Team players: Fairview seniors find new purpose after season-ending injuries
Feb. 1—WESTWOOD — Anyone who has ever participated in sports knows there are two sides to the emotions felt playing the game: unbelievable highs and devastating lows.
The highs might include things like a walk-off score, an undefeated season, a district or region title, or breaking a school record.
But when it comes to devastating lows, most athletes would agree that among the lowest of the lows would be a season-ending injury.
For an athlete, injuries are a part of the game. You hope to avoid them, but accept as a reality.
But a season-ending injury packs an extra punch. An athlete must face the unavoidable truth that their time with teammates just came to an abrupt, premature end.
It's the worst possible outcome for a season, but it is compounded even worse when that injury happens in your senior year. In most of those cases, the injuries aren't just season-ending, but career-ending.
For this year's Fairview girls basketball team, this was a reality for not just one senior, but two, followed by another senior getting an injury scare in the same week.
In back-to-back games, Ashton Stidham and Kiera Loving went down with knee injuries that will bring to an end their high-school athletic careers. In the following game, Miranda Caskey suffered an ankle injury that was feared to be season-ending, but she found a way to overcome it and return to the floor.
Despite the injuries, these athletes are determined to not let it bring an end to the bond that has formed between them.
Stidham, Caskey and Loving sat down with coach Ryan Kinder to talk about this experience and the bond they share.
"We're all really close," Loving said. "But I don't think we would've picked each other as friends."
For all three players, the bonds of sports brought the girls together early. They started playing together in fifth grade and stuck together through the ups and downs ever since.
"I've used sports as an escape," Stidham said. "I've used it when things are going bad."
When faced with a new low point, the girls turned to each other and to the friendship they'd solidified in sports for support.
"We all cried when it happened," Stidham said. "Yeah, It was rough," Loving said. "We just hugged each other and cried."
Leaning on each other wasn't something new for the girls. They were always looking to pick each other up throughout their careers.
"Even when we make a mistake we try to make each other laugh and smile," Loving said. "That's how we keep going."
"I don't know of a time when we're not laughing," Stidham added.
The girls used that connection during their playing time to their advantage.
"It makes a big difference in how we play," Stidham said of how their bond affects their abilities. "We've been with each other for so long. We know how each other works."
But now that their time in the game has come to an early end, the girls look to each other for support as they face surgery and recovery.
Both girls suffered knee injuries, with Stidham having a complete tear of the ACL and Loving tearing both her ACL and PCL. They face similar operations to repair the injuries.
"I hate that it happened to both of us, but it is nice to have someone else to go through it with," Loving said. "We usually figure stuff out together, if one doesn't know something the other usually does."
"I'm nervous (because) I've never had surgery before, so it helps for sure," Stidham said.
So as the girls head towards recovery, their impact on the team is still there, but their role has shifted as they take on a leadership position from the sideline.
"We're just trying to help them and explain things they can work on," Stidham said of how they try to help the younger players. "I know it's hard for them to step up, but just trying to help them is all we can really do."
Loving said her name will carry on with the stellar play of her sister.
"My little sister, Maddie, has tried to fill my shoes," Loving said. "I think she's the best person to do it. She picked right up where I left off."
"Those are some big shoes to fill," Kinder added. "She does great though to only be in eighth grade."
Kinder is glad to have the girls still involved with their team.
"I love it," Kinder said. "I told them when they got hurt that I wanted them to still be a part of this. These are my big leaders. They all came together and worked as a unit with these girls."
With this mentor role, the girls have a new goal for the rest of the season.
"We want to make the biggest influence as possible on the younger ones as much as we can before we're gone," Loving said. "They listen to everything we say. My younger sister, if I tell her to do something, she does it."
Kinder is proud of all of his players, and wants the players he has on the court to not let the situation bog them down.
"I told them I wanted them to have fun," Kinder said. "Even if we don't win another ball game, just go out there and have fun and enjoy it. Don't go out and let all of this pull you down. You lose players but you have to stick with it and make the best of it. Play the season out and have a little fun."
When the injuries occurred, Kinder wasn't sure how to move ahead. That's when he turned to his dad for advice.
"When I was coaching with my dad in West Virginia, we had a year where two of our best ball players get hurt in back to back weeks," Kinder said. "When all of this happened, I called my dad and said 'I don't know what to do.' He just said to me, 'It happens, you had a good start and you'll come around. If the girls will stick with you, you can build a program there. Don't put all of your eggs in one basket.' That was what I needed to hear from him."
Kinder said that these girls are the reason he stepped into the head coaching role this season.
"They came to me at the first of the year and asked me to take this position after the last coach left," Kinder said. "I probably wouldn't be coaching if not for these girls."
The injuries have taken a toll on Kinder too, who was looking to not just make a splash, but create long-lasting success.
"It hurts," Kinder said. "All I wanted was to take this team and show everybody that Fairview has really good athletes. We came out of the gate rolling, but then these crazy freak accidents happened."
"It's heartbreaking," he continued. "I'm not going to lie. There's been some times where I've thought I couldn't do this. But, I see the looks on these girls' faces and that's what I signed up for. You take the good with the bad."
Kinder says the door is open for both girls to continue helping the program, even after they graduate.
"I'd love to have them come and help," Kinder said. "These younger girls love them like family. I want them to be able to have that option. When they go away to college, whenever they're in, they have an open invitation to come in and help out."
As for the takeaways from this ordeal, both girls had learned very important life lessons.
"Don't take anything for granted," Loving said.
"Definitely play every game like it's your last," Stidham added. "People hear that a lot, but you don't really understand that until something like this happens."
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