How It Happened

I am one of those players who never gets hurt. The worst injury I have ever had was a sprained ankle. I never really thought I would ever get hurt because I had gone so long without a broken bone or any serious accidents. Because I had this mind set, I might have been a little blind to realizing that I had torn my ACL. When it happened, my high school team and I were at the Southeastern  Louisiana University Team Camp. As a whole, our team had played around eleven games in two days. Unfortunately, the competition at the camp did not even come close to competing with our team, with the exception of the last team we played. I was excited for that game. We were finally getting to play a really good team  - they have a girl who is being recruited by Stanford. We hung with them for a little bit too! Anyway, we were within the first two or three minutes of the game when I went for a steal and jump stopped. I am not too sure how it happened, but I think one of the opposing teams players hit my leg or my knee just kept going when I stopped. I fell to the ground, not necessarily because of how much pain I was in, but more because of how scared I was.  I had never had knee problems before. After I walked off the court (without any tears I might add), I sat on the bench then tried to go back in the game. Unfortunately, my knee didn't agree with that idea. Our football coach then took me to the trainer, who told me I had an LCL sprain. He was way off, but it's really hard to tell without an MRI. I rehabbed my "LCL sprain" for two weeks. After those weeks were up, I went with my AAU team to play in Dallas. The first play of the first game, I went to cut and my knee made an awful crunching sound. After hobbling off the court, I went back in during the next time out. I played for a couple of minutes and did some positive things. Next thing I know, my knee has buckled and I've fallen on the floor. After that, my dad and I went to visit the trainer. He told us I could have possibly torn my ACL even though I had no swelling around that area. That was the first time I really realized that this could be happening.