Monday, March 16, 2020 — 8
Sports
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Maddie Nolan’s long road back
It was just an ordinary play.
Maddie Nolan, playing for her AAU
team in mid-July after her junior year
of high school, went up for a layup. But
the result was anything but ordinary.
On the way up, Maddie made
contact with a defender, causing her
to land awkwardly on her left leg. She
immediately went down in pain, the
possibility of an ACL tear running
through her mind.
Maddie’s mother, Kris, viewing
the play from the stands, saw it a
little differently. Her first thought
was an ankle injury, possibly a sprain.
Something not too serious. But when
she saw that Maddie couldn’t get up
on her own, couldn’t put any weight
on her leg, she knew it was worse.
Much worse.
The Nolans immediately got in
their car and drove seven hours from
Kansas City to Zionsville, Indiana —
their hometown —fearing the worst.
Maddie’s uncle, a doctor, helped her
get an MRI immediately when they
got back.
The initial diagnosis was a torn
popliteus tendon, which would keep
Maddie out six to eight weeks. It
was definitely a setback, but she was
relieved. She would still be able to play
her senior season of high school.
But because it was such an
uncommon injury, doctors continued
to re-evaluate it. And when they did,
they found that Maddie was missing
a chunk of cartilage in her knee — a
microfracture — which could keep
her out anywhere between six and 18
months, depending on the procedure.
“I cried,” Maddie said. “You miss
your senior season. You miss playing
with all the kids you’ve grown up
with. It was really tough.”
Added
Kris:
“(It
was)
like
somebody had sucker punched me
right in the stomach. … Just knowing
that she wouldn’t be able to play her
senior year, because she loved her
high school teammates so much, was
probably even more heartbreaking.”
***
From a young age, Kris and Henry
— Maddie’s father — knew that
Maddie was driven.
When she was five, she played on
a co-ed youth soccer team. She was
never afraid to take down the boys
and do whatever it took to score.
“She was a pretty intense little kid,”
Kris said.
But she was always destined to
play basketball. Both her parents
coached high school basketball and
Kris played at New Mexico State,
where she graduated as the all-time
leading scorer. Dinners were filled
with conversations about plays and
days were filled either in the gym or
watching basketball on TV.
Kris knew that Maddie could be
something special since sixth grade,
but it wasn’t until eighth grade
Maddie started to put the work in.
Zionsville
hadn’t
been
a
powerhouse in girls basketball for
a long time — it was long since Kris
played there and set the all-time
scoring record. When Maddie was in
eighth grade, the team won just four
games. But Maddie wanted to change
that.
“Maddie’s class came in and they
were told, ‘Oh, you guys will never
amount to anything. Nobody wants to
come to girls games,’ ” Kris said. “And
Maddie and her teammates, her class,
are just like ‘OK, watch us.’ ”
Maddie knew freshman year would
be a challenge. For the first time in her
life, she was playing against players
four years older than her, who were
bigger and stronger. But Maddie saw
the potential the team had and knew
her class could change the reputation
of Zionsville girls basketball. She
spent hours in the gym after practices
putting up shots. On Sundays, she
took Henry’s key to the school and
shot for hours on end.
Maddie earned a starting spot her
freshman year and led Zionsville to
its first section title in 20 years. Her
sophomore year, Zionsville won the
section again.
By the time her junior year came
around, the college offers started
coming in. Maddie had interest from
many power conference schools,
including Michigan. Her dream of
playing at one looked like it would
become a reality.
All the while, Maddie was playing
the best basketball of her life. She
averaged 21.5 points per game and
broke
Kris’s
Zionsville
all-time
scoring record as it made a run to the
state championship game. Maddie
was named to the Indiana all-state
team. Her basketball career looked as
promising as ever.
But then came that dreaded July
day.
***
When Maddie heard the six to 18
month timetable, her first thought
was, “Six months and I’m playing
again.”
She counted out the days. Six
months would allow her to return for
her final regular season high school
game. There was no doubt in her mind
she would be back for that game. But
those six months were difficult.
