After elbow surgery, Charlotte Christian’s John Lash earns comeback player of the year
- Oops!Something went wrong.Please try again later.
- Oops!Something went wrong.Please try again later.
- Oops!Something went wrong.Please try again later.
The Charlotte Observer’s 2023 High School Sports Awards
Girls Athlete of the Year: Ardrey Kell's Taylor Suarez makes dream come true’
Boys Scholar-Athlete of the year: West Lincoln's Mason Avery
Girls Scholar-Athlete of the year: Independence High's Lily Todd
Comeback athlete of the year: Charlotte Christian's John Lash
Girls Coach of the year: North Iredell volleyball's Dave Markland
Team of the year: Ardrey Kell girls soccer Athletic Director of the year: Olympic's Stephanie Wilkerson
Charlotte Christian basketball coach Shonn Brown said he was surprised — and not surprised — when Knights’ sophomore John Lash was able to make all-state in basketball and baseball less than a year after undergoing major surgery on his elbow.
Lash had surgery in June 2022. He made all-state in basketball in February, and he made it in baseball in May.
“He’s just a resilient kid,” Brown said of Lash, The Charlotte Observer’s 2022-23 comeback athlete of the year. “People probably overuse the term ‘hard worker,’ but I go to campus on the weekends and he’s in the lab, in the (baseball) batting cage. He’s in the gym at 7 in the morning, getting up shots for basketball. He just works and he works. It’s amazing to see.”
But Lash, now 16, wasn’t always sure how his 10th grade year would go, or how long it would take to work his way back.
In the fall of 2021, he had some serious pain in his left throwing elbow. After a few diagnoses, doctors recommended Tommy John surgery.
The procedure, medically known as an ulnar collateral ligament reconstruction, was created by a Los Angeles Dodgers team doctor who performed it on star pitcher Tommy John in 1974. The surgery involves grafting a ligament in the elbow from elsewhere in the body, or from a deceased donor.
Texas-based doctor David Litner, a leading pioneer in the field, says that athletes can expect to return to normal baseball activities in about 12 months.
For Lash, it was about half that.
Lash had his surgery in June 2022, waiting until after his freshman baseball season. He helped the Knights win a state title.
After the surgery, though, he wasn’t sure when he would get back, and he knew basketball season — a big love — started in October.
“I didn’t know what to think,” Lash said. “I love basketball. I thought I would come back in the middle of the season, but I ended up being able to go out there early. I convinced my doctors to let me go four months out.”
Lash practiced with Christian’s basketball team just a couple times before his first game. And just a few games after that, on Nov. 28, Lash had 32 points and a school-record tying 23 rebounds against Winston-Salem Christian. In December, Lash had 50 points and 14 rebounds in the Chick-Fil-A holiday tournament in Columbia against Augusta (Georgia) Christian. Only one player, a future No. 1 NBA pick named Zion Williamson, had ever scored more in that event.
Lash made all-state in basketball and then turned his attention to baseball. He shoots a basketball right handed but pitches and throws a baseball with his left hand.
It was too soon after the surgery to pitch, so he moved to first base, and he still made all-state, helping the Knights — who lost longtime coach Greg Simmons to cancer just before the season — reach the state semifinals.
Lash hit .347 with 25 RBIs and three home runs.
At 6-foot-5 with a 90-mph fastball, Lash is a major college baseball prospect with offers from schools like Duke, N.C. State, Mississippi State, South Carolina and Tennessee. He doesn’t have any basketball offers yet, but he plans to continue to play both sports, even potentially in college.
Lash also plays with NBA star Chris Paul’s CP3 travel basketball team on the Nike summer circuit.
“Everyone gets caught up in what I bring to the baseball table,” he said, “and then overlook me as a basketball player, but putting up (24 points and 14 rebounds per game) as a sophomore usually gets you something. I’ll keep on going with basketball and see what happens this summer.”
Brown, Lash’s basketball coach, said he’s continually amazed at Lash’s desire, and doesn’t doubt that it will help Lash reach all of his goals.
“A lot has been asked of him at a young age,” Brown said. “He’s going on all these big baseball visits, like to Tennessee, and it’s tough to manage in this culture with social media. But he does a good job of just trying to be himself. John’s a joy to coach and he gets after it and want us to get after him, the right way. I couldn’t say enough about him as a player and the way that he’s really worked on his faith.”
