Inside HOKIE SPORTS | Vol. 13 No. 2 | October 2020

28 Inside Hokie Sports Fortunately, some external motivation and internal fortitude enabled her to get back to this point. The motivation originally came from her mother, Laurie, who refused to let her oldest child sulk. Tech’s sports medicine team scheduled Gray’s surgery, and once that happened, Gray’s mom delivered a rather stern message to her daughter. “Get all the tears out now,” she said. “As soon as you get surgery, it’s back to work.” Her teammates also rallied around her. Kelsey Irwin, the program’s heart and soul for the past five years, tore her ACL as a freshman and shared a quote that often motivated her during her rehab—“It’s far better starting over than never starting again.” Also, Carli Lloyd, a two-time Olympic gold medalist as a member of the U.S. national team and one of Gray’s idols, included a quote with one of her Instagram posts, and it resonated with Gray. The quote: “The best part about your story is that the next page is blank and you get to write it.” After her surgery, Gray competed with Ash and Weber, both of whom had torn their ACLs, during rehab sessions, each trying to go a little farther than the other during individual exercise sessions. Gray grew to love the weight room as well—something she never had enjoyed—and she grew stronger, especially in her upper body. At head coach Chugger Adair’s behest, she spent some time exploring her future career options. A sports media and analytics major, she worked as a commentator for the ACC Network’s broadcasting of Tech men’s soccer matches last fall—she plans on calling more games this season, too—and saw the game from a different perspective. She started to grow and mature into a well-rounded person and hopefully into an even better soccer player. In the spring, the sports medicine staff allowed Gray to do some light work on the pitch. “Chugger had me, Holly, and Sydney be the wall in a passing drill,” Gray said. “We were just taking a touch and passing, but it was the best day ever. I was barely moving because I wasn’t allowed to go side to side. If a ball passed me, I wasn’t allowed to get it. It was still so fun because I was with the team again. I was with the ball. “When you get injured and you’re not traveling in the fall, you’re on the sidelines, [and] it sucks. You feel so disconnected from everything. I went from fully immersed in a team to literally nothing, and that was hard. But I had teammates who were so supportive and helped me.” Gray wrapped up her rehab over the summer at her New Jersey home, checking in regularly with the sports medicine staff and with Brandon Dillard, the team’s strength and conditioning coach. She received clearance from the sports medicine staff to begin full training in mid- June, roughly eight months after her Oct. 8 surgery. Her time away from matches nearly lasted a full year. She exhibited some rust in the early going, as to be expected, but she was confident in her preparations—and still is. “My fitness is right where it was before, and I’m really happy with where I’m at,” she said. In early August, the season looked to be in jeopardy. But she, and the Hokies, returned to the pitch, and on Sept. 25, Tech played its home opener against Virginia—almost exactly one year from the day of Gray’s injury. On this day, she made a personal trade, jumping to Enter Sandman instead of eating Skittles because, as she said, “I’m dorky like that.” After a year away from doing what she loves, hours spent in grueling rehab, and time spent reflecting on both what happened and her future, she certainly deserved a little fun. “You think this is what your journey is going to be like [a straight line], but it’s absolutely nothing like that,” she said. “It’s always a jumbled mess, and you have to overcome so many things to get where you want to be. I think that it’s just a part of my story that I’ll look back on when my career is over and think, ‘Dang, you got through that. That’s pretty cool.’” BACK AND BETTER Continued from page 27