A life-threatening injury and a crowded college roster could have ended Anna Adams’ athletic career. Instead, it led to a change of scenery and sport.
Adams, a former Oglethorpe County High School goalkeeper who graduated in 2024, lacerated her kidney in a collision at a college soccer camp as a junior, sending her to the emergency room and intensive care unit.
After a lengthy recovery, Anna was cleared to play her senior season at OCHS and was offered a scholarship to play soccer at Truett McConnell University in Cleveland, Georgia.
Faced with a crowded roster and mental scars from the injury, Anna didn’t play a game in her freshman year and sat down with her coach at the end of the season.
“I had a lot of mental struggles playing in goal again,” Anna said. “It's like, ‘Oh no, is something going to happen again?’ In the end, it was a neutral balance of, ‘OK, maybe I just need to take a rest and stop.’ ”
Her coach offered her a deal: to remain on the roster and serve as a practice player, but Anna wanted to compete and play.
A friend told her that the lacrosse team was looking for players, sparking Anna’s interest. After consulting with her parents, who immediately encouraged her to do so, she emailed the coach.
“We told her that you have to have something to release everything that’s going on in life,” said Brandon Adams, Anna’s father. “When you're a kid, there’s not always a whole lot of different options out there, besides clubs and sports.”
In her first year, Anna, a midfielder, made 11 appearances for the Bears, in a sport that beforehand, she didn’t know existed.
“At one of the soccer camps, one of the players on the team was like, ‘Oh, lacrosse is going to play after.’ ” Anna said. “I was like, ‘What’s lacrosse?’ And she’s like, ‘You don’t know lacrosse?’ That was my first introduction to it.”
The switch required Anna to learn an entirely different skill set, so the adjustment wasn’t instant. While her goalkeeping experience allowed her to pick up on movement cues and defensive layouts, Anna lacked stick skills.
She and her father spent the summer practicing in parking lots, her dad catching throws and feeding her ground balls with a baseball glove.
“It gets really frustrating when you’re like, I know how to do it, I just can't because I don't have the stick skills yet,” Anna said. “After you keep going and keep going and keep going, eventually it clicks, and it was definitely hard at times, but I’m glad I pushed through.”
Anna’s drive to learn and improve was fueled by a sense of accountability toward her new teammates and coaches who welcomed and supported her.
“I always wanted to be there to support and help them (teammates) on the field,” Anna said. “If you're going to be an essential part of the team, you're gonna have to do your best, and I just wanted to keep trying and keep trying and keep getting better, and with the cheers from my teammates and my coaches, my family, and all, it just made me want to keep growing and getting those opportunities to make people proud.”
By midseason, Anna was a full-time starter for the Bears, rarely coming off the field. She also made the team’s academic list.
“I think she felt her confidence back in herself, that she knew that she could still be and still was a good athlete and was wanted,” Brandon said.
With a roster size much smaller than TMU’s soccer team, the lacrosse team offers a different, more personal dynamic.
Anna said that the team’s pregame routine of styling each other’s hair and hyping themselves up with music is more relaxed and communal than the soccer team's. After away victories, the lacrosse team rings the campus bell, a tradition that has quickly become one of Anna’s favorite memories.
Now entering her second season with the team, the move that began as a necessity to continue playing has become a rewarding experience and commitment.
“It's just been a really good experience, and I look back at it, and I'm glad I did it,” Anna said. “I couldn't be happier where I'm at, and I am so glad to have my teammates and friends with me on the team.”