For an elite basketball player, the ability to stroke a three-pointer, to outleap others for a key rebound or to get down court ahead of the defense on the fast break are assumed and quite often taken for granted.
You can be sure that after the events of Jan. 7, Kisha Ford won't be taking any of her marvelous gifts for granted again.
That's the date when Ford, a 6-foot sophomore forward for the Georgia Tech women's team, thought her basketball career might have ended at Chapel Hill, N.C. Eight seconds into the second half of the Yellow Jackets' meeting with defending national champion North Carolina, Tar Heels guard Marion Jones accidentally fell into Ford's right leg.
Ford, The Baltimore Sun's Player of the Year two years ago at Bryn Mawr, was standing under the North Carolina basket, having shifted over to help out on defense, as Jones was on a drive. A whistle stopped play, but Jones' momentum carried her into Ford's leg, bending it backward.
"I knew it was bad when I went down, because I never felt pain like that before," Ford said. "I really wanted to win that game and we were really playing well. I got up and started to jog over. By the time I got to half-court, I realized I couldn't even walk. [The knee] was popping in and out. It was killing me."
Her first thought?
"I thought it was over for me," Ford said. "I looked at all the chances I had and all the opportunities I had, and I felt I had let those opportunities pass me by. And now that I'm back out there, I just have to play. I know that in one second, my career could be over and that's what I thought when I was coming to the bench."
Fortunately for Ford, what she feared was a torn ligament and what the Tech coaching staff thought was a hyperextension, turned out to be a sprain of the medial collateral ligament. It was a serious injury, but nowhere near as serious as the immediate pain suggested.
Ford missed just two games, but she admits that she's not the same.
"My agility is not what it was," Ford explained. "I can't turn as quickly as I want to and I can't get out there on balls like I want
to. But once I get out there on that court, I put that pain behind me and I just play."
Ford, who in a brilliant high school career at Western and Bryn Mawr had never suffered a major injury, has had to make 'D adjustments in her game, which is fueled by her ability to cut and slash to the basket.
She must now undergo a daily regimen that includes two hours of treatment before and after practice, as well as constant icing of the knee until bedtime each day.
There have also been some frustrations, as she was slow to find her scoring touch because she could not get the usual spring from her legs.
"She has always, through it all, been there for all the rest of the players," said Georgia Tech coach Agnus Berenato. "She's just so very hard on herself. If she misses a shot, she can't understand why she's missed the shot, even though she can't get the lift from her legs to get the shot up. She takes that very personally.
"She's very sensitive to her performance."
But Ford has worked on other facets of her game, specifically on crashing the boards. As a result, she has become one of the Atlantic Coast Conference's best rebounders.
In the four games since she returned to Tech's lineup, Ford has averaged 10 rebounds against usually taller and stronger competition.
The improvement in her rebounding is just a part of the rounding out of Ford's game. After leading ACC rookies in scoring, steals and rebounds last year, Ford has come on after a sluggish start to place in the top five in three conference categories -- scoring (second), rebounding (fifth) and steals (fourth).
She still hasn't received the kind of notoriety afforded players such as Carolina's Jones, teammate Charlotte Smith, Virginia forward Wendy Palmer or the Cavaliers' Tora Suber. Suber beat out Ford and Jones to win the league's Rookie of the Year award last year.
Ford and Berenato had a conversation after last season about the Rookie of the Year trophy and why she didn't get it.
"Coach told me there were some games where I just didn't play my best," Ford said. "I thought about those games and I thought, 'You're right. I don't deserve to have those awards . . . this year.'
"But I will have a player of the year and I will have an all-ACC and an all-tournament and all those things before I leave Georgia Tech."