Jessie Scarpa

My name is Jessie Scarpa and I am on the women's soccer team at The University of North Carolina. 

At the beginning of my senior year of high school, I experienced the rite of passage as a female soccer player-- a torn ACL. Fortunately, I was already committed to UNC, so I was able to graduate high school early and enroll in college in that January. My freshman season started slowly because the training staff wanted to ease me back into playing. I had a successful sophomore year with minimal injuries, and was rewarded with the opportunity to play in the U-20 World Cup. I had to redshirt my junior year to do so. The spring after the World Cup, I began to have severe groin and glute pain whenever I ran. I had various scans done, but nothing significant appeared in the results. I continued to play through that offseason with a painful undiagnosed injury. Towards the end of the semester,  I got a PRP injection to heal the only issue they saw-- a torn groin. I spent the summer rehabbing and getting back into shape. At the beginning of the next preseason, my groin pain came back. I continued to play through it until I suffered a knee injury early in the season. I tore my joint capsule and sprained my MCL. I was treated successfully with another PRP injection, this time to my knee. After my 8 weeks of recovery, I returned to play mid-season. My knee felt great, but the excruciating groin and glute pain were still there. I had an MRI for my hip, but still nothing showed up in the imaging. I intended to play through the pain and get it figured out at the end of the season. I made it through about six games until I suffered a devastatingly familiar pain in my knee. I tore my ACL, medial and lateral meniscus. I had surgery in November 2017. Once I was off of crutches, I was sent to a hip specialist in Philadelphia to figure out my hip pains. I had been playing with a torn labrum and a sports hernia. In February 2018, I had surgery to repair the hip and the hernia. For the remainder of that spring semester, I was rehabbing a repaired ACL in my left knee and a repaired labrum in my right hip. It was not easy, but I trained hard all summer to get ready for my fifth and final season at UNC. Unfortunately, my groin pain was still present, however, it was not nearly as severe as before. I was focused on improving a little each day, so by the end of the season I could be in-form to sign a professional contract. About halfway through the season, I felt a cracking in my left knee. I re-tore my meniscus and had to undergo surgery to remove it. Obviously it was devastating to suffer another injury and not get to play out my last season, but my teammates still made it a season I will never forget.