Most high school kids have dreams. Some want to go to an Ivy League college. Some want to serve their country once they graduate and others may want to play a sport in college. Most kids never turn their dreams into a reality, but for Ashlee Wilkes her dream of playing college lacrosse was surely going to happen.
Or so everyone thought.
Wilkes first picked up a lacrosse stick in elementary school and by the third grade she already had one goal in mind—to play Division I lacrosse.
As she entered the ninth grade at Urbana High School, Wilkes was placed on the JV lacrosse team. Quickly, everyone around the program realized, though just a freshman, the talent was there and the Varsity team could certainly use her.
“When I first started out on JV I realized how easy the competition was since you are only playing with 9th and 10th graders,” Wilkes says. “When I got pulled up to Varsity, I was in shock how competitive the game really was, and how many good players are out there.”
While Wilkes may have seen it as a reality check, college coaches didn’t. After she played a big role in the playoffs for Urbana as a freshman, people began to take notice.
***
It was a cold, gloomy March day in Ijamsville, Maryland. It was the last preseason practice for the girl’s lacrosse team, but for Wilkes, this marked a day that would lead her down a treacherous path of rehab and agony over the next couple years.
“Some people think I may over think this, but that day in general just seemed off,” Wilkes says describing that March day. “I had gotten a bad test grade, I forgot my cleats, and it wasn’t the most practical practice conditions.”
During the last part of practice the team was scrimmaging when it happened.
Wilkes hit the field and immediately knew something wrong, but not exactly sure what happened. A million different thoughts came to her head. Initially, she thought she dislocated her kneecap. Whatever the injury was, she said she knew it was season ending.
Wilkes received the news shortly there after—she had torn her ACL. She was done for the season and had a nine month recovery process ahead of her, something no teenager wants to envision, especially one poised for a breakout sophomore season and being one step closer to their ultimate goal.
“I knew maybe one other person who had this injury, but I did know it was going to affect my game for the rest of my life,” Wilkes says.
***
High school students have a hard enough time doing their homework. Imagine at age 15 having to go through an eight-month intense recovery process—while still doing your homework.
That is what Wilkes went through from March until November of her junior year.
“The recovery process consisted of intense physical therapy 3-4 times per week for eight months, and then I was given a home exercise rehab program,” Wilkes says. “It may not seem much but being in high school and having a full schedule it was hard to juggle doctors appointments, especially when I didn’t have my license and had to have my parents drive me.”
Wilkes may have left rehab in pain every time as she strengthened everything that supports her knee, calves, quads, hamstrings, core, glutes and ankles, but she saw this as a minor setback for a major comeback.
Ashlee’s parents, Gene and Karole, were supportive along the way, but it was her brother, Trey, just two years older and a fine lacrosse player himself, who helped her the most through the rough patches of a gruesome injury, she says.
“Times when I wanted to give up and stopped caring, he could see it and immediately stepped in to guide me back on track,” Wilkes says.
***
After an extensive rehab process, Wilkes was back and she still had college coaches interested in her—even after missing her entire sophomore more year.
JMU invited her up to their camp consisting off all the top juniors they were interested in. Wilkes was ready to show she hadn’t lost a step after an ACL surgery and could play high-level lacrosse still.
On her very first drill, just a typical 1 v. 1 drill, a drill Wilkes had done thousands of times leading up to this point, her knee gave out. This time it was the other knee.
“Honestly, I thought I sprained my ankle, this time my knee didn’t make a pop noise and it was not even close to the pain level as my first one,” she says.
However, a trainer quickly helped her off the field and performed an ACL test and the trainer delivered the news—she had torn her ACL, again.
As she and her father trekked back to Frederick, neither of them could believe it.
Tears streamed from both their eyes. They were lost and confused. This wasn’t how things were supposed to go, they thought.
“He cried in confusion as to how this could happen to such a dedicated, talented, and hardworking athlete who had just been named top 100 of her class and had every dream in the world to play at a top-10 Division I school,” she says.
While she did not look forward to another nine-month rehabilitation marathon, the worst part of it all was she realized her dream of playing Division I lacrosse was quickly slipping away.
“Your junior year in any sport is the most crucial year of the recruiting process,” Wilkes says. “Knowing I had no chance in showing my skills was a huge set back.”
Even after the second injury, JMU still offered her a chance to walk on and potentially earn a scholarship in her second year.
She wasn’t giving up on that dream and even with nine months of intense rehab staring her down, with the support of family and friends Wilkes was ready to attack it head on.
***
As much as the injuries physically exhausted Wilkes, it was mentally draining as well.
Her dreams were crumpling before her eyes, she couldn’t do all the things a teenager wanted to do and recovering consisted of a lot of lying around.
“I think the word ‘basket case’ described me pretty well,” Wilkes says. “Some mornings I would wake up with no desire to get out of bed because I knew how much pain and frustration I would be in. Other mornings I would be so motivated to go to school to see friends and go to physical therapy that day.”
Her mom searched for sports psychologists, but with the closest one being two hours away, Wilkes had to deal with the pain through family and being positive.
She looked for perspective in how she lived her life post-two ACL injuries.
“After a couple months I learned to adjust and realized there are so many worse things that could be happening in life,” Wilkes says. “It was tiring, but I learned to cope.”
And that is why she was going to work tirelessly to lace up her cleats and take the field for her senior year one last time.
***
Wilkes got herself healthy for her senior year of high school, but realized, the dream she carried with her since third grade of playing Division I lacrosse was gone.
“I realized Division I lacrosse was not an option when I returned to play after my second injury,” she says. “After watching film, I realized I was not the player I used to be and that it would take a lot of time to get back to maybe 90%.”
Doctors told her she was out of her mind for trying to play again, but Wilkes loved the game and thought this could be her last opportunity to ever touch a stick competitively. A doctor wasn’t going to takeaway something she loved.
“I knew high school may be the last time I touched a stick, I really had nothing to lose,” she says.
Maybe she did have something to lose—Wilkes tore her ACL for the third time. It was over. Such a promising and gifted athlete had been stripped of her talents by injuries.
While she was surely not going to play big time college lacrosse, Wilkes opted to have surgery after her senior year and played through a torn ACL.
To this day, she inspires some of her high school teammates who fulfilled their dreams of playing Division I lacrosse.
“I was there for all incidences that she tore her ACL and all three were heart breaking,” says Mollie Smith, Wilkes high school teammate and University of Delaware lacrosse player. “Each time I thought to myself that I would give up if it were me.”
***
To no surprise, Wilkes is still playing lacrosse competitively. She is a senior at the University of Maryland and plays for the school’s club lacrosse team.
While it is not the big lights like she dreamed of, just getting a chance to play—after all the injuries—is something she doesn’t take for granted.
“I would say 100% without a doubt I do not take one practice or game for granted,” Wilkes says. “It makes me cringe when I notice players are not going all out to their best of ability knowing it could be their last game.”
While she remains insanely competitive, Wilkes dealings with three horrific injuries made her realize playing a Division I sport is not what life is all about.
“Overall, this adversity has made me realize that life is way more than just playing a Division I sport, life can teach you sportsmanship, teamwork, and talent in other ways you just have to find out how,” Wilkes says. “Moving forward has been hard, but I can definitely say I am at the school of my dreams (and still playing the sport I love just at a different level).”
Wilkes now aspires to be a physical therapist after seeing all they did for her in the recovery process and helping her get back on the field.
So, while Wilkes never achieved her dream of playing a Division I sport, she surely will help someone achieve their dreams down the line.
After all, she’s been through it all.
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