Whitko's Cumberland Making A Strong Comeback
July 28, 2016 at 4:25 p.m.
By Mark [email protected]
With about four seconds left, Cumberland made a cut, collapsed and was carried from the floor. But the injury wasn’t as sudden as it appeared. The patellar tendon in her right knee had been injured earlier in the game, and the cut as time was expiring finished the tear.
“I took a three-pointer in the first quarter, and as I was backing up I got ran into,” she said Wednesday while working out at Whitko High School. “I kinda fell funny and my knee crossed over my other leg. At that point I had a sub coming in, so I came off the floor and coach (Brandon Bradley) came and asked me ‘you OK? you took a funny fall.’ and I told him ‘yeah, I’m fine.’
“I played the rest of the game, and at the very end when I was running out the clock I jump-stopped and just fell. It gave out.”
The doctors explained to Bradley and Cumberland’s father, Shawn, that the fall was inevitable once she was injured in the first quarter.
“Coach Bradley felt bad about it happening in the game and the situation that is was,” Shawn said. “The doc told him ‘you could have called a timeout and she could have been just walking across the floor.’ It was just waiting to happen.
Brianna held out some hope that she’d be able to play in the semifinal game against Wawasee two nights later.
“After the game we went to the doctor and after X-rays the doctor said they couldn’t tell how much damage had been done until I had a MRI,” Brianna said. “The next day we went to see a doctor and he told me if I felt up to it I could play, but my knee just didn’t feel up to it. So instead I chewed on my team.”
Sitting on the bench and coaching wasn’t exactly what Brianna had in mind as her team played on.
“I was a little disappointed. I felt like I let down my team, not being able to be out there with them. I was proud of my team and how they fought until the very last minute. They never gave up, no matter what the situation was. They came out really strong, but things didn’t work out the way we’d like them to. But they still played hard the rest of the game.”
SURGERY AND REHAB
Brianna had surgery the next week, and the preparation for the 2015-16 season began, in part, before she regained consciousness. Immediately after the surgery, she began using a constant progressive motion machine; a device that constantly moved her leg and bent the knee, not unlike a weight machine-type of movement. Brianna used the machine 24-7 for the first two weeks of her rehabilitation.
“When she woke up from surgery, they had her on the machine moving the leg at a slow rate,” Shawn said. “Her doctor said ‘if you can sleep in it, sleep in it.’ It didn’t seem to bother her so 24 hours a day she had the leg moving.”
Shawn said there was a decision to make in terms of the approach to treatment and rehab of the injury.
“In my research on knees and so forth, trying to decide where we were going to go and who was going to do the surgery,” he said. “I found there are so many ways the doctors can do this right now.”
Shawn said two of Brianna’s teammates had similar injuries and used different approaches to recovery. One approach was to rebuild strength in the knee and leg, the other had an emphasis on regaining flexibility. The Cumberland household used information from both families, among many other resources, to help make a treatment decision they felt was right for Brianna, and to put the emphasis on flexibility.
Brianna said the long road through the recovery process has been aided by the support of her teammates, fellow students, members of the community and she even heard from a few opponents.
“From the very beginning, even in the locker room after the game, my teammates were super-encouraging,” she said. “As soon as it happened they were all in there, talking to me and everything. It was pretty emotional. It was scary for everyone, I think, but everyone was super-supportive the whole time.
“Coach Bradley even said that other teams and coaches were texting him and saying ‘I hope she gets better.’ Everybody was just super supportive about everything.
“Even now I’m getting texts ‘hey B, how you doin’?’ When I’ve been a little down I’ve been about to text somebody ‘hey, can you talk?’ and get a phone call right back just to talk me through some things. The support from my teammates has been incredible. I am so thankful for them.”
A DIFFERENT SUMMER
Brianna has been playing travel team basketball since she was a third grader, so this was a highly unusual summer for the junior-to-be.
“Usually I’m playing travel ball, and I don’t usually stop playing. Now I’m rehabbing and working out and getting back into the flow of things.
“The hardest exercise I had to do was just lift up my leg. I looked at my teammate doing her rehab and thought ‘that doesn’t look so hard,’ but it really is. It put me into tears.
“You really don’t understand how hard it is until you go through it.”
“The whole time I’ve been working on function and extention. They said I had to get my leg fully straight, then bend it back far enough to touch my (backside). I’m still not there.”
The first two months the focus was on flexibility exclusively; the addition of strength exercises came later.
“Every time I’ve gone in for a checkup they’ve given me new stretches to work on, and to start working on strength,” said Brianna. “They told me if I didn’t get my function and extention back, I wouldn’t be able to move as fast or as well as I used to.”
Next week she gets another checkup, and her family expects the green light to resume more basketball activities, be cleared for contact with a gradual increase in playing time. She’ll wear a compression bandage-type brace on the knee, but it’s more for her mental well-being than anything else. The expectation is she’ll be 100 percent in plenty of time for basketball practice to start this fall.
Father and daughter agree there’s been valuable life lessons emerge from the ordeal, not the least of which is overcoming adversity.
“I’ve been really proud of her and how she’s handled everything,” Shawn said. “I think that later in life when something happens she’ll be able to use this experience to say ‘I’ve overcome tough situations before, and I can do it again.’”
Brianna added “It’s been a lot harder than I ever thought it would be, but it’s definitely going to be worth it.”
Cumberland scored 589 points in her first two prep seasons, leading the Lady Wildcats to consecutive 16-win seasons.
