In the early overtime minutes of her team's first conference match of the year, Macalester women's soccer midfielder Emily Humphreys '13 went down and knew she wasn't getting back up.
"I was running to go get the ball and on the way I stepped in a divot and just went down," Emily told me, months later, in an email. "It was like the feeling of walking down the stairs when you think you're at the bottom but there is still one more step to go, so you hit the ground with your leg fully extended."
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In the third game of Macalester's football season, inside linebacker Levi Brown '14 left the field after his knee gave out during a tackle.
"I got off of the field without any help and as soon as I sat down it began feeling much better," Levi said. "The trainers put a brace on my knee and I was running around on the sideline so I was cleared to go back in, but before I could make a play my knee gave out again on the field. The pain was ten times worse."
Early in the Macalester volleyball season, outside hitter Mattie Hill '13 hit the ground after landing on the other team's right-side hitter.
"When I went to turn, I couldn't pivot and my knee rotated without my leg rotating with it," Mattie wrote me. "I knew right away."
What Mattie knew was that this moment wasn't one she'd soon forget—because like Emily, Levi and at least five other Macalester athletes, she'd just torn a ligament crucial to her knee, the anterior cruciate ligament (A.C.L.). She knew that her season was over before it had really begun, because she'd soon be navigating on crutches and making daily visits to the training room. She knew that as soon as her swelling went down, she'd be scheduling reconstructive knee surgery. And she knew that after surgery, she'd be back in the Leonard Center every day, slowly rebuilding her strength on a four-to-six-month road to recovery.
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