JAMIE STIVERS

I would argue that almost every athlete's greatest fear is hearing the words “you need surgery to fix that” or “you’ve torn your ACL”. My greatest fear since I began playing volleyball at a high level was tearing my ACL. It’s like the gauntlet of all injuries. It’s a different beast. 

On September 19th, 2019, my worst nightmare came true. This season was supposed to be my breakout season after having a great freshman season, transferring, recovering from double ankle surgery, and finally feeling like myself as a volleyball player again after years of work at my new school. We were playing against Colorado State in our final preseason tournament. It was our third to last preseason match and I can’t even put into words how excited I was to start conference the next week.

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The match against Colorado State could not have gone worse and was the worst match of the season for our team as a collective group by a landslide. Nothing was going right and it almost felt like an out-of-body experience for my entire team. In the third set, on match point, I went to shift my feet and make a move to my left. Immediately I felt and heard a huge pop as I collapsed and my left knee gave way, bending in a degree that no knee should ever bend. 

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If you know me, you know that I am not one to ever over-exaggerate an injury. In fact, I am quite the opposite. There are no words to articulate the level of pain I felt immediately as my knee gave in and even thinking back to it as I write this gives me chills. It was at that moment that my world shattered and I knew this was bad. I knew I had torn my ACL (in addition to other things) when it happened because of the sheer pain I was in, the fact my knee was the size of a grapefruit minutes after I was carried off the court, and the video of what happened. It was not until weeks after this day that I was able to accept that, say it out loud, and begin to own my recovery process. The realization that I would need to overcome yet another surgery, and one of this degree, hit me hard. My mind went a million different places thinking about what this would mean for my volleyball career as I do not plan to stop playing when my collegiate career comes to an end. In the blink of an eye, an injury took away my ability to play my sport for over a year, and everything that I had worked towards and rightfully earned in the past 12 years of training was taken away from me.

ACL recovery is no walk in the park. It’s isolating, overwhelming, and the most challenging and mentally/physically painful thing I have overcome thus far in my life. I had surgery on October 15th, 2019. The first few days after surgery I could not physically move without help. The surgery was excruciating and the mental pain I was in felt comparable to the physical pain I was enduring. I could not sleep or eat because I was so depressed, feeling like my world had just been taken right out from under me. No one could really prepare me for what the recovery from ACL surgery would throw at me.  Fast-forward to rehab. Hours on hours in the CPM, quality time with the BFR, and so much more that I could go on and on about forever. Thankfully I had the best surgeon and physical therapists that I could have asked for and I trust them with my life. Rehab is LONG and you need a team around you. With that being said, you ultimately are the only person who can hold yourself accountable and push yourself in your recovery process. It is an exhausting and grueling year as you have to make the adjustment to be essentially self-motivated for 100% of your recovery. This is difficult when you are so used to the team environment, even for someone as self-driven as myself.  

I love volleyball so much and am such a gym rat that it absolutely killed me not being able to be in the gym all the time while I had to prioritize rehab and do what was best for my physical and mental health. When you’re injured, it is so hard to step outside of yourself and think about anything other than your injury. The few times I was able to make it to the gym and sit on the side doing rehab, I left in tears because I thought I would never be able to play volleyball again. There were days I left PT questioning how I would ever make it to the return-to-play part of rehab when I was still struggling to re-learn how to walk. I tried to look fine on the outside but inside I was still hurting and wrestling with a million thoughts. 

Recovery can feel like a process that is never going to end but day by day and brick by brick, you build yourself back up. Slowly but surely, I made progress. In addition to physical therapy 4-5x a week, I got in to see a therapist and sports psychologist regularly. The recovery process taught me more than I ever could have imagined and has by far been the biggest year of both mental and physical growth of my life. 

It has taken me months since being cleared to really look back on such a dark time in my life and reflect on all the growth and lessons learned. I know this will sound strange for anyone currently in the rehab process, but tearing my ACL is something I am incredibly thankful for. It has been a blessing in my life and I can confidently say I would not be the athlete, teammate, or friend that I am today without overcoming this challenge and learning more than I ever could have hoped for from the journey of recovery. 

The main things that I have learned from my recovery journey 

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1. Celebrate EVERYTHING.

The rehab process is long and taught me the importance of pausing to take a moment to celebrate the mini victories. Little goals like getting your brace off, driving again, taking your first steps, one extra leg raise, or an extra degree of flexion are all equally important and worth celebrating. If you don’t become excited about these baby steps that contribute to your journey back to the court, it’s going to make the process seem longer than it already is. With this, it’s also incredibly important to find people around you who are going to pour into you and celebrate your accomplishments with you. Every little baby step is just as important as the other, all worthy of celebrating. 

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2. Stay Near-Sighted 

My surgeon told me about the value of remaining near-sighted before surgery and it is something I stay cognizant of every single day, even now a year after being cleared. If you are thinking into the future, you are not going to be able to make the best of the present moment, and in ACL rehab that is crucial. As I said, the ACL rehab process is LONG. You can’t be thinking weeks or months in advance in terms of your recovery because it will wear you out over time. I remember every day before I would go to physical therapy I always liked to ask myself the question “What am I doing today that is going to put me one step closer to where I want to be tomorrow?”, and reflect on that afterward. Of course, there were days where I wasn’t able to remain near-sighted – but it is something I worked very hard on during the rehab process that I believe helped my recovery tremendously. 

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3. Pour into others 

After I got hurt and was sidelined for a year, I had to play a role that I never imagined playing. At first, because I was not contributing to the team through my performance as I had been, I did not feel like I was part of the team anymore. This way of thinking is SO wrong and thankfully I was able to work through this over the course of a few weeks after talking to a sports psychologist and my therapist. I was not able to be on the sideline with my team when they played against Georgia or Stanford in the NCAA tournament that year and I sat in the stands with the parents but I still know that I contributed to my team's success that weekend in ways other than performance. It is SO important to pour into your teammates and realize that you are still a part of the team, and can contribute SO much to the team, even if you are not able to be on the court. We are going to have 23 on the roster for our team this season, and there is not one single player that matters more or less than another. And hey, pouring into others and lifting others up can help distract you from your injury. 

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4. Be smart 

I wish I could tell freshman year Jamie this. Athletics is a marathon, not a sprint. My pain tolerance is through the roof at this point and I am the player to always want to do more and hide any pain I am experiencing, but after 3 surgeries in 4 years, let me be the first to say LISTEN TO YOUR BODY. You are the only person that can feel the pain you are going through, and you have to communicate to your athletic trainers and coaches when something is hurting. The “keep pushing through everything” and “no days off” mindset is detrimental to long-term success and longevity as a high-level athlete. Learn to prioritize your recovery and your body early. I have such a new appreciation and love for my body after overcoming my ACL injury and realizing how much it can do for me after all that I have put it through. I know that I want to play for a long time, so I have to be smart and continue to take care of my body. This means I still do rehab exercises, stay hydrated, eat right, stay in shape, go to sleep early, and overall prepare to compete at a high level. 

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5. Every day is a blessing

The new perspective and love that I have for volleyball is something I have been trying to put into words for the past few months and still have not been able to. When you are sidelined due to an injury and forced to take on a new role, you see the game through a completely different lens and there is so much to be learned in that. I am not saying it's impossible, but I think that the perspective I have now would be incredibly difficult to have without going through this injury. I never thought I would be so excited for the opportunity to condition again (…I’ve never been a runner), and every single day that I am in the gym now I have a giant smile on my face. You don’t realize how much something means to you until it is taken away from you in the blink of an eye. Time is precious. That goes for all areas of life and what a beautiful reminder tearing my ACL was of that lesson!! Every single second in the gym is a blessing and not a day goes by when I am in the locker room velcroing my donjoy brace getting ready to walk into the gym that I don’t think about how LUCKY I am to have another opportunity to compete and do what I love. You appreciate the good times so much more when you’ve made it through the other side of those really tough, low experiences. I am thankful that I was given such a cool opportunity to overcome my injury and better relate to and inspire others who are going to go through it.

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6. You are so much more than your sport 

I think I can speak for all athletes who have been through an injury similar to mine that doing so completely rips your world out from under you. You’ve identified as an athlete for so long, and when that is taken away from you, you are forced to sit and think about what you are without it. That question can be psychologically debilitating to sit with, and surgery forces you to slow down and process things you’ve never had to process. I didn’t feel of any value after I had torn my ACL because my identity as a volleyball player, which has prominently defined who I am and how others view me since middle school, was taken away. Thankfully with a lot of hard work and surrounding myself with the right people, I have realized that I am so much more than just an athlete and if you’re an athlete reading this, so are you. What you do in your sport is just a bonus to who you are. I am a daughter, sister, teammate, friend, mentor, student, child of God, and so much more. This was one of the most brutal lessons for me to learn, but now I have been through it and know that I can play free because I am not defined by my performance on the volleyball court. This realization is the reason I am more confident and playing better than I was even prior to my injury. 

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July 15th, 2020 was the day that I got cleared. Two weeks later, our Fall season got canceled. In December of 2020, the NCAA announces there will be a spring season, only for the Big West conference to come out and say that we will be one of the two conferences that will not be participating in the spring season. 

Today it is July 16th, 2021. 667 days. It has been 667 days since I tore my ACL and have had the opportunity to wear my jersey and compete. 667 days of waking up every morning and repeating to myself, “every day, one step closer”. God-willingly, I will have the opportunity to compete in 44 days. And I’ll be ready.