Whitko opens the season Nov. 6 at Fort Wayne North.[[In-content Ad]]
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With about four seconds left, Cumberland made a cut, collapsed and was carried from the floor. But the injury wasn’t as sudden as it appeared. The patellar tendon in her right knee had been injured earlier in the game, and the cut as time was expiring finished the tear.
“I took a three-pointer in the first quarter, and as I was backing up I got ran into,” she said Wednesday while working out at Whitko High School. “I kinda fell funny and my knee crossed over my other leg. At that point I had a sub coming in, so I came off the floor and coach (Brandon Bradley) came and asked me ‘you OK? you took a funny fall.’ and I told him ‘yeah, I’m fine.’
“I played the rest of the game, and at the very end when I was running out the clock I jump-stopped and just fell. It gave out.”
The doctors explained to Bradley and Cumberland’s father, Shawn, that the fall was inevitable once she was injured in the first quarter.
“Coach Bradley felt bad about it happening in the game and the situation that is was,” Shawn said. “The doc told him ‘you could have called a timeout and she could have been just walking across the floor.’ It was just waiting to happen.
Brianna held out some hope that she’d be able to play in the semifinal game against Wawasee two nights later.
“After the game we went to the doctor and after X-rays the doctor said they couldn’t tell how much damage had been done until I had a MRI,” Brianna said. “The next day we went to see a doctor and he told me if I felt up to it I could play, but my knee just didn’t feel up to it. So instead I chewed on my team.”
Sitting on the bench and coaching wasn’t exactly what Brianna had in mind as her team played on.
“I was a little disappointed. I felt like I let down my team, not being able to be out there with them. I was proud of my team and how they fought until the very last minute. They never gave up, no matter what the situation was. They came out really strong, but things didn’t work out the way we’d like them to. But they still played hard the rest of the game.”
SURGERY AND REHAB
Brianna had surgery the next week, and the preparation for the 2015-16 season began, in part, before she regained consciousness. Immediately after the surgery, she began using a constant progressive motion machine; a device that constantly moved her leg and bent the knee, not unlike a weight machine-type of movement. Brianna used the machine 24-7 for the first two weeks of her rehabilitation.
“When she woke up from surgery, they had her on the machine moving the leg at a slow rate,” Shawn said. “Her doctor said ‘if you can sleep in it, sleep in it.’ It didn’t seem to bother her so 24 hours a day she had the leg moving.”
Shawn said there was a decision to make in terms of the approach to treatment and rehab of the injury.
“In my research on knees and so forth, trying to decide where we were going to go and who was going to do the surgery,” he said. “I found there are so many ways the doctors can do this right now.”
Shawn said two of Brianna’s teammates had similar injuries and used different approaches to recovery. One approach was to rebuild strength in the knee and leg, the other had an emphasis on regaining flexibility. The Cumberland household used information from both families, among many other resources, to help make a treatment decision they felt was right for Brianna, and to put the emphasis on flexibility.
Brianna said the long road through the recovery process has been aided by the support of her teammates, fellow students, members of the community and she even heard from a few opponents.
“From the very beginning, even in the locker room after the game, my teammates were super-encouraging,” she said. “As soon as it happened they were all in there, talking to me and everything. It was pretty emotional. It was scary for everyone, I think, but everyone was super-supportive the whole time.
“Coach Bradley even said that other teams and coaches were texting him and saying ‘I hope she gets better.’ Everybody was just super supportive about everything.
“Even now I’m getting texts ‘hey B, how you doin’?’ When I’ve been a little down I’ve been about to text somebody ‘hey, can you talk?’ and get a phone call right back just to talk me through some things. The support from my teammates has been incredible. I am so thankful for them.”
A DIFFERENT SUMMER
Brianna has been playing travel team basketball since she was a third grader, so this was a highly unusual summer for the junior-to-be.
“Usually I’m playing travel ball, and I don’t usually stop playing. Now I’m rehabbing and working out and getting back into the flow of things.
“The hardest exercise I had to do was just lift up my leg. I looked at my teammate doing her rehab and thought ‘that doesn’t look so hard,’ but it really is. It put me into tears.
“You really don’t understand how hard it is until you go through it.”
“The whole time I’ve been working on function and extention. They said I had to get my leg fully straight, then bend it back far enough to touch my (backside). I’m still not there.”
The first two months the focus was on flexibility exclusively; the addition of strength exercises came later.
“Every time I’ve gone in for a checkup they’ve given me new stretches to work on, and to start working on strength,” said Brianna. “They told me if I didn’t get my function and extention back, I wouldn’t be able to move as fast or as well as I used to.”
Next week she gets another checkup, and her family expects the green light to resume more basketball activities, be cleared for contact with a gradual increase in playing time. She’ll wear a compression bandage-type brace on the knee, but it’s more for her mental well-being than anything else. The expectation is she’ll be 100 percent in plenty of time for basketball practice to start this fall.
Father and daughter agree there’s been valuable life lessons emerge from the ordeal, not the least of which is overcoming adversity.
“I’ve been really proud of her and how she’s handled everything,” Shawn said. “I think that later in life when something happens she’ll be able to use this experience to say ‘I’ve overcome tough situations before, and I can do it again.’”
Brianna added “It’s been a lot harder than I ever thought it would be, but it’s definitely going to be worth it.”
Cumberland scored 589 points in her first two prep seasons, leading the Lady Wildcats to consecutive 16-win seasons.
Whitko opens the season Nov. 6 at Fort Wayne North.[[In-content Ad]]
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