Hofstra field hockey star back from injury

It happened in her hometown of Harare, Zimbabwe on Dec. 30, 2009.

Star field hockey player Amy-Lee Levey was home after finishing the fall semester at Hofstra, where she was in her junior year. She and some friends were in a caravan of cars headed out to meet others for a New Year's Eve celebration in the African Bush.

Levey was in the passenger's seat, which is on the left side of the road in South Africa. There was an impact and in an instant, a life altering and career threatening injury to the talented player. The injuries were horrific and her friends, who stopped their cars and rushed to her aid, told her not to look down at her left leg. She had a dislocated kneecap and torn PCL, plus a broken forearm and trauma to the left side of her body.

``It was really bad,'' Levey said. ``I started to panic. I could see it was like a four-inch wide cut, you could see my kneecap was in the wrong place. That's when I started to completely panic. I was `My knee, my knee, my knee. Will I ever be able to play hockey again.' ''

She would play again, but it took an arduous path. Four surgeries in her native country, another one when she arrived back in the states, grueling rehabilitation, a season missed. But she is back in the starting lineup as a defender and midfielder.

``The mental toughness on this girl is impeccable,'' Hosftra assistant athletic trainer Bobby DiMonda said. ``Her rehabilitation was harder than some of the team's practices.''

What it took for Levey just to get back to Hofstra could fill a journal about her odyssey back home, where she grew up amid political strife and the yearning for an athletic career and education in the United States. The accident was piling on and Levey conceded to the mental anguish it caused her.

While the injury to her knee was the most severe, she has a plate and eight screws in her left forearm, the result of a severe break. The knee left her debilitated. She has a scar from her upper shin to her lower thigh. DiMonda recalled that Levy's knee ``was still brothering her rally bad, she was not able to function as an athlete yet,'' when she returned to Hofstra in August of 2010.

That she was back at school at all was a victory. ``I had been in the hospital for close to two weeks,'' she said. ``I was in ICU for three or four nights. I was in a wheelchair for maybe about five weeks before going to crutches for four weeks and then one crutch for two weeks. My mom told [Hofstra] I was in no state to return. There was a period where it was very hard mentally to get past things. Normal, everyday activities, my mom had to help me. I couldn't use my left arm at all. My left leg was immobilized. I needed help going to the bathroom, showering. My mom had to lift me up, put me back into bed, help me with everything. There will be days when people complain don't want to practice. I would have given anything at a that stage to just be able to walk.''

At Hofstra, the team wondered about their top player. ``We didn't know what we were getting when Amy came back,'' DiMonda said. Rehabilitation to just walk and return to everyday activities was not enough to determine if Levey could endure the rigors of her sport. She still has a torn PCL, which the doctors decided could not be repaired. ``Your knee will give out, it will slide,'' DiMonda said. ``She couldn't stop short, when she slowed down her knee would buckle and cause severe pain.''

That was alleviated to an extent by a special brace and exercises to strengthen her quad and hips. There was also her forearm to worry about. ``In field hockey you have to use your left forearm a lot,'' DiMonda said. ``Hitting, flips, passes, dribbling. She spent on average almost four hours a day doing rehab. Some days, six hours.''

Levey sat out in 2010, her senior year, but returned to drills last October. ``This spring,'' DiMonda said, ``She was cleared to play play,'' meaning for real. But her injury had no particular precedent. ``Everyone knows with an ACL there's six months of intensive rehab, they see the outcome, an end in sight. With Amy, there was nothing to compare it to. There's that question `Is it guaranteed I'll be playing?' ''

Hofstra coach Kathy De Angelis initially put Levy's hockey career in the rear view mirror, saying, ``We were just thankful she was alive.''

But De Angelis knew Levey's goal was to return, saying, ``She has extreme fortitude, the kind of player you dream having. I knew if anyone was going to come through an injury like this, she would be top of my list. She is somebody who could play 70 percent and that would be better than someone else's 100 percent.''

Levey has started every one of Hofstra's eight games, including Sunday's 5-2 victory over Rider in Hempstead. Levey had a goal and an assist, giving her four goals this season and 18 in her career. Hofstra is 4-4, Rider 4-1.

De Angelis said Levey earned her starting role, it was not given to her. ``No, absolutely not,'' the coach said, ``Amy would never expect something like that. That's what makes her such an elite athlete.''

Did Levy ever thing about quitting? No.

`I'm quite driven, hate not being able to do things,'' she said. ``I want to get back to where I was. I don't know if that will ever be the case. It requires a lot more effort being put into things now. Every day I go to practice my knee hurts. It takes time to warm it up. The pain's going to be there for awhile, then it goes away. I lost a bit of my speed, but I learned to adjust to that. I want to say I'm 75 percent. I have to think a lot more now, I have to analyze player I'm going against, drop into space to compensate for speed I lost. But there was never a time I wanted to walk away.''