Trying to remain positive
Coeur d’Alene High senior Deanna Dotts has had difficulty keeping an upbeat attitude these days.
It’s understandable why.
The 2007-08 girls basketball season was going to be the year Dotts led Coeur d’Alene to the state championship that had eluded it the past two years.
This was going to be a year when Dotts secured a scholarship to continue playing in college.
A knee injury at a tournament in early June, though, derailed Dotts’ plans. Surgery was required to repair the anterior cruciate ligament and the meniscus.
Dotts had hoped she could play by the end of the season. But her doctor wouldn’t give her a release.
Now the 6-foot-1 post is considering walking away from basketball altogether.
CdA coach Dale Poffenroth believes Dotts is just fighting through the emotions of not being able to play now. He’s hopeful that once the season is over and she’s had time to work through the emotions she will decide to continue to play.
“I just hope she doesn’t make a wrong decision before she wakes up to explore all possibilities,” Poffenroth said. “I know she can play at the next level. She’ll have opportunities if she wants them. We just have to get her through (this). Hopefully she’ll look at it from the outside after the season’s over and she gets away from it for a while.”
Dotts was looking forward to this season for many reasons.
“I was ready to have a big season,” Dotts said. “I had improved a lot since last year.”
Dotts, who came off the bench as a freshman and started the last two seasons, had gone from a player who was mechanical-like in her movements as a freshman to one who was becoming much more fluid as a junior.
She spent last spring working especially on her ball-handling skills, agility and quickness. She played on the Spokane Stars Red team, the second-best team behind the elite team, the past two years.
Colleges were taking note, she said.
“I’d taken some big steps,” Dotts said.
Spokane Stars director Ron Adams agreed.
“There were schools that would have taken her before she was injured,” Adams said. “There will be an opportunity for her to play after her knee heals if she wants to.”
Her high school team was playing in a summer tournament at Gonzaga Prep when the injury occurred. She had just set a screen and started to pivot when her knee gave out. At the same time, the player she was screening fought through the pick and collided with Dotts’ knee. The doctor figured that the collision probably caused her to dislocate her knee on top of the other damage from planting her knee.
CdA senior guard Ali Johnson, who had to have ACL surgery twice on the same knee and missed essentially the last two seasons, has tried to encourage Dotts.
“This year was going to be the first time we played together since our freshman season (on varsity),” Dotts said. “We were going to be the only two seniors on the team and then I got hurt.”
Dotts, who is a Mother Hen type by nature, decided to stay as close to the team as possible this year. She’s attended every game, wearing her uniform and warmups. When she hasn’t had conflicts with physical therapy, she attends practice.
“I’ve done everything to remain part of the team,” Dotts said.
Poffenroth values Dotts’ leadership.
“She’s a pretty level kid. It would be different not having her around,” he said. “The senior maturity is a big difference.”
Dotts was released to start doing controlled shooting at practice in early December. And earlier this month she was allowed to start doing limited five-on-five drills at practice. But when she knew she wasn’t going to be released to start playing in games, she decided to stop practicing and not risk injury.
“It’s been really hard to sit and not play and be positive,” she said. “I just have to be a cheerleader on the bench.
“I understood that even if I could come back I wasn’t going to play that much. I knew that I wouldn’t be at the top of my game. But I had hoped to play Senior Night (the final home regular-season game for seniors). That’s what I was shooting for.”
So Dotts has been battling some depression recently.
“It’s hard to deal with,” she said. “I feel like I’m ready to play, but my doctor won’t release me. I felt like I was getting stronger.”
Right or wrong, she was willing to risk re-injuring herself just to be able to play this year.
“I didn’t care what could happen. I wanted to play,” she said.
Now she must decide if her future will include basketball. An honors student with a 3.76 grade-point average, Dotts has been accepted to attend Washington State University.
“I’ve lost so much of my confidence,” she said. “It was there and then it was taken away (with the injury). Basketball is still a passion in my heart. If it wasn’t, I wouldn’t be going to practice every day.
“To some extent I feel a part of the team. But it’s hard to feel part of something when you can’t participate, can’t play. I’ve cried at least a bucket of tears, probably an ocean of tears. It’s the best thing to get it out. Unless you’ve gone through this you don’t understand. This last month it was really hard. I’m ready to walk away and to move on. But I haven’t made a final decision yet. It’s going to take some time to not be angry and be sorry for myself.”