Friday, August 29, 2008
It’s a muggy August afternoon, and soccer practice is winding down outside Anschutz Sports Pavilion. Kansas has the day off tomorrow, and players talk and laugh as they make their way toward the coaches and trainers.
Junior defender Jenny Murtaugh, “Tots” as everyone there calls her, walks towards her gear, slowly unstrapping the clear, plastic mask that has covered her face since a Drake player’s foot missed its mark during Kansas’ opening exhibition game.
Murtaugh barely knows who Richard “Rip” Hamilton is, but her teammates seem to have a pretty good idea. Ever since the junior defender started wearing the custom-fitted, protective mask, she keeps getting compared to the Detroit Pistons sharpshooter.
“I hate the mask,” Murtaugh said, holding back a smile.
Despite her teammates’ ribbing, it’s a welcome alternative to the situation Murtaugh found herself in this time last season. When the Jayhawks take on Auburn on Sunday at the Jayhawks Soccer Complex, it will be almost a year to the day after Murtaugh’s junior season screeched to a halt when she tore ligaments in her left knee while playing BYU in the third game of 2007.
Months of grueling rehabilitation and a medical redshirt followed as she watched her teammates struggle to recover from a terrible nonconference record. Without “Tots,” the Jayhawks became perilously short on defensive experience, forcing freshman Katie Williams to adapt to the college game on the fly.
Williams eventually caught on, and Kansas turned things around enough to claw to a third-place Big 12 finish. But the hard work was just beginning for Murtaugh.
After starting 39 games in her first two seasons in Lawrence and garnering All-Big 12 Second Team honors as a sophomore, she found herself practically living in the training room instead of joining her teammates and friends on the pitch.
“I was in the training room about three times a day doing rehab,” Murtaugh said. “I had a couple mental breakdowns in the middle because it just seemed like it never ended.”
Coach Mark Francis certainly has faith in her ability to bounce back from adversity. It could have seemed a little like déjà vu for both Murtaugh and Francis when she was forced to leave the field with a towel over her face against the Bulldogs on Aug. 16.
But that notion didn’t last long. She was back in practice and back in the lineup a week later, putting in her typical 90 minutes in a 3-0 victory against Purdue.
“She is just tough,” Francis said. “She keeps battling on, and (leaving against Drake) really didn’t faze her. Maybe with somebody else I would have been a little bit more concerned.”
Twelve months after the injury she said she felt fine, although direct contact with the knee still bothered her sometimes. The purple bruise that resides under Murtaugh’s left eye thanks to a cleat still lingers, but it’s beginning to fade, too. As for the mask, it comes off in a month.
But for now, Murtaugh and the Jayhawks are focused on the task at hand: beating an Auburn team that lost only one starter after participating in the NCAA tournament last season. Ironically enough, the Tigers were the last team Murtaugh played a full game against before the injury.
But “Tots” is back on the field now. Murtaugh said she hasn’t decided whether or not to stick around for her final year of eligibility. She is technically a senior after all.
“Looking back, I can’t believe it has been a year since (the injury),” she said.
— — Edited by Kelsey Hayes
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