ACL ends senior McCray's career at Kansas |
By Mechelle Voepel, ESPN (blog) - Friday marked our annual Women's Sports Awards Luncheon event in Kansas City. It benefits an organization called Win for K.C., a local incarnation of what the Women's Sports Foundation is nationally.
It's an inspiring, energy-charged event, and this year was especially a big deal, with women's sports legend Billie Jean King as keynote speaker. She started the WSF back in 1974, so this was her chance to see the microcosm of her life's work represented in this Midwestern community.
Among the award winners this year was a 73-year-old grandmother who has run 97 marathons. Yes -- 97! Her goal is to reach 100, although I seriously doubt she'll stop there. She has run a marathon in all 50 states and on all seven continents. And guess when she actually took up running? When she was 50.
I swear I'm not making up this stuff. Each luncheon, we hear stories like this, so it's always one of the best days of the year for me. Except …
This year, right as the luncheon was about to start, I saw a message on my BlackBerry that Kansas senior Danielle McCray had suffered an ACL injury and was out for the season.
I had to look at it three times to believe it. I kept thinking -- hoping? -- I was reading it wrong. You'd think after all the ACL injuries I've had to report about in 26 years of covering women's basketball, they would lose the power to upset me. But that isn't the case.
They still do. Some, though, hit harder than others. When they happen to someone whom you talked to on her first college media day, whom you've watched grow from a uncertain freshman to a confident senior, whom you've seen blossom into an excellent pro prospect and also a fine young woman … those hit really hard.
After the luncheon, I ran into former Kansas State players Danielle Zanotti and Marlies Gipson, who finished their careers last season and now are helping on Deb Patterson's staff. Even though Kansas and Kansas State are big rivals, rivalries go out the window when it comes to injuries, one of the unifying miseries of sports.
It's an inspiring, energy-charged event, and this year was especially a big deal, with women's sports legend Billie Jean King as keynote speaker. She started the WSF back in 1974, so this was her chance to see the microcosm of her life's work represented in this Midwestern community.
Among the award winners this year was a 73-year-old grandmother who has run 97 marathons. Yes -- 97! Her goal is to reach 100, although I seriously doubt she'll stop there. She has run a marathon in all 50 states and on all seven continents. And guess when she actually took up running? When she was 50.
I swear I'm not making up this stuff. Each luncheon, we hear stories like this, so it's always one of the best days of the year for me. Except …
This year, right as the luncheon was about to start, I saw a message on my BlackBerry that Kansas senior Danielle McCray had suffered an ACL injury and was out for the season.
I had to look at it three times to believe it. I kept thinking -- hoping? -- I was reading it wrong. You'd think after all the ACL injuries I've had to report about in 26 years of covering women's basketball, they would lose the power to upset me. But that isn't the case.
They still do. Some, though, hit harder than others. When they happen to someone whom you talked to on her first college media day, whom you've watched grow from a uncertain freshman to a confident senior, whom you've seen blossom into an excellent pro prospect and also a fine young woman … those hit really hard.
After the luncheon, I ran into former Kansas State players Danielle Zanotti and Marlies Gipson, who finished their careers last season and now are helping on Deb Patterson's staff. Even though Kansas and Kansas State are big rivals, rivalries go out the window when it comes to injuries, one of the unifying miseries of sports.
Categories : Business Speaker News, Athlete News
Posted 2/6/2010 12:02:29 AM | Permalink
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