Dr. Todd Walker recently spoke with the Austin American-Statesman about ACL injuries following the end of the UT volleyball team’s remarkable streak without one. Read the article, written by Zoe Collins Rath, below. Former Texas volleyball player Khat Bell has gotten better at cleaning up her language, but she wanted a few curse words to fly during a Nov. 5, 2011 match against Kansas. The former All-American rose for a swing in a match against Kansas and once her left leg landed, the freshman grabbed her knee immediately. “DeAnn Koehler (Texas volleyball’s head trainer) was like, ‘don’t cuss, don’t cuss, don’t cuss,’” Bell told the American-Statesman in September. But she wasn't the only Longhorn to deal with that injury. Bailey Webster, another UT All-American, suffered a similar same ailment the season before Bell. And now, Texas is dealing with it once again after sophomore OH Abby Vander Wal went down in an Aug. 29 match against TCU.
A few days later, an MRI confirmed that she tore her anterior cruciate ligament or ACL. It was the first season-ending knee injury to a Texas rotational player for head coach Jerritt Elliott since 2011 when Bell, a star middle blocker/outside hitter, tore hers and had to be carried off the court. “Abby’s a trooper, she was able to walk it off on her own," Bell said. Webster tore her ACL, MCL and PCL in a 2010 preseason workout. The outside hitter was entering her sophomore year when she went up for a ball during a drill, but as she tried to stop herself from touching the net, she hyperextended her knee on the landing. After having players seriously hurt their knees in consecutive seasons, Austin-area orthopedic surgeon Dr. Todd Walker told the Statesman it's "unbelievable" that Texas has gone so long without these injuries. “There happened to be a lot of knee injuries around that time,” said Webster, who, along with Bell, would go on to help Texas win the national championship in 2012. Studies have shown that ACL injuries to athletes are fairly common in sports — such as soccer, volleyball and football — with sudden stops or rapid changes in direction. Those studies also indicate that women are at a higher risk of tearing ACLs compared to their male counterparts. But there is no clear indication as to why they occur. “We could have a multiday discussion between Q angles (the structure between the hip, knee and tendons), different anatomical variants, differences in hormones, oral contraception,” Walker said Thursday. A surgeon for Texas Orthopedics, Walker has performed "hundreds" of knee surgeries. He says there's no telling when they will occur, though sports with sharp-angled cutting, high impact and noncontact moments are the common scenarios when they can occur.
Vander Wal did a lot of work in the offseason to get stronger for UT, her coach said, and walked into Gregory Gym with a ton of confidence, especially with her experience on the national team over the summer. But, like Webster, she was injured early in the season, seemingly stopping any progress in its tracks. “It was unexpected,” Webster said. “I was in the best shape that I had ever been in and really was really looking forward to playing that year.” After injuring her knee in preseason workouts, Webster redshirted and missed the entire 2010 season. Injuries in the preseason can occur because an athlete’s muscles may not yet be conditioned for all the demands on the body their sport needs. When they tire, Walker explained, landing mechanics break down and the ACL takes more of the load. Bell was a few months into the season when her injury occurred. However, similar to Vander Wal, the ligament tore upon landing for something that the pair had done thousands of times before. “(Patients) come in and ask one million questions,” Walker said. “’Why did it tear?’ You can’t control how you come down." How do they get back on the court? Once a tear is diagnosed, athletes are instructed to do "prehab" (proactive exercises before surgery).
But there are a variety of ways to do the surgery. “Reconstruction is the standard of care… it’s (the ligament) a new one,” Walker said. In total, the recovery process is about a year, but Bell was competing during offseason play with her team in Europe the following summer. When she tore her ACL, Koehler told Bell that her career as a volleyball player depended on her mindset. Throughout all three injuries, Koehler, who joined Texas athletics in August 1998, has remained at the players' sides. “She was like, ‘if you want to come back and continue playing and be great and get back to where you were, you can do it." Bell recalls. "She's like, 'but it's up to you.'" A month after her tear, Bell had surgery. She rehabbed during the rest of her freshman year with the mentality of grinding it out — she was hungry to get back on the court. But the training staff had to tell her to take a step back. “They found out that I was on the field of DKR flipping tires with the football strength conditioning coach during my after my study hall between practices,” Bell said. Walker also explained that Bell’s recovery isn’t the expectation. While Bell was playing with the Longhorns in full six-on-six in the summer, Webster took a full year to recover and was cleared for the 2011 season.
Walker also mentioned how an athlete’s mental health can take a toll during the recovery process. He cites not being able to play a sport that has become a huge part of their life and the “trauma of the surgery” weights on players. Bell and Webster leaned on each other and other teammates who had an experience with knee injuries. “That was one of the hardest things that I had gone through in my life up to that point… Leaning on your family and having the support from your teammates and your coaches and people close to you was very helpful and it meant a lot,” Webster said. “But you also had to rebuild that confidence again… your athletic ability and knowing that you can come back stronger.” 'ACLs aren't black and white' But he also mentioned the social media impact of seeing people’s recovery journey can have a significant impact. That could be key for Vander Wal, who's watching a preseason top five team make it through SEC play with high expectations. “ACLs aren’t black and white,” Walker said. “Every time, someone’s body react differently.” Despite being away from the game for nearly a year, it is possible to be just as strong after recovery. On Texas' way to its first national title in 24 years, Bell had 216 kills and hit .325 while her 1.38 blocks-per-set average was the fifth-best in school history. Webster was named an AVCA first team All-American, won Big 12 honors and had 307 kills and 89 blocks while starting in all of Texas’ 34 games in the 2011 season; the Longhorns lost in the regional final that year. Plus, since the injuries happened in consecutive seasons, Bell had someone to model her rehab after. “To be able to watch (Webster) and mimic some of the things that she did for her rehab post surgery was a great example,” Bell said. Even though ACL injuries have patterns of how they occur, tears can happen at any time during sports. Walker doesn’t want parents of athlete’s fear to hold them back from participating in sports with a high risk of ACL tears, so he has a simple solution. “Understand (the injuries that occur in the sport) and lower the risk by training,” he said. And for Longhorns fans feeling a bit of deja vu: "Lucky," he said of Texas volleyball's injury drought. "It's pretty unbelievable."
