The moment Zoe Young heard the pop during preseason practice in October 2019, the 24-hour countdown began.
She knew instantly she’d torn her ACL, but as her trainers lifted her out of practice to examine her, a cloud of negativity picked up and threatened to engulf her. Her hopes of what a freshman year at Maryland could look like were high: Young, the USA Today Iowa Player of the Year ranked the No. 8 guard and No. 32 overall recruit of her class by ESPN, averaged 24.3 points a game as a senior and expected to help the Terps as much as she could.
In an instant, her season was gone.
Young talked with her mother and agreed one day of feeling sorry for herself was enough. When she received her diagnosis the next day, it was time to show up and put the work in.
“That’s obviously something that fluctuates throughout the whole process. Just trying to stay positive is probably the hardest thing about it,” Young said.
Over the past year, Young recovered in a world that, too, is working its way back to health. She not only found her way back to the basketball court, she found herself. She began to imagine a life beyond basketball and the person she could be without it.
“I would describe this new person as super ambitious. I kind of found my calling this past quarantine and found what I’m really passionate about. Obviously, I’m passionate about basketball, but basketball is not who I am,” Young said. “I found that I’m talented in a lot of different areas and that I have a lot more to give.”
Young learned that she liked to write. She started to make art, every day. She sketched, traced on paper and painted quotes she liked, cartoons such as SpongeBob, Rick and Morty, Kim Possible, even a Nike shoe.
She and her teammates bought canvases and cozied up to watch Netflix or listen to music and paint together for hours, practically every night. Young wouldn’t dare claim to be the best artist on the team; that crown belongs to graduate transfer Chloe Bibby.
Young immersed herself in her teammates, projecting positive energy, becoming a confidant to anyone who needed a listening ear. Young realized how much she loved helping people.
Their support, Young said, drove her toward recovery most of all.
While the redshirt freshman slowly rebuilt her body, a new side of the game opened. She could watch the game with a “black-and-white” point of view and pay more attention to little things about her team’s play. She better understood the scout as well as the team’s defense. She observed the mannerisms of Big Ten officials versus nonconference ones.
Time away from basketball still altered Young’s vision of her own life.
“I love basketball and I’m going to do it until my body gives out,” Young said. “But like, what is the next step? How am I going to transform into a different lifestyle afterward?”
A return to play always lingered on the horizon.
Toward the end of the second quarter during Maryland’s home game against James Madison on Dec. 19, Young sat a socially distanced row behind her coaches when she heard her them say “Zoe.”
Young did a mental double-take. They must have said “Chloe,” she thought, but remembered Bibby was already out on the floor.
Her heart dropped to her stomach when coach Brenda Frese turned around and said, “Check in.”
“I feel like the first time I was in the game, it was very, very nerve-wracking. I didn’t want to touch anyone, didn’t want to be around anyone, to make a mistake. But once I started to kind of ease back into it, it was cool,” Young said. “It was very cool.”
Young played 10 minutes in that game and scored on a fast break early in the fourth quarter.
“It was a huge boost going into Christmas with the hard work she’s put in behind the scenes to have the success she was able to have with JMU,” Frese said. “Now we’re just hopeful we can build upon it, whether it be building upon it with the practices and then hopefully lending itself to some games.”
Just before Young jogged out onto the court, her teammates celebrated. The cheers that met her first career basket seemed to hit a decibel louder than any other field goal in that game.
That pure, unrelenting sea of smiles that Young returned to is what she cherished most about.
“Seeing Zoe get in the game and score obviously makes her happy, but it makes us happy too,” sophomore Faith Masonius said. “Just seeing everything she’s gone through this past year shows she has the right mindset and achieved her goals.”
The teammate who arguably hyped her the most shares an unfortunate parallel with Young. Like Young, freshman Angel Reese, the No. 2 player of her class, became Maryland’s top recruit last year. Like Young, Reese lost her first season to injury early; the St. Frances graduate suffered a right foot fracture in the first quarter of the team’s home opener against Towson on Dec. 3.
Though Young gives support to her younger teammate, she knows Reese’s path back to health will be different from her own.
“She has a maturity I wish I had last year,” Young said. “She’s a very independent, strong-willed person. There’s obviously time that she needs us and we give her that support and love, but her brain is wired completely differently. I have no doubt in my mind that whenever they say Angel can come back on the court, she’s going to be back like brand new.”
With a short nonconference slate made shorter by cancellations, Young didn’t have the option to warm up much before the Big Ten schedule began on Dec. 31. Frese and Young talk about treating her practices like games.
Young estimates she’s at about 75% on her path back to full health. That last 25% — transferring all the work she’s put in actual basketball conditioning and play — is the hardest part, Young said.
“It just seems like every single day that I have such a long way to go,” Young said, “but I’ve come such a long way.”
NO. 20 INDIANA@NO. 14 MARYLAND
Monday, 7 p.m.
TV: ESPN2