Kelsey Smith’s career as a student athlete has been pocked with injuries. That’s just strengthened her resolve to get into medical school.
The Dr. Charles Best secondary school grad recently finished her senior season as a defender with the Grand Canyon University in Phoenix, Az. when the Lopes lost their Western Athletic Conference semi-final to Utah Valley, 1-0.
For Smith it was literally a crashing conclusion to a season in which she was the only player in her conference to be named as a College Sports Information Directors of America Academic All-District.
Smith, who had played in all 21 of the Lopes’ regular season games while holding down a 3.96 grade point average in Biology, was in the dressing room getting her badly injured shoulder tended by the team doctor when Utah Valley scored their winning goal. She’d hurt the joint when she was taken down by a Utah Valley forward she was trying to mark, who then landed on top of her.
“I knew as soon as the pain didn’t subside that something was wrong,” Smith said. “It was more than just a stinger.”
A shot of numbing medication, plus her own adrenaline, got her back onto the pitch for the match’s final 15 minutes.
But with a 10-week recovery ahead of her for what was subsequently diagnosed as a stage 3 sprain of her shoulder’s AC joint, Smith realizes her time as an athlete may be nigh. It’s an acceptance she’s reached after enduring three previous arduous arcs of injury, recovery and rehab.
“I hadn’t ever thought about myself as a regular person, I was always an athlete,” Smith said.
The first injury almost ended Smith’s college aspirations before they started when she tore up her left knee while playing for the Vancouver Whitecaps U18 elite team. She thought she’d miss her chance to showcase her talents to recruiters. But a former assistant coach when Smith played for the U15 provincial team who had moved on to GCU put in a good word for her and after a year of recovery and rehab she was in playing form five months before she reported for her freshman season.
It lasted all of five games.
While training, Smith tore up her right knee.
“I knew exactly what was to come,” Smith said. “But I also knew how hard it was.”
During her nine months off the pitch, Smith focused on school, set her sights on fulfilling her lifelong dream to become a doctor.
“It took me a while to motivate myself and truly tell myself another lengthy recovery was worth it,” Smith said. “I finally came to the conclusion that if I could get through the first injury, that I wasn’t going to let another one end my career.”
Smith spent the summer before her sophomore year getting back into game shape, working with her previous athletic therapist from the Whitecaps to improve her mechanics, agility and speed.
Nine games into her second season in Arizona, Smith went down again. She sat out a game, then played six more before an MRI confirmed another tear in her right knee.
“Every injury seemed like it happened just as I was getting back to where I wanted to be as a player,” Smith said.
Surgery in the spring of 2016 was followed by three months of rehab and Smith was able to play all of the 2016 and 2017 season, until she was felled in that last game.
While Smith’s injuries have given her another year of eligibility to play at Grand Canyon, she’s waiting to hear if she’s been accepted to the Michael G. DeGroote School of Medicine at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ont.
If that doesn’t come through, Smith said she’ll be happy to stay in Arizona another semester and strap on her soccer boots again.
“I love the sport and would love to play for as long as I can.”
But if she’s accepted, Smith said she’ll commit herself wholly.
“If this was my last season, then that’s the way it is,” she said. “Obviously I cannot turn down an offer to medical school.”
