Soccer practice in August is not easy. Conditioning and running drills in the unforgiving heat and humidity leave even the best players drained. But when Ohio women's soccer player Crystal Reed began getting sick during practice last August, she knew her fears were coming true.
Reed had been diagnosed with mononucleosis the previous spring, and apparently it hadn't gone away. She sat out of spring practice last year and half of last summer on doctor's orders, hoping the rest would give her body the chance to fight off the infection.
I felt good
Reed said. Preseason came along. That was the first preseason (coach) Stacy (Strauss) said I was pretty fit. I looked good. I was really proud of myself. All of the sudden I started getting sick again. Then I got tested again and (the doctor) said I wasn't over it.
At first, Reed refused to let the relapse keep her off the field. Playing the sweeper position, she was named to the All-Mid-American Conference second team as a sophomore in 2002 -a notable feat for a young defensive player -and she figured to be a key component of the backfield for preseason favorites in 2003.
The plan was to just play the games
to see if I could just tough it out
play the games and maybe practice a couple times a week
she said. I couldn't do that. I was getting so sick at the games. I'd start
and then halfway through I was like
'Stacy
I can't go anymore.' It was a tough decision.
That decision -to sit out the season with a medical redshirt -meant Reed had to sit and watch from the sidelines. At first, it wasn't easy. Reed's absence left a hole to fill, and the Bobcats' schedule had them on the road for eight of their first 10 games. Strauss said that the team missed Reed's presence as it started out 4-5-1, hardly championship material.
Every game the first half of the year
we struggled. It really took us that long to adjust
Strauss said. There were a number of reasons why we lost the amount of games we did early in the year
