Return to the court comes quicker than expected
With an ACL injury behind her, Citrus senior and volleyball player Rachel Fults plays her first game back tonight.
DAWN REISS
Published August 15, 2006
INVERNESS - Rachel Fults wasn't sure if this day would ever come.
It's the first volleyball game of the season, and it's a big one: Citrus hosts Crystal River at 6:30 p.m.
For eight months, Fults has hoped and waited since that dreadful day - January 13 - when she tore her ACL.
Fults remembers going up for the rebound in a basketball game against Lecanto. Ball in hand, she came down from the basket on one leg instead of two. Her left leg locked up like a rod, hitting the floor straight instead of bent. It cost her the rest of basketball season.
Even though volleyball was a long way off, she worried about that, too. After a month of strengthening her quad, she went in for ACL surgery. But before going under, she asked her doctor for an athletic cadaver so she could run faster and jump higher when it was done.
It's weird for Fults to think about a dead person's body part inside her, but she's still glad to have it. Two weeks after the surgery, she tried shooting hoops in her driveway, but it was nearly impossible to bend down on crutches, which left blisters in her armpits.
"I did a lot of studying," said Fults, who is a Citrus senior middle blocker/outside hitter. "Not that I don't usually study, I just did more of it than usual."
She tried jogging at first. Once around the block was all she could manage, despite her doctor's wish.
"They told me to take more time," Fults said. "But I just can't sit around."
Fults kept going to physical therapy, where she balanced on one leg, did lunges and squats and walked, then jogged up and down a hill to increase her stamina and strength.
When Fults asked to attend the Citrus volleyball camp this summer, she was told it was out of the question. She had to wait a minimum of six months after her surgery, and even that was risky.
Since she wasn't medically cleared to play with Citrus, Fults said she joined an adult recreational team and played beach volleyball at Bicentennial Park during the summer. Fults nearly ruined her chance of playing again. She went up to spike the ball, quickly realizing she didn't have any leg strength as she fell to the ground.
"I want to try for a college scholarship," Fults said. "If I couldn't play, it would ruin everything."
But she kept playing. She knew that the high school volleyball season would start soon. She still wasn't sure if she could play.
Officially, Fults was cleared Aug. 4, the Thursday before school started.
On the court, it's hard to tell she was ever gone. "She is sheer determination," coach Alice Christian said.
Fults spikes hard, skyrocketing up the middle.
"It is a little crazy that I'm back so quickly," Fults said.
She is still afraid of getting hurt again, but it hasn't stopped her from jump serving.
"I can't sit and watch a sport I love," Fults said. "I need to play."
Dawn Reiss can be reached at 352 860-7303 or dreiss@sptimes.com.
