Behind every serve, penalty kick, free throw and at-bat, are countless hours spent strengthening muscles and perfecting the techniques necessary to become champions. Outside of just the physical aspects of being an athlete is the equally daunting mental aspect.

The Hofstra volleyball season had barely started for Deja Clarke before she got the news that a tibia fracture she had sustained in high school didn’t heal properly, prohibiting her from putting any weight on her right foot for 10 weeks, delaying the start to her season.

“It was extremely difficult for me to have to sit on the sideline and just watch,” Clarke said. “I had to accept the fact that I couldn’t be a part of Hofstra volleyball. There were some days I would cry in my room by myself.”

Women’s soccer defender Marlene Fries walked the same walk as she has suffered three ACL injuries in her career, two of them while at Hofstra.

“My freshman year was hard because I couldn’t prove myself as a player that much at Hofstra,” Fries said. “Mentally, it’s also hard to watch others and put the team first. You obviously have to cheer them on, which I want to, but it’s hard.”

Clarke and Fries weren’t alone in missing their freshman seasons due to injury. Men’s basketball redshirt freshman Christian Tomasco missed out on his first year with the Pride due to a concussion. 

Being away from his team, unable to do what he loves and cheer on his closest friends during the good and the bad, brought moments where he struggled to keep his chin up.

“It was more so not being able to be with the team, and so that really brought me to a low point,” Tomasco said. “You want to be there to encourage them when things aren’t going our way, and you just can’t do that because it’s not like you can text them during the middle of the game,” he said in reference to away games when injured players might not get to travel.

“I honestly didn’t really keep too much of a positive mindset. I didn’t know if I wanted to continue playing basketball; I didn’t know if I wanted to return. It was kind of hard to stay positive, [even when] everyone around you wanted to be, you just eat yourself [up] inside sometimes.”

Ryan Rue, a graduate student and baseball pitcher, was dealt different cards from the same deck; Tommy John surgery took him out his entire senior season.

“It was kind of just a shock,” Rue said. “I was just like, ‘Well, s**t, this is actually happening,’ because you don’t ever want to hear that as a pitcher.”

That senior year, coincidentally, was the season when Hofstra baseball won the Colonial Athletic Association (CAA) title for the first time in program history. Although Rue received a championship ring, it didn’t erase the feelings of self-blame for not pitching all year.

“It definitely sucked to not be a part of it overall, because the pitching was the weakness on the team last year, and being a pitcher, I wanted to be able to help but I knew I couldn’t,” Rue said. “So if we got to the finals and lost, I would have been very mad because I would have almost felt like I let them down not being available to pitch.”

Rue wasn’t the only person who went through Tommy John surgery. Zack Bailey, also on the baseball team, missed most of the 2021 season because of the same injury, and it was one of the most difficult periods of his life.

“[It was] a gut-wrenching feeling; it was the first time I’ve ever sat out of baseball, and it was just very depressing,” Bailey said. “Sometimes, I would have a good day and then sometimes it’d be a s***ty day and I’d be like, ‘Am I ever gonna get back to where I was?’ So, it definitely took a toll on my mental health; I was very depressed for a couple months. It was the worst year I had ever. I would never wish this upon my worst enemy.”

To prevent himself from getting his emotions lost in translation, keeping everything real is what kept him going.

“[Those moments] put everything out on the floor for you,” Bailey said. “You’ve already been in the dumps, you’ve already been down, kicked down, beaten the furthest you can get down, and it’s only up from there.”

Across the board, these different players described varying levels of support that they sought out and received during their struggles.

“Even when I was having a crappy day – I don’t really like to talk about my feelings – but my teammates would ask if I want a hug and I’m like, ‘Yeah, I’ll take a hug; I’m not gonna say no,’” Clarke said. “Mainly my family members or sometimes [Stephanie Cerniglia] would be around when I’m kind of in that place. [They’d say,] ‘Don’t beat yourself up because you didn’t do this to yourself; it’s not like you purposely injured yourself so that you would not have to run and then it turned into something that took an entire season to fix.’”

Fries was keenly aware of her limits and knew the benefits of seeking professional help, especially when aimed specifically at athletes.

“We were supposed to get a sports psychologist. I think we still don’t have one, but I would have used a sports psychologist,” Fries explained. “I think I would have used the option to go [to them], just to talk about the toughest part, [and] also when you go back to sports [so] that you don’t think about your injuries.”

Fries wasn’t the only one who considered the option of seeking out the help of a mental health professional; it was one of the first things Tomasco was told when he was benched.

“The coaches said, ‘You should definitely talk to somebody if you don’t want to talk to us or your parents; definitely go talk to somebody,’” Tomasco explained. “The school and my parents wanted me to talk to therapists, and I went to maybe two or three different ones but that didn’t really click for me.”

In the end, Tomasco felt it would be more beneficial to allow himself to feel everything he’s feeling and then use that as an internal motivator.

“I felt that it’s better for me to dwell in that low point and really absorb how it felt [and] then work my way out of it,” Tomasco said. “I really just, mentally and physically, had to look at myself and say, ‘Okay, this is where I’m at right now, and here are the things that I need to do to change it. Some of these things might be out of my control, but I’ll find a way to work around them.’”

Other Hofstra athletes said they felt therapy helped them cope with setbacks.

“I did see a therapist, for like three or four months, so I did talk to someone about everything,” Bailey said.

While some of the senior members of the Pride might be involuntarily on the bench, that doesn’t mean that they couldn’t act like leaders.

Fifth year women’s lacrosse goalie Jess Smith injured her foot just three days before returning to Hofstra to start her off-season practices.

“When I broke my foot, [the coaches] were like a calming presence,” Smith explained. “They were like ‘We’re gonna figure out things, give you time to heal, focus on the skills that you need to get better at, but also continue to be a team leader and step up in that aspect.’”

Rue felt that this was a page out of his book, because right when he was injured, there was a change in the entire coaching staff.

“They’re walking into the situation, and I was already a month or two into rehab. They heard about my history on the mound, so they knew who I was for the team,” Rue explained. “They just supported my rehab and knew that I could be a silent leader on the team.”

The only place you can go is up, and that seems to be the consensus all around Hofstra athletics.

When Clarke’s doctors cleared her to get off her scooter and into a boot, meaning she could put weight on her foot, the response was more than she anticipated.

“When I started doing weight bearing, all the athletic trainers were so excited,” Clarke said. “I got a lot of well wishes from recovery in the past couple of days.”

Sometimes it comes down to an individual approach when faced with such adversity.

“I try to take the bright side of things. That’s just what I tried to do because it’s easier to accept it if you try and move on and think about the future, rather than dwelling on what you could have done,” Clarke reasoned. “Why stress yourself over something that you can’t go back in time and fix?”

Fries found a positive in her injury, as this newly unimpeded time forced her to reassess her personal values.

“Soccer and sport is like the center of your life and if that gets taken from you, it’s like you have nothing else; it defines who you are and what you are,” Fries said. “With an injury you get to know who the person behind the soccer [is]. I think [it] was a positive for my injuries, because [now] I value different things in life and not only soccer.”

“Sometimes I cry in the evening, like, ‘How is that possible that I have such a s**t injury?’” Fries said. “But then I often get up and think ‘You can’t change it now, so then do what you can change’ and this is going to [physical therapy], being positive and [doing] what you like.”

“You can’t really change what has happened; you can only kind of attack what’s in front of you,” Rue concurred. “A lot of people come back better after surgery sometimes. So, I made that my goal; I want to be better.”

In hindsight, some athletes were grateful for the experiences that they went through, because without these tough lessons, they wouldn’t be the people  they are now.

“It was a full circle moment; everything I went through last year got me to where I am now. And if I didn’t go through that low point, I wouldn’t be where I am right now,” Tomasco said. “I actually needed that low point to kind of kick me and get me working harder and get me [going] in the right direction.”

“Every time I do pitch, every time I’m playing, [I] enjoy it more just because I haven’t been playing for so long,” Rue recognized. “I sat out a year, and it just makes you itch to want to be playing.”

To anyone who is struggling with their mental health or knows someone who is, these players offered this:

“At the end of the day, if your mental health is terrible, it doesn’t matter how good of a player you are,” Clarke advised.

“It will eventually lift, the clouds will float away, and you’ll eventually see that light,” Tomasco offered.

“I know it’s hard sometimes to ask for help, but you’re worth asking for,” Smith said.

Photos courtesy of Hofstra Athletics