Emina Ekić

My name is Emina Ekić and I am a sophomore on the women’s soccer team at the University Of Louisville.
My story begins in my junior year of high school when I was playing in a spring game with my club team, Javanon. I was running forward on a full sprint to put pressure on the other team when the girl I was defending cut the ball and as I followed my cleat got caught in the turf and I was moving too fast to stop myself. I’ve never torn my ACL prior to this but somehow in that moment I knew that’s exactly what happened . After the MRI results, I found out I had torn my ACL and meniscus in my right knee. I was devastated because I thought my dreams of playing college soccer were over.
After 10months of rehab I was finally excited to play again and more importantly I could not wait to play at the University Of Louisville! As my college career started I had put the mental and physical hurdles of my injury behind me. The team was having a good season and my knee felt good for my first college season. In my second to last college game of my freshman career, we were playing at UNC. We were half way into the second half when I let the ball roll across my body on a turn with a defender on my back, at that moment I just heard a pop and had a sharp pain in my knee. I did it again, I didn’t need a doctor to tell me I had torn my left ACL at that moment in time.
As I was carried off the field for the second time in my soccer career all the doubts and denials already started to creep in. After my MRI it was deemed I had torn my left ACL less than a year after my right one. The mental aspect of going through something like this more than once was the hardest challenge for me. You wouldn’t expect anything like this to happen to you, let alone happen twice. You start to wonder if you’ll ever be the same again, you question why this happened to you. As generic as it may seem the most important thing to do is stay positive. I am beyond grateful for the friends, family, teammates, and trainers that had gotten me through my lowest of lows not once but twice. They pushed me to keep going and never let me say “I can’t” because all that stands for is: I certainly am not trying.