Long Road Back
January 24, 2007 01:15 PM | General
January 24, 2007
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. - It was a simple move made on the grandest basketball stage. Last January 29, Meg Bulger tried a move to the basket at Madison Square Garden attempting to rally her West Virginia team past St. Johns. In doing so, she forever altered the course of her basketball career.
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| Meg Bulger will make her second comeback attempt in 2007-08 after suffering a pair of knee injuries.
All-Pro Photography/Dale Sparks |
“It was a move that I had made twice already in that game,” Bulger said. “I had the ball in my left hand and I crossed over to my right to make a move to the basket and I just remember that my left ankle kind of got stuck in the ground but my knee went forward. Immediately I heard this crunching noise.
“That noise never leaves my head.”
That noise was a torn anterior cruciate ligament in her left knee. Everyone in attendance that day recalls the same scene. The arena was dead silent except for Bulger’s screams of agony as she lay helpless on the hardwood.
“I fell to the ground and I was kind of in shock,” the Pittsburgh native recalls. “I just remember thinking about the pain and screaming. All I could do was roll around on the ground screaming and acting like a baby -- which I didn’t want to do.”
Who could blame her? While the injury was obviously very severe, Bulger was actually relieved to find out that the left leg was still attached to her body.
“I told my trainer when he got out there that I thought my leg was hanging there twisted in half,” Bulger said. “I told him please don’t touch it. I think it’s hanging and he told me it wasn’t and that it was still there.”
The injury required surgery followed by six months of dedicated rehabilitation. It is in the days after surgery that this story of heartbreak and determination begins.
“The first steps in rehab were really slow. You put some one-or-two-pound ankle weights on and do some leg lifts,” Bulger recalls. “They work on getting your range of motion back and getting your ankle strong. You work on walking straight and little things like that. It’s the little things that you never think about that you do day to day that you do to initially get the strength back in your leg.”
Bulger was reduced to the role of a supportive spectator for the remainder of the 2006 season. After watching her teammates respond well initially, upsetting DePaul at home in the game following her injury, she was forced to sit idly by as her Mountaineers finished the regular season on an eight-game losing streak.
“It was very difficult,” Bulger admits. “I wanted to be out there. I wanted to be helping them. I tried to help them and let them know what I was seeing on the court but for the most part I had to be encouraging. Coaches are going to get on you especially when you are losing so I wanted to be that positive reinforcement for them.”
The situation was even harder for Bulger because she witnessed first hand all the hard work the team was doing everyday in practice, trying desperately to cope with the loss of a 20-points-per-game scorer.
“It’s tough to see your teammates go through something like that because you know it’s not because of lack of heart or lack of trying,” Bulger said. “They were trying their hearts out. It just wasn’t clicking for them at that time. You could see spurts of it but it was just a matter of time as to when they would become consistent.”
That time came in Hartford, Conn., at the Big East Tournament when the No. 12-seeded Mountaineers defeated the No. 5 Louisville Cardinals in the opening round followed by No. 4 seed St. Johns the quarterfinals. West Virginia then knocked off the No. 1 seed Rutgers in the semifinals before narrowly falling to Connecticut in the championship game on its home court.
The four-day Cinderella run was a great thrill for Bulger and provided an extra boost of determination for her to come back stronger than ever. However the 6-0 guard admits that the whole experience was just a tad bit bittersweet.
“I just remember sitting there thinking this is what I’ve worked for,” Bulger said. “I wanted go to the Big East Championship. I wanted to beat Rutgers when they were ranked. I wanted to play against Connecticut in the championship.”
While part of Bulger felt left out, more of her was swelling with pride for her teammates and what they had accomplished to elevate the Mountaineer program.
“I remember cheering for my team and being so happy,” Bulger said. “I thought, ‘Yeah I’m not playing but to see where this program has come from when my sister was here and from my freshman year you couldn’t feel anything but joy for the team.’”
Bulger went into the off-season determined to work as hard as she could to get her knee strong again. Her plan was to come back stronger than ever and finish off her illustrious Mountaineer career with a stellar senior season.
Or so she thought.
In August, approximately two months shy of a full recovery, Bulger was running routinely to work on her conditioning when disaster struck again.
“It was simple,” Bulger explains. “I didn’t feel any pain. I was running and my ankle kind of gave out a little bit and my knee went into a bit of an awkward position. I heard a little crunch but nothing that scared me.”
As her body attempted to tell her what she didn’t want to believe, Bulger kept training, determined to recover as soon as possible.
“My knee started to swell up and I kept doing stuff on it and the next few days I realized that I was starting to lose a lot of muscle,” Bulger said. “That’s when it dawned on me that maybe I did something pretty serious to it because last time I lost muscle like that was when I tore it originally.”
A few days later when Bulger went in for her appointment to be cleared to play, the doctor confirmed the news she prayed wasn’t coming: she had torn the same ligament again.
The 2006-2007 season was lost and she was forced to take a medical redshirt and attempt to come back for one final season in 2007-08. The rehabilitation process began anew.
“I was surprised when they said I tore it again but I wasn’t too surprised because I felt that I was pushing myself too hard and doing stuff that my knee wasn’t ready for yet,” Bulger said.
Bulger admits that after the second injury she began to have some doubts about the future of her basketball career. Can I go through this entire process again? Is it really worth it?
“Those thoughts were definitely there,” Bulger says. “It makes me a little scared sometimes. I worry that I will never be the player that I could have been or be the player that I wanted to be but you really just have to push those thoughts aside and use it as motivation.”
Bulger, who is as friendly and as upbeat as anyone you will ever meet, continues to take all the adversity in stride and try and turn it into a positive.
“I think it happened for a reason,” Bulger says. “It’s making me stronger. I am working on form shooting every day. I am working on balance -- my core and things I would have never thought to work on before the injury. Maybe it will make me a stronger player than I would have been if I hadn’t gotten injured.”
Bulger is taking her second stint of rehabilitation nice and slow. She is on schedule and expects to suit up in the Gold and Blue for the season opener next year.
“My first full-go will be my next game here,” Bulger explains. “It will be the opening game, our opening scrimmage or whatever it is. As far as working out with the team, I am hoping to be back doing that around April or May.”
As Bulger watches the Mountaineers’ current four-game winning streak from her spot on the end of the bench, she sees a team that has transformed, having been forced to find scoring without her.
“In a way, me being hurt has definitely helped them develop their skills on offense and develop an offensive mind,” Bulger said. “The way that they are playing now, they have really come into being their own players. Who knows, maybe next year the box-and-one will be on Quita (LaQuita Owens) and I will get some open shots.”
With all Bulger has been through, she refuses to set a ceiling on what the Mountaineers can accomplish when she comes back for one final go around next season.
“In years past I have been realistic and said, ‘OK let’s win home games and let’s accomplish small goals first,’” Bulger said. “Next year I have nothing to hold me back and I don’t care about being realistic. I want to win the Big East Championship. I want to go undefeated. I want to go to the NCAA Championship. It’s my last year, I have gone through a lot and I want everything.”
Mountaineer basketball fans simply want a healthy Meg Bulger again.
