A Player of Perseverance

MACON, Ga. — As Callie Hackett went for a layup, she felt a hard push from behind, causing her to tear her anterior cruciate ligament, or ACL, as she landed. Now a freshman point guard on the Mercer University women’s basketball team, this injury made Hackett’s transition from high school to college more difficult.

Hackett is originally from Carthage, Tenn. and has been playing basketball since she was in kindergarten.

“My dad really enjoyed going out and working out with me when I got older and my love just kept growing for it and I’ve continued to play since I was in kindergarten until now here in my freshman year of college,” Hackett said.

She continued to play in high school at Smith County High School, where she was a point guard.

In this time, she also broke a record for her school district. In her junior year, she broke the record for most points scored in a single game with 52 points.

“I didn’t realize I had scored that many at all. My coach pulled me over and he’s like ‘you know you’re about to tie the record’ and I was like wait, what record,” Hackett said.

Hackett later suffered an ACL injury during one of her high school games last February.

She had surgery about a week later that had a recovery period of six months where she had to wear a boot.

Hackett said she knew that coming into the college level was going to be difficult, especially with her injury, but she continued strong with the support of her team.

“We were all supportive and celebrated different steps, like when she got to play pick up with us for the first time. She worked really hard to recover, so it made it easy to support her,” Amanda Thompson, one of Hackett’s teammates, said.

She and her team moved to Mercer over the summer to begin practices, but she spent this time sidelined in her boot until mid-August.

In addition to the recovery period with her boot, she also had to have rehab for a little over a year following the injury. For her rehab, she had physical therapy on top of her normal practices to get back to the level she was at before the injury.

She was limited with what all she could do because of this injury, but she persevered to do all she could with the team in practices and games, whether she was on the court or on the bench.

“My teammates were very supportive. Every time I would do something better than I had before they would just be like, ‘You’re doing awesome. Keep working.’ They would just be so excited for me and that definitely helped me get back on track to be where I am today,” Hackett said.

Hackett now plays as an alternate point guard on the Mercer University women’s basketball team. Though her playtime is lessened as an alternate and freshman, she is always prepared to step in for the starting point guard at any point in the game.

“As her teammate, I see Callie as one of the hardest workers we have,” said Kahlia Lawrence, a sophomore teammate of Hackett’s. “Coming in, she was recovering from an injury that happened in high school, and despite that she still worked just as hard if not harder than the rest of us.”

The current team is mostly freshmen and sophomores, and she looks forward to continuing to improve with them as both players and friends, especially now that her boot is removed and her rehab has ended.

“My friends on the basketball team, I carry that outside of just basketball, and that’s how it’s always been. Those are people that you’ll always have a connection with,” Hackett said.