The
phone
stopped
ringing.
Schools stopped showing interest.
Maddie didn’t have many options
left, and committed to Miami (OH).
She wouldn’t get to play at a power
conference school.
“She wanted to be on the big stage,”
Kris said. “That was her goal, and
when she got hurt, there were just a
handful of schools that stuck with her.
So seeing that dream, at that time, was
not going to be realized was hard.
“We just kept saying, ‘Look, you
still get to play basketball. There are
a lot of kids who don’t and who won’t
be able to come back from something
like this or get a worse diagnosis than
you had.’ ”
Maddie started physical therapy
a month after her surgery, but she
couldn’t do much — she would still be
on crutches for another month. In her
first few sessions, she was extremely
limited.
“For the first couple times I would
literally sit on a table, do heel slides,
trying to see how far I could bring up
my leg, just kind of flexing my quad,
getting those muscles back,” Maddie
said “So it was very limited.”
All she wanted to do was get back
to playing basketball, but for the first
few months of her rehab she had to
essentially re-learn how to use her
leg. But once she was allowed to put
weight on it and stop using crutches
— about two-and-a-half months after
her surgery — the road back became
a little bit clearer. Maddie started
seeing a sport-specific trainer to begin
basketball activities, in addition to her
physical therapist.
Once she got back to basketball,
as limited as it was, Maddie was
more motivated than ever to make it
back in six months. When her high
school season started, and for the first
time ever she had to watch from the
bench, it grew even more. There was
no doubt in her mind she would play
another high school game.
And
when
that
doctor’s
appointment finally came, exactly
six months after her surgery, Maddie
finally heard the words she had waited
so long to hear. She was cleared to play
basketball again.
A couple days later, midway
through
the
first
quarter
of
Zionsville’s
final
regular
season
game, Maddie checked in. She didn’t
play much. She limped a lot. She was
nowhere near the dominant player
she had been her junior year. But
Maddie was just happy to be back.
“The smile on her face when she
went into the game midway through
the first quarter, that smile could light
up a dark room,” Kris said.
Adrenaline got Maddie through
that first game. But for Kris, it was
the most stressed she had ever been
watching from the sidelines.
“I could hardly watch that game,”
Kris said. “Every time she fell down,
or drove to the basket, I’m covering
my eyes. It was nerve racking.”
Maddie played in four more games
her senior year, feeling pain and
limping in every one. Getting to finish
out her high school career on the court
was worth it, and Maddie was excited
to get the chance to truly return to full
strength at Miami (OH).
But in April, a coaching change at
Miami allowed Maddie to re-open
her recruitment. And when she did,
her dream of playing at a power
conference school came back as
Michigan re-entered the fold. While
Maddie wanted to commit, she was
concerned that when she got to
campus her knee wouldn’t be fully
healed and she wouldn’t be able to
play at that level.
“She was still rehabbing and still
working on strength,” Kris said. “And
(Michigan coach) Kim (Barnes Arico)
just believed in her. Kim had seen her,
knew what she was capable of doing.”
Maddie committed to Michigan in
May.
Before she got to Ann Arbor,
Maddie was selected to play on the
Indiana All-Star team in June — her
first game action in three months.
In that time, her knee hadn’t gotten
much better. She still felt pain. She
still limped.
“Obviously I was playing,” Nolan
said. “But I didn’t feel like it was the
same.”
So
when
Maddie
arrived
in
Ann Arbor weeks later, there were
concerns as to whether she would
ever be able to contribute at the
college level. She couldn’t practice
fully from the start. She didn’t do all
of the workouts and running, and
sometimes she didn’t practice at all if
her knee was hurting too much.
To alleviate the pain and stabilize
her knee when she played, the training
staff gave Maddie a bulky knee brace,
which added about an inch on the side
of her leg. She had to learn how to run
with the brace on and how to dribble
without dribbling off the brace.
Despite all the obstacles, Maddie
got to work. When she didn’t practice,
she biked or ran on an Ultra-G
treadmill. After practice, she worked
to strengthen her leg. Her thigh grew
so much over the summer that she had
to get a new knee brace.
“I got a lot more muscular, which
I think helped with the pounding
not as much,” Maddie said. “It’s more
muscle around my leg so it doesn’t
hurt as much when I step.”
Even though Maddie saw major
improvement over the summer, by
the time the season started she was
still behind the rest of the team. Early
in the season, she played sparingly,
typically only in blowouts.
But as the season progressed,
Maddie showed more and more in
practice, and she impressed. By the
time senior forward Kayla Robbins
suffered a season-ending torn ACL on
Jan. 19, Maddie had earned enough
trust from the coaching staff to take
some of her minutes.
“She was kind of behind everyone
just because she wasn’t out there, and
we didn’t really have an opportunity
to see her game and see what she was
capable of doing,” Barnes Arico said.
“But it was funny because then when
she started to get out there, little by
little I’m like, ‘Golly, Maddie’s doing a
good job. Golly, Maddie’s doing a good
job.’ And it was quiet. It was a quiet
way about her that she continued to
impress.
“She just always seems to be in
the right place. She doesn’t get sped
up. For a young kid, for a freshman,
her understanding of the game is
incredible. She handles pressure
well.”
And when starting sophomore
guard Danielle Rauch broke her hand
in practice the day before a Feb. 6
game against Purdue, it was Maddie
who Barnes Arico called upon to fill
her spot.
But when Maddie told her parents
earlier that day she might be starting,
they didn’t really believe it. They were
headed to the airport, about to get on
a plane to El Paso for Kris’s college
reunion.
And when they got off the plane an
hour before the game started and saw
that it was true, that Maddie really
was starting, everything else they had
planned had to wait.
“I’ve got my phone pulled up, we’ve
got it ready to go,” Kris said. “So we’re
watching the game on the drive to Las
Cruces, New Mexico, and then we
check into the hotel and I’m like, ‘We
can’t eat or anything until we watch
this.’ ”
Maddie played 29 minutes that
game and scored two points. For
her first few starts, that was the
norm — she wasn’t an offensive focal
point. But over time, Maddie gained
confidence, and made more and more
of an impact.
Like in a Feb. 27 win against Penn
State, when she hit two consecutive
3-pointers to put the game out
of reach. Or against Nebraska in
the second round of the Big Ten
Tournament, when she scored five
points in two minutes to break a tie
and give Michigan a lead it wouldn’t
relinquish. Or the next day against
No. 11 Northwestern, when her 10
second-half points led the Wolverines
to their biggest victory of the season.
“She’s become an offensive threat,”
junior forward Hailey Brown said
after the Northwestern game. “You
have to guard her. She can take it
off the bounce, she kind of does
everything. … She’s a large defensive
presence as well. She’s definitely a
strength in our team and opponents
have to guard her.”
Maddie may never regain the same
speed or explosiveness that she had
before. She still has to wear the bulky
brace. She has to go through intensive
preparation before each game just to
be able to play, including cutting off
80 percent of the blood flow to her leg
and doing leg presses to strengthen it.
But to Maddie, it’s all worth it.
She may never be the most talented
player on the team. She may never get
back to her pre-injury form. But it’s
becoming harder and harder to see a
future for Michigan in which she isn’t
a key asset.
And if you told her that less than
two years ago, she would feel lucky.
“When she takes time to reflect
on what her journey has been, I
think she’s just very thankful for the
opportunities that she’s been given,”
Kris said. “... It just amazes me what
she’s done. When Dr. Miller told her
an ACL tear would have been better
— you hear that and you’re like, ‘What
did you just say?’ — than to have this
injury.
“It’s a chip on her shoulder. That’s
how she rolls.”
JACK KINGSLEY
Daily Sports Writer
ALEXANDRIA POMPEI/Daily
Maddie Nolan recovered from an injury that could have kept her out as long as 18 months.