HARTFORD, Conn. — The iPhone shook and the email popped up at 3:17 p.m. On a nondescript summer day what could the UConn women’s basketball program be announcing? A scheduling change, a new NIL deal, a bit of routine housekeeping?
If only. With the first glance, the first three words in the message field were “Paige Bueckers suffers ...” and you knew nothing good would follow. Opened up, the gut punch followed, “... torn ACL, will miss 2022-23 season.”
In time, the perspective will set in. Basketball players all too often tear ACLs, miss seasons, recover and return good as new, or close to it. Just last week, I remembered covering a UConn women’s tournament game in Cincinnati in 1999, watching from across the court as Sue Bird, at the end of her freshman year, walked along the baseline on crutches and tried to smile as she recovered from her torn ACL. I remembered that, in fact, as I watched Bird, nearly a quarter century later, still doing Sue Bird things at 41 in her last WNBA game in Connecticut.
