Emory Soccer Star Battles Back from Injury

This fall, many soon-to-be-graduating college athletes can’t help but look back at how their post-high school careers got off to an inauspicious start. For some, COVID completely wiped out their freshman seasons in fall 2020 and they had to resort to unsanctioned, impromptu workouts; for others, the games went on, but not without nagging interruptions, awkward social distancing, and sparse (or in some cases, non-existent) crowds.

Now, imagine also missing another entire season, one playing out amidst a return to normalcy, due to injury.

Such an unfortunate situation befell Emory University senior Olivia Friedman, who, following her sophomore/rookie season for the Emory women’s soccer team, suffered an ACL tear during a March 2022 scrimmage before undergoing surgery and going through months of rehab that rubbed out her junior campaign.

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For many college athletes, such a devastating injury would have been the final chapter of their careers.

“I never thought of it [ACL injury] as the end of my career,” said Friedman. “I honestly never even cried about it. At that point, there’s nothing you can do about it.”

But, as she also has to acknowledge, “I never imagined my college soccer career to look like this.”

So much so that she is contemplating staying at Emory another semester next fall to get one more season in, even though she could graduate this May. For someone who’s been playing soccer since the late 2000s even when her father had his doubts about the sport’s exacting demands; served as a four-year captain at Anthem Preparatory Academy in Arizona where she had to recruit classmates so they could have a full roster; and was once really close to committing to Division I Northern Arizona University before realizing that playing at Emory was a pretty ideal scenario, a college career that amounts to playing 40-some-odd games may not suffice. Especially considering the months of rigorous weightlifting, aerobic training, and general physical therapy, all while watching from the sidelines as her teammates reached the Round of 16 in the NCAA tournament last autumn.

“It [rehab] definitely was very, very time consuming,” added Friedman, who is also heavily involved in a biomedical research lab on campus and has designs on going to grad school for forensic science.

But the nearly year-and-a-half regimen of physical therapy, while at times grueling, could not mentally prepare her for returning to game action for the first time since fall 2021 when she recorded three goals and three assists in her first taste of college action – as well as continuing to come off the bench.

“I was scared the first time I went on, not because of my knee and getting hurt again, but no matter how hard you work during physical therapy – I was running all the time, working on my ball skills, and immersing myself in the team culture so I could still get as much out of it as I could – nothing can prepare you for actually playing,” she noted days after playing in her seventh game back (a 0-0 tie against Sewanee) during which she finally felt more like herself. “There’s just nothing like it in terms of speed of play and competition. There’s a little bit of a learning curve coming back that I wasn’t expecting.”

The lack of gameday competition two years ago was a rude awakening of sorts. After a standout career at Anthem Prep during which she posted 66 goals and 26 assists for 158 career points and was a First Team All-Conference selection in 2018-19, not starting in fall 2021 presented its own challenges.

“That was definitely an adjustment for me, coming from playing a full 90 [minutes] to starting on the bench,” said Friedman, who’s also had to transition from her normal position, forward, to defense as a teammate has also undergone ACL surgery. “I think that’s an adjustment that a lot of college athletes have to make. The first goal I scored [against Covenant on Sept. 14, 2021] I was so angry that I wasn’t playing.

“It was an adjustment and honestly it still is because I’m a very competitive person and I want to play. I care a lot about this team and how we perform. It can be hard to take a step back and pull away from that ‘Why am I not playing?’ Still, to this day, I have to remind myself it’s OK.”

Although she hasn’t yet cracked the starting lineup, simply being able to take the field and play meaningful minutes – like she did against Illinois Wesleyan back on Sept. 15 when she fired three shots on net – is gratifying. No longer does she have to worry when sprinting up and down the field about her knee buckling or feeling like the top of her leg is sliding over…and wondering what the root cause may be.

“Especially after the ACL [injury], I’ve just grown to be grateful for the time that I get,” Friedman pointed out.

Irrespective of whether she plays for Emory next fall, she does not see herself playing overseas after college – a fairly common route for college athletes who aren’t yet ready to hang ‘em up.

“I love soccer, but I’ve never been too attached to soccer as a sport outside of the fact that I’m with all my best friends and it’s fun,” Friedman explained. “I love playing soccer, but I don’t think I love it enough to really have that mentality to put in all that work without the people that I do it with.”

Fortunately, with Emory expected to play deep into November in pursuit of an NCAA title – and a possible bonus season ahead for her in 2024 – it is not something Friedman has to worry about for a little while.