But rest assured that anyone who has come back from a torn ACL and is playing a college or pro sport needed a lot more than just medical breakthroughs and hard work. They needed the heart and desire to walk back out on the field and play as they were used to, because without that desire, there is no way they could ever make it back.
