Spring Break
Soccer player shines as starter after injury
Tara Pizzola
Issue date: 10/31/08 Section: Sports
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A soccer star since age 4, Carlson considered the sport a huge part of her life. From "rec" soccer to premier club soccer, from a four-year run on high school varsity to a Division 1 college team, Carlson lived and breathed soccer.
Having been recruited by many schools in and around Minnesota, her home state, she decided to take a chance at walking on to the women's varsity team at Miami University.
"I figured if it was meant to be, it was meant to be, and I would be just fine-and, it was," Carlson said.
A display of toughness throughout her freshman year led Carlson to a starting defender position as a sophomore. Carlson saw plenty of action during the second season of her college career. That is, until April 13.
During a rainy spring season game against the University of Notre Dame, Carlson landed on her right foot after clearing a ball. At the same moment, an opposing player came in a second late, falling onto Carlson's right leg.
"The moment it happened, I knew it was serious," Carlson said.
She had sprained her right ankle in a prior season, and although she had wrapped that ankle in tape to prevent another sprain from happening, she feared the worst as a wave of pain rushed over her and tears streamed down her face.
Just before the end of the first half, Carlson was carried off the field to a bag of ice. But the pain continued to worsen as she sat through halftime.
Moments later, Carlson found herself at McCullough-Hyde Hospital where she again sat waiting, this time for four hours in her rain-drenched, sweaty and muddy uniform. Quivering from the cold, she awaited delivery of news she didn't want to hear-a broken fibula and a broken and dislocated ankle.
Carlson's ankle was placed in a splint until an appointment with Miami's sports medicine doctor the next day.
There, she was told the same things, and in addition, she was told she had shredded her medial ligament, the inside ligament in the ankle that forms a triangle.
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