I have been thinking a lot about the word “potential” lately. I guess somewhere along the way I began to resent it. I was talented, I was a skilled athlete, I know that. But how can you quantify my potential? It is not a concrete thing. Maybe I would’ve got to the next level and choked. Maybe I had already peaked. Maybe I would have just hated it and wanted to stop. Maybe I would’ve got hurt in some other way. Since my accident, everyone keeps saying the same six words: But she had so much potential. Like my potential is something to mourn, some great loss. I was a good basketball player. I was a great basketball player, even. I was tall, I had quick feet and soft hands, I knew the game inside and out, I had the work ethic and the heart, I was fearless. But would I have been as successful as everyone thought I could have been? As I thought I could have been? I am not sure. Because the truth is, no matter the circumstances, you never really know. Nothing like that is ever guaranteed.
After I got hurt, and I thought I lost basketball forever, I stayed debilitated in bed for months on end. I was a shadow of my old self and I slipped into a very dark spout of depression. I could not stomach a life without it. It was my identity. I had other interests and passions and enjoyed various other sports, and excelled in them too. But before anything else, I was a basketball player. I knew that since I was six years old. You don’t grow up to be a 6’3 girl without it being forced upon you at some point anyway. I always knew deep down it was what I was meant to do. Something about it called to me. I didn’t know who I was without it. I decided I had to fight my way back to playing the level I always wanted to or a big piece of me might be lost forever. I got where I wanted to get, but it came with a price. It was a tough battle, a long one, and it tested my mind and body in ways I could not have imagined.
There is a saying that goes you can never love something as much as you miss it. I understand that now. Because once I fought my way back, when I proved myself, it did not feel in any way like I expected it to. The big things never do. My body was old and tired. The type of player I was before the accident changed. I was timid and cautious and constantly hyperaware of my body positioning. I used to be able to play for hours on end without getting tired or fatigued and all of a sudden I was dreading practice everyday. I knew pretty quickly that I just did not love it the in same way anymore, that it had somehow eroded over time. Or maybe I did, but my new position shadowed that love in some way. Whatever it was, basketball was not worth the pain and suffering it was causing me. It was not worth the 3 hours of physiotherapy and treatment every day. It was not worth barely even being able to walk to the gym in the morning. It was not worth showing up to class with 6 ice bags taped around my body. It was not worth hardly being able to bend my knees and ankles. I loved it so much once, it was everything to me, and suddenly it wasn’t. It is an unattainable goal to try and withstand the turmoil of forcing your body to go through that much pain on a daily basis. So I try not to be too hard on myself about walking away from it after I battled so hard to get it back. I am a peace with my decision. I know that I did all that my body was capable of doing.
I understand what I lost more now than I did in the beginning. I thought I missed being a basketball player, but the truth is I missed being a basketball player who had a healthy body and never had to worry about anything except lacing up her shoes and walking on to a court whenever she wanted to play. That was taken away from me. The simplicity of it. The ease. The fun. My injuries turned it into work, into a process, one that I dreaded. They took the parts of the game I loved the most. They took the basketball player I was and created another person altogether. The player I was before died in that accident, and as much time as I spend wishing for the opposite, that is never going to change. It took me a very long time to come to terms with that, but when I did the knowledge of it alleviated something in me. The person I missed was gone, the player I missed was gone, and the understanding of that left me no choice but to move on.
When people ask me if I play basketball now I usually say no. I am not that girl anymore, basketball is not my identity. Do I love the game? Absolutely. But I love it in a different way now. I get asked if I miss playing it a lot. I did at first, but it went away after awhile. Now I just remember how much playing hurts, how hard it is on me, and I do not really miss it at all. I do miss parts of it, though. My teammates, my coaches, being the best at something, shooting around with my friends. I miss the highs of being a star player, the praise, the acknowledgement of the hard work I put in to be as good as I was. But playing? No. It is too painful. I try and remind myself of that whenever I get a little too sad about it and start feeling sorry for myself. The game is no longer worth it, no matter which way I look at it.
The cool thing is that I am so in love with the game now in a way I never was before. I love watching my best friend play on the best team in the country and being more proud of him and his successes than I could ever be of myself. I love following the NBA and my favourite players as they grow and change as the game does. I love talking to the people closest to me about the good ol’ days; when things were easier and more carefree. I love teaching some of my friends about the sport who don’t know it in the way I do; whether it be about my favourite team or showing them my go to post move I used to bring out in games when the defence was sitting too far off my back. I steered clear from basketball for a long time after I got hurt, and a longer time still after I walked away from it. I even resented it for awhile. But not anymore. I love it now and in time it has come back to be in the most roundabout of ways.
I lost basketball twice. Once it was taken away from me and once I walked away on my own terms. I know a lot of people in my position find themselves depressed and not knowing how to process without the game they spent so much of their life dedicated to. It is not easy. It is hard to be something for so long and to all of a sudden not be that thing anymore. I have witnessed a lot of my friends struggle with the post- elite level sport life. My only advice is that it does get better. You will miss it less and less as time goes on. It will suck for awhile, you wont know what to do or how to spend your time or who you are without it. But one day, you will figure it out. You’ll find something else. Keep fighting. Keep being active. Surround yourself with people who reflect the best parts of you. Love hard. Eat a lot of ice cream. Make sure to go outside on days when the sun is shining- let yourself be sad in bed on the really rainy ones. You may not be that athlete anymore, your time may have come and gone, but you can’t surrender all your happiness for an idea you used to have about yourself that isn’t true anymore. As tough as it may be, you gotta let it go.
Lately I have been trying to be appreciative of the things I have instead of grieving the things I don’t. I still have slip ups; I still text my best friend complaining sometimes about missing my old life and how I wish I was in his shoes and on my way to win my fifth national championship like he is. I still eat too much noodle box and have more bad days then I would like. I still wish I could just walk into a gym right now and shoot a ball around without any repercussions. But for the most part I am grateful to be in a place now where I can say that it doesn’t hurt like it used to.
Rachel Knoll, Former Canadian Basketball Player.
Any individuals in sports and fitness who would like to share their voice, please submit to hank@hankfittraining.com