Thriving after knee surgery: Meet The Observer’s comeback prep athlete of the year
Coming off a stellar sophomore season, Independence girls’ basketball’s Kaylee Carson seemed primed for another big year. But on the first day of high school practices in September 2022, she tore her ACL and was sidelined for the entire season.
After a year of waiting, she returned to the court and picked up exactly where she left off.
Carson dropped 18 points, 10 rebounds and six assists in the first contest of her senior year. Two games later, she put up 30 points, six steals and six rebounds as the Patriots took down then-No. 1 ranked Mallard Creek.
The 5-foot-8 guard averaged 15.8 points, 4.9 rebounds, 3.4 steals and 2.8 assists per game this season and has been named The Charlotte Observer’s comeback player of the year.
“She looked more athletic coming back from the injury. I thought her time in the gym, her time away from basketball benefited her more than it does with some other people,” said coach Lauren Galvani, who recently became head coach at Division II Lees-McRae College after nine years at Independence.
“When she came back this year she had some really big games for us.,” Galvani said. “She was probably our overall best player.”
Carson tore her ACL on September 1, 2022, and had surgery at the end of the month. She started physical therapy and got back on the court in February 2023 to do simple drills, like stationary ball handling.
She occasionally played toward the end of the summer as she worked to rebuild muscle, and was cleared after the team started its preseason workouts in September 2023, just more than a year after the injury.
“The first couple of months are probably the hardest,” Carson said. “There were good days, there were bad days, in the end the bad days probably outweighed the good days. It’s easy to feel down and sorry for yourself, but eventually you have to put that into accepting the challenge because it’s not going to change.”
Carson was named Southwestern 4A conference player of the year and earned All-Observer first team honors during her sophomore season, but the injury prevented her from playing during a crucial time in the college recruitment process.
She didn’t receive any offers while she was sidelined, but none was revoked. Eastern Tennessee State University remained in close contact with Carson, and she committed to the Buccaneers in March 2023.
Despite missing her junior year and only having a 10-game freshman season due to COVID-19, Carson hit 1,000 career points in February after just 60 appearances for the Patriots. She averaged 16.7 points per game across her high school career.
Carson was still playing through injuries during a successful senior year that saw her named an All-Observer honorable mention. Cysts grew on her previously torn ACL and she had a decision to make late in the season: undergo surgery immediately, which would end her high school career, or wait until the end of the season and play through the pain without risking further injury.
After conversations with her mother and Galvani, Carson decided to play through the rest of the year.
“The love for the game and my team and my coaches really was a deciding factor in me still playing,” Carson said.
Carson had scar tissue and cysts removed during another knee surgery in March after the end of Independence’s season. She’s currently recovering and preparing to return to the court in the coming weeks.
Carson has already overcome a major injury and the ensuing surgery before finding success. That experience strengthens the belief that she’ll be able to do so again as she prepares to play at the collegiate level with ETSU.
“Having done it one time and being successful with it kind of made it easier to do it a second time,” Carson said. “Just knowing you did it once means that you can do it again.”
This story was originally published June 21, 2024 at 5:15 AM.
