Episode 5 | Athlete Wins 1.0

What is up everyone, and welcome back to the ACL Athlete Podcast today. We’ve got some construction going on next door. So the timing worked out really well. There’s three town homes going up. So you might hear some of that. Next to my studio which is my kitchen, literally my kitchen table. So here we are and someone else is moving in next door.

So you might hear an elevator go back and forth. So sorry about that fam, but today , we’re talking about athlete win, a client win. It’s really cool. And I just wanted to share that today. And so this started with getting a text from one of my athlete’s parents, and it was an update about how he’s doing. He had just recently played in some basketball games and it was really cool to see that, even in the midst of all of COVID and how that’s impacted sports. It was really cool to see an update of him playing in some games. So he’s fully returned to sport and good to go. He’s been at practices and games and he’s a freshman in college right now.

So his story goes back to when he was a junior. He injured his ACL. He was going in for a shot and he felt his knee twist and long story short, there was this long road of trying to get some consultations and figure out what was going on. His knee had a little bit more of a tricky met. With recovery.

And that’s how we met. We started doing rehab together whether he was gonna have surgery or not. I referred him to a surgeon that I trust in the local community. He had his sight set on playing really soon. He was looking to get a scholarship and really take it to the next level for college basketball.

 I get a call from the surgeon after he had seen him. And the surgeon was like, he needs to have surgery. This was after an MRI was done. And he finally knew, okay, now it’s torn. So this is the game plan and what needs to happen. So I had to have the conversation with the parents and the athlete, and basically, let them know that this is the game plan of going forward, cuz they had trusted me.

 You’re looking at someone who loves basketball and had to give up his senior year of his favorite sport, not to mention, the recruits and the potential scholarships that he could have gotten from playing that year. But the goal was playing the long game of, if you want to play in college, then you know, the risk of getting your ACL repaired now versus waiting and doing it later– it’s not an easy decision.

For his situation, it was the thing that he needed to do. And so he ended up having the surgery. He did not play his senior year of high school, which was really tough. And so he worked really hard in his rehab, all the time. He was always asking me, what can I do? What can I do?

So there were a lot of times where we had to slow him down, but he was such a hard worker and put his head down. He would always ask, can I take X amount of jump shots? So it was really fun to be able to progress him along that process of reintroducing. Plyometrics and jumping and being able to do some of the cool things that you can do in basketball.

That was really fun. And, we kinda stuck together for the entire process all the way until he got back on the court, which leads me back to the text that I had gotten from his dad of his stats, where, he crushed it in the game and had some really good playing minutes. And there was a video that he attached, multiple videos, but there was one in particular where he literally goes back and forth for three different shots and drains all three shots from the three point line.

 The thing that stood out to me the most was his face in these videos after he had drained three shots back to back. And it wasn’t just the excitement of, doing the three shots. Sure, definitely. But you can tell when he just walks away with that excitement and he’s just got this like very strong stare.

He’s going through that process of thinking, man, I have worked so freaking hard to get to this point. When he had initially torn his ACL and had been told that he was gonna be out for his senior year at basketball and forgo any potential scholarships that he was gonna get, man, it almost feels like the world is gonna shut down.

 The one thing that you know about is no longer there. And so seeing that video was just inspiration, for me as someone as his coach. But also for him as an athlete, being able to live out his passion and his dream, being on scholarship and being able to play at the next level.

And so I just wanted to come on and share that because I think it’s huge. I think sharing these stories are important because this process can be so long. So if you’re someone who’s going through this process and it seems like a drag and it seems like there’s no light at the end of the tunnel, I promise you, there is. Just keep working hard and keep following your guide of who is helping you through that process, just talking it out and making sure that any feelings that you’re having, that those are being heard. Just keep working, keep going. I promise you will be better for it.

So if you have a success story and you’re listening, please send it my way. I’d love to share it. I’d love to highlight it because I think the more stories that we tell about people who get to the other side of this, and there are so many that do that, it helps every single person who is going through this process because it can be so long.

Just know that you’re not alone and that there are other people going through this. And let’s just highlight stories. Let’s push this forward and empower each other through this process. So that’s it for today, guys. I just wanted to share this story, cuz I think it’s important to celebrate the wins and be able to highlight some of this stuff.

That’s it for today and thank you for listening to the ACL athlete podcast.