Christa Harmotto still wears a black brace on her right knee, a reminder of what happened 10 months ago.
It was Nov. 19, 2005, senior night for the Penn State women's volleyball team as it played Iowa in the final regular season match at home. But it was Harmotto, a freshman middle hitter that overshadowed the departing senior class, and not in the way she wanted.
After jumping for a ball midway through the match, Harmotto landed awkwardly and writhed in pain as she laid on her back on the floor of Rec Hall. She had torn the anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) in her right knee, and wouldn't play again for almost seven months.
Harmotto missed the remainder of the 2005 regular season and the Nittany Lions' run to the Round of 16 in the NCAA Tournament as she began her recovery, which included surgery to reconstruct the torn ligament followed by months of rehabilitation.
Ten months after suffering the injury, Harmotto appears to be fully recovered. She is the same emotional, leave-it-all-on-the-floor player she was before the senior night match against Iowa, making her teammates smile during points and laugh between them. She might even leave more of herself on the floor now.
"I kind of look at every game as almost like a last match," Harmotto said. "You never know what's going to happen. Especially after my injury last year."
She's a captain as a sophomore, serving as the emotional leader of a team looking to win its fourth consecutive Big Ten title and make a push deep in the NCAA Tournament.
But things weren't so rosy in the days after the match against Iowa.
"It's kind of like shock the first couple days," Harmotto said a few weeks after tearing her ACL. "And then you come to reality and realize that you have to move on."
Harmotto began moving on by playing vicariously through her teammates.
"It killed me being on the sidelines," she said Saturday night after a win against Miami (Ohio). "But it's almost like you see the game from a different perspective. Kevin Starns, one of our assistant coaches, said, 'Just picture yourself in there. Picture yourself leading. Picture yourself cheering and all the things you enjoy doing.' That helped a lot."
While watching her teammates play the remainder of the season, Harmotto was determined not to push herself in rehab too much, too soon. She wanted to guarantee that she would be ready for fall practices and no later. That would be possible, if she listened to her doctors.
Through the slow beginnings of rehab during which Harmotto said she was, "getting pretty bored" with just the limited movements of her knee, she was thinking not only of herself.
"The most important thing that drove me through [rehab] was to be 100 percent by Aug. 10. For my teammates, for the coaches, I wanted to be 100 percent," Harmotto said. "You have athletes that want to push too fast and that's when they get setbacks, and I had no major setbacks."
Harmotto was ready a month before her intended date of return, and she can tell you the exact date without hesitation. It was July 7 when head coach Russ Rose gave her the go-ahead.
"I just remember the day because I was so excited and coach finally let me play," Harmotto said.
Harmotto is now back in her pre-injury form (She was named an honorable mention All-American despite not finishing last season), but she still wears the black brace despite doctor's assertions that she doesn't need to anymore.
Harmotto is from Hopewell, Pa., the same town where Penn State linebacker Paul Posluszny grew up, and has known the Posluszny family since she was in third grade. When the linebacker tore ligaments in his right knee weeks after Harmotto tore her ACL, residents couldn't help but make comparisons.
"When he went down in the Orange Bowl, everybody in Hopewell they were like, 'What's in your water. What's going on with the right knee,' " Harmotto said. "It's funny because I see him with the same brace that I have on. He wants his off, but I want to keep mine on."
