SHE'S BAAACK
8/6/2024 4:17:00 PM | Soccer
Defender Marissa Gray returns to soccer after a year off
(Editor's Note: This is one of the stories featured in our fall edition of the Insider magazine that will be mailed out later this month to Bear Foundation donors.)
By Jerry Hill
Baylor Bear Insider
In an age when coaches can find quick fixes and fill voids by reaching into the transfer portal, Baylor soccer coach Michelle Lenard instead went back in time.
When senior center back Blythe Obar suffered a devastating torn ACL early in the spring semester, an otherwise experienced team was suddenly left with a significant hole in its back line, with nowhere to really turn.
"We do have an incoming freshman, Paisley Mabra, who we're really excited about, who we think is going to play and contribute significant minutes," Lenard said. "But she's a freshman. We felt like we really needed another player with some experience back there, but we didn't have too many options at the time."
It was about that time that Marissa Gray walked through the doors at the Williams Family Soccer Center just to say "Hello" to her former teammates and coaches while she was back in town for a Fellowship of Christian Athletes camp.
"I walk in the building, and everybody's frazzled," Gray said. "They were like, 'What are you doing? We weren't expecting you.'''
There's a reason why the team wasn't expecting her. Graduating in December of 2022 with a degree in kinesiology and pre-physical therapy, Gray hadn't been in school since the following spring and hadn't played in an actual in-season game since Nov. 3, 2019, at the end of her true freshman season.
"Michelle asked me if I had ever thought about coming back,'' Gray said. "I'm not going to lie to her and say, 'Oh, all the time,' because I have not thought about that in I don't know how long. And she said, 'Well, we really need a center back.' Honestly, I thought it was a joke and told her, 'Yeah, that's a funny idea. Ha-ha.' But she was actually serious. She said, 'No, I'll talk to some people and see what I can do.'''
Although she missed three full seasons with knee and ankle injuries and wasn't even in school last year, Gray is still eligible for the 2024 season because of the NCAA 10-semester clock from when she first started.
What at first seemed like a joke became reality when Gray decided to give it a shot and come back for one final year with the Bears.
"She gets an opportunity to kind of go out on her own terms, God willing," Lenard said, "and contribute to the program that she loves so much. . . . It's a win-win all the way around, and we're all very excited for it."
This is also a full-circle moment for Gray, an all-district and all-state defender at Carrollton (Texas) Creekview High School who signed with Baylor in November 2018.
"We would always pass it on the way to Austin or Houston, but I just knew it as that little school with the football stadium (by the river)," she said. "I was playing in a summer showcase with Kayley Ables (now Leckich), and Kayley's mom told the Baylor coaches, 'Hey, you should check out this girl, Marissa Gray.' I never really thought anything of it. . . . Never thought I would actually commit and spend the majority of my time there."
Although Gray was told that she wouldn't play that much as a freshman, Ables missed the start of the 2019 season with a concussion, opening the door for the talented freshman to start 10 of the 19 games and finish with the fifth-most minutes on the team (1,203).
"There was really nobody else," Gray said. "But it wasn't in the center back position that I was used to playing, it was outside back. That was an interesting transition of playing something completely new against the top players in the country."
Credited with her first-career assist on the last of fellow freshman Elizabeth Kooiman's three goals in a 4-2 win over West Virginia, Gray "felt a weird twinge in my knee" in the following game against Oklahoma.
"I remember going off to the side and telling (athletic trainer Kristen Bartiss), 'My knee kind of hurts,''' she said. "And it just kept getting worse and worse. They would do MRIs and said they couldn't really see anything. It was painful, but it wasn't like, 'Oh my gosh, I literally can't walk.' They told me that if I could just make it through the season, then we'll figure it out."
In a career highlight, Gray had a goal and an assist in a 2-0 win over Iowa State on Oct. 27, 2019. But the Bears lost their last two games and missed the NCAA Tournament after back-to-back Elite Eight appearances in 2017 and '18.
Two months later, she had a scope surgery to remove the plica (a band of thick, fibrotic tissue that serves as a cushion) in her left knee and "just a cleanup of some scar tissue in there. And that was it."
Although she was expected to miss maybe a month, Gray couldn't straighten or bend her knee and had a "prolonged pain that nobody knew how to address." Sent home during the COVID outbreak, she could "only go to rehab once a week, because that's what was allowed in the facility I was in back home."
"I could only do so much, because the world at the time was freaking out," she said.
In a follow-up consultation with Dallas Cowboys team physician, Dr. Daniel Cooper, Marissa first got the word that she should consider medically retiring.
"He was blunt, which to some extent I appreciated," she said. "But he said, 'If you don't get any better, this is where you're headed.'''
With the atrophy in her left leg, it got to the point where it was less about playing soccer again than just being able to walk without being in pain and "living a normal life without being at a 10 pain all the time," Gray said.
It wasn't until February 2022 that Gray passed a function test and was cleared to play again. She was even able to play in some spring games under Lenard, the new head coach, but suffered a torn ligament in her left ankle in one of the last practices and had season-ending surgery that October.
"Everybody knew the surgery was coming, but it was just facing the reality of, 'Okay, that was my last hurrah in college soccer,''' she said. "Or, so I thought."
Working a full-time job back home while also applying to physical therapy schools, Gray said she had to hit hyperdrive on her training regimen in the spring, working with her former club team coach to get back in soccer shape.
"I had been doing some CrossFit workouts, so I was fit for your average 22-year-old, not your average college soccer player," she said. "That first practice, I was down for the count. My body was like, 'What are we doing?'''
While Lenard is not expecting Gray to be able to play a full 90-minute game, maybe the whole season, "when she's in, she's a difference-maker for us. If that's