Marty Kirkland
martykirkland@daltoncitizen.com
— The memory isn’t a pleasant one. More than three months after it happened, it might even be a blessing of sorts that when Northwest Whitfield senior basketball player Kelsey Kirk suffered a devastating knee injury in the Lady Bruins’ season opener, she faded out from the situation a little bit.
For her, the details are foggy from the day she made a defensive cut, felt her left knee pop, tried to push it back into place and experienced the surge of pain that signaled something had gone very wrong. It hurt so bad, everything around her seemed to go quiet and still, recalled Kirk, who can’t remember the trainer attending to her or much more about that moment, but remembers the days after and how her season suddenly changed.
Kirk was fresh off a stellar senior volleyball campaign in which she helped Northwest secure a place in the Class 4A state tournament. A three-sport athlete, she was no doubt looking forward to what her final go-rounds in basketball and track might produce, and Lady Bruins basketball coach Margaret Stockburger had a good feeling she would play a valuable role for a team that knew it had a chance to do big things.
“She had a good preseason in practice and she had played good in our scrimmage,” Stockburger said.
Kirk said she also played well in the first half of the regular season opener at Parkview High’s Tipoff Classic — the 50-45 overtime loss to Loganville was one of only three defeats this season for the Lady Bruins, who have won 29 games heading into today’s 3 p.m. Class 4A state championship game against Southwest DeKalb in Duluth — in her slot as a substitute post before suffering the injury about two minutes into her playing time in the second half.
There were regrets, Kirk said, because she broke one of the rules set by Lady Bruins assistant coach Greg Brown when she “gambled” on the play and tried to do a little more on defense than she should have. But she’s also been wise enough to realize that when you play hard, sometimes you have no control over the fact that you might get hurt.
Kirk understands that. She once played through an injury because she didn’t want to miss the area volleyball finals. As a freshman, she competed at the Region 7-4A track meet despite a fractured foot, running a leg of the meet-ending 4x400 relay and shaking off the pain to help the Lady Bruins clinch yet another crown.
Those inspiring performances make it even easier to understand the frustration for Kirk and those around her when she had no choice but to surrender to the fact that she wouldn’t play basketball or run track as a senior. With damage to her MCL, ACL and meniscus, she was told she would need surgery; her hopes to play volleyball in college set a timetable that meant she’d have to undergo the procedure soon after the injury.
Consider Stockburger as sick and heartbroken as anyone about the situation. A longtime friend of Kirk’s mother Angela, a teacher at Westside Middle, Stockburger said she’s known Kelsey since she was born.
Stockburger’s thoughts the day Kirk went down?
“I felt like it was my own leg out there,” the coach said.
And that might have been the end of it. No one would have blamed Kirk if she didn’t feel much like being in a gym after that, if she’d asked for an extended break from the team.
But both she and Stockburger realized the end of her playing time didn’t mean the end of her time as a Lady Bruin. Kirk’s left knee let her down; her heart never did.
So she’s made the best of what she can only call a “bittersweet” senior season. She’s exceedingly happy to see her team in the state championship game, but there’s been sadness and frustration, too, as she’s had moments of longing to be on the court, to sub for Christy Robinson or Quaneisha McCurty when they’re in foul trouble in a game or in need of a breather in practice.
But speaking after Thursday’s practice, during which Kirk had worn a bulky brace as she went through her own rehab program on the far side of the gym, Robinson said she’s been impressed in how well her injured teammate has handle the situation.
Kirk has done her part to make herself no less a member of the team; the team has done the same. Every game, Kirk’s been there on the bench, cheering, charting stats — she records deflections, dives, screens and fouls — and giving an emotional boost she wouldn’t allow to be shut down by a physical problem. Northwest’s coaching staff allowed Kirk to dress out for senior night and subbed her in briefly, allowing her to step on her home court in Lady Bruins gear one last time.
The plan is to do something similar today for the title game.
Speaking after practice Thursday, Kirk said that while she knows it might sound a little funny, she’s kind of nervous about donning the same orange uniform she wore the day of the injury. (Hey, once bitten and all, you can’t blame her.) She’s not sure she’s up to warmups — she’s tested herself during lulls in practice and is able to perform layups from one side — but just might try.
Regardless, she’ll be as vocal as she’s been all season. She’ll fill her now familiar spot as the bonus coach Stockburger has enjoyed having nearby at game time and beyond, because even without playing, Kirk has behaved the way coaches expect seniors to behave, leading by providing a great example of how to handle adversity.
Kirk may or may not step on the court herself today, but when the Lady Bruins take the floor in a bid for the program’s first state championship, she’ll have one of the best seats in the house.
She deserves it.
Marty Kirkland is a sports writer for The Daily Citizen.
