The extraordinary courage of NCAA volleyball star Asjia O’Neal
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ON A SPRING afternoon in Austin, Texas, Asjia O’Neal nonchalantly walked into the Heart Hospital of Austin for her cardiology appointment, a twice-a-year routine she had been keeping most of her life. She changed into a hospital gown, lay down, and a nurse administered an echocardiogram and an EKG, tests to check the rhythm and structure of her heart and its electrical signals. As she waited on the exam table for her doctor, she made small talk with the Texas volleyball team’s physical trainer, DeAnn Koehler, who had driven her to the hospital. They talked about the weather and the upcoming 2019 season, when O’Neal, a 6-foot-3 middle blocker, would make her debut after redshirting her first season with the Longhorns.
Her doctor entered the room, holding her results in his hands. “There’s been some changes,” he began.
“It’s not safe for you to play volleyball anymore.”
O’Neal’s mitral valve leak — a condition she was born with that redirected blood back into her atrium rather than out to her ventricle, a condition that forced her heart to work extra hard to pump enough blood in the right direction, a condition that she already had undergone one surgery to correct — had gotten worse, the doctor explained. And the intensity of volleyball was putting too much stress on her cardiovascular system. It was too dangerous for O’Neal to continue.
O’Neal tuned out every word that came out of her doctor’s mouth after that. She stared at him blankly, her mouth glued shut. She watched Koehler’s mouth move, but couldn’t process a word of the urgent conversation her trainer was having with her doctor.
A few minutes later, she heard the doctor ask her if she would consider other, less intense, sports. Maybe golf or cricket? She couldn’t bring herself to respond.
In silence, she stood up and walked with Koehler to the car.
When O’Neal arrived back on campus, she called her mom from the sidewalk; Mesha O’Neal heard only sobs. Catching her breath, Asjia narrated how a routine…
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Source : espn
