Around Iredell Sports

2008 Apr-20

VIDEO: Girls provide mutual support during injuries
INTERACTIVE: Explore the knee and its ligaments
INTERACTIVE: Plyometric exercises may help in prevention

In her footsteps: Young standout’s injury adds similarity with mentor

Kaitlyn McCollum uses a rubber band during a rehabilitation sesson. Regan Hill photo

By Brad Norman
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At the beginning of the 2007-08 basketball season, Brawley Middle School coach Donna Robertson gave her players a set of questions to answer.

The questions ranged from the girls’ hopes for the upcoming season to personal goals.

Then there was the last question.

Who do you admire most in basketball?

Nearly every player picked someone like University of Tennessee star Candace Parker or former UNC-Chapel Hill point guard Ivory Latta.

Eighth-grader Kaitlyn McCollum opted for a different, more personal approach.

She wrote down Lake Norman High School senior Lindsay Mannion’s name.

“We’re really close,” McCollum said. “I’ve known her since I was about 6 or 7 years old.

“I admire how she’s had the drive to come back from basketball after her knee surgery. She still has the drive to play.”

McCollum models her game after Mannion.

She’s a hard-nosed defender, clutch rebounder and one of the hardest workers on Brawley’s girls team.

But after a freak accident playing hoops, McCollum is now more like Mannion than she ever thought possible.

‘INSTANT PAIN’
Just days after McCollum helped lead the Braves to the Iredell-Statesville Schools middle school tournament championship, she tore the anterior cruciate ligament in her right knee at the YMCA.

“I was playing against some older guys and one guy’s knee hit the side of mine when I went up for a shot and popped it in,” McCollum said. “I felt a little pop and then I felt instant pain, but then afterward there was no pain at all. I thought I could keep playing, but we had a guy there who used to coach college who said it may be torn.”

Mannion also tore the ACL in her right knee in eighth grade.

She, too, played for Robertson at Brawley Middle, and her injury came 30 seconds into her I-SS middle school tournament championship game.

Mannion successfully completed rehab and played for Lake Norman for three good years. But the summer before her senior year, Mannion tore the ACL in her left knee playing a friendly game of one-on-one in the driveway with her father.

“I was about to beat him for the first time ever,” Mannion said. “It was like 9-4, and we were going to 10. I had the ball and was driving left ... I guess I overstepped.”

That injury occurred the night before the Mannions were to leave for Florida — Lindsay had been selected to participate in Division I nationals, a prestigious event that would be teeming with college scouts.

Those travel plans were scrapped, and Mannion’s immediate goal was to play for Lake Norman her senior year.

She rehabbed as hard as possible and joined the Wildcats on the court in just five months, gaining immeasurable amounts of respect from teammates and coaches.

And from McCollum.

“I worked my butt off, that’s for sure,” Mannion said. “My doctor was pretty good working with me. He knew I was a hard worker and gave me a kind of a tough schedule. I worked out on my own at the YMCA every single day.

“My knee swelled up like crazy. When it swelled up so much that I couldn’t move, I went to the pool to work.”

Still hoping to play hoops in college, Mannion played in five games as a senior before that same ACL was re-torn during a scrum for a loose ball.

She is still contacted by certain colleges — Gardner-Webb called her less than a month ago — but knows she can’t play basketball at that level.

“I actually have been told it would not be smart to play in college, simply because the cartilage in my knees can’t take it anymore,” Mannion said. “They said it would be best for me to do something else.”

Part of that “something else” is coaching.

Mannion helped Lake Norman coach Dave Walla with his AAU team, and she also assisted Robertson at Brawley.

She specifically worked with post players, like McCollum.

“I absolutely love Kaitlyn McCollum,” Mannion said. “I think she has so much talent and self-motivation. She is a go-getter who wants to be the best on the court, and she will pretty much knock down anyone who stands in her way. I don’t think she’ll have any problems coming back from this ACL injury.”

‘AWFUL YOUNG’
McCollum is now searching within herself in hopes of finding those same qualities she admires in Mannion. She has modeled her rehab after Mannion’s, working as hard as she can with her therapists and then doing exercises on her own.

She also tries to have a bit of fun with rehab, knowing the more she enjoys it, the quicker she can get back to the court.

“I think it’s fun,” McCollum said. “I’m trying to get back so soon, and I’m just trying really hard and it seems fun because I’m trying to get back. I want to get back before basketball season starts next year. I want to try out for the school team.”

If McCollum plays JV basketball, she would play under her father Mark McCollum, who has the Wildcats’ JV team on a 40-game winning streak.

He’s been involved in coaching for the past nine years and has noticed an increase in ACL injuries for young females.

“You see it quite a bit when you’re coaching,” Mark McCollum said. “When I got the phone call that Kaitlyn went down, we were hoping for the best. I hate for anybody to get injured, but I really hate to see somebody get injured when they’re 13 years old.

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In her footsteps: Young standout’s injury adds similarity with mentor

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