Coming off a torn ACL injury, sidelined cross country captain Kayla Scott has inspired her teammates with positivity and motivation.
Senior Kayla Scott has been a leader for most of her collegiate career at Ohio.
She said she would shout words of encouragement and motivate her teammates on the hardest days of practice.
This season, however, her role is slightly different.
She’s still at every practice and race, and she’s still shouting words of encouragement to her teammates. Only now, those shouts come standing next to the coaches.
During practice, while Scott's teammates are running, she is oftentimes in the weight room trying to regain the strength she lost from an ACL injury she suffered in the spring.
“It was like a movie,” Scott said about the day she tore her ACL. Scott said she was running the 3000 meter steeplechase at the All-Ohio Championships in Oxford. She had a lead of 40 seconds and had one water jump to go.
“I came down on my last water jump and it felt normal,” Scott said. “I was running out of it, and I heard a huge pop. I just rolled over, didn’t finish the race and was really upset. My knee was swelling instantly.”
Two weeks later, she received an MRI and she learned she had suffered a torn ACL and partial meniscus tear.
She said she met with her surgeon the following week and was told to prepare for a long rehabilitation process.
“There were tears, there were definite frustrations,” Scott said.
Throughout the summer, Kayla said she made an hour-long trip twice a week to Athens from her hometown of Canal Winchester, Ohio to work with a physical therapist on campus. Scott said she continues to work with her therapist and expects to return to action in time for outdoor track season.
Throughout her rehab process in the past few months, Scott said she's leaned on her teammates, her religion and her coaches, namely assistant coach Tim Sykes.
“Tim has been great. He’s always been there for me ever since he was just a volunteer coach,” Scott said. "He’s always been there to help me out if I need extra help.”
In terms of her relationships with Sykes and the rest of her coaches, Scott said she tries to be like another coach herself.
“She’s captain of the team and a team leader, so we pull on her pretty heavy to do a lot of the stuff behind the scenes and help lead the team,” head coach Clay Calkins said.
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Sykes said Scott has done an excellent job of helping the coach meet his runners in the middle with their needs.
“Our growing culture of routine, accountability, athlete-centered focus and family has helped our improvement progression, and Kayla has been an integral part of developing this new culture,” Sykes said.
After her injury, the start of the season eventually came around and Scott made it a point to make sure she would still be present for her team.
Scott said her relationships with her teammates are different since her injury, but they have become stronger over time.
“I’m just present for them more. I’ve realized that I love them and I like to encourage them more than I like to run, and it helped me realize that," Scott said. “Even when I’m having negative days I try to hide it from them because they don’t need to feel it.”
Scott's coaches added that her determination to rehab, as well as her leadership qualities, have been impressive.
“It’s always detrimental when an athlete goes down and is out,” Calkins said. “Injury is the hardest thing in athletics, doesn’t matter what sport you’re talking about, it’s hard mentally and hard physically, and for those athletes to stay motivated and to come back is probably the toughest thing to do. It’s always an awesome sight to see when they make the effort to come back.”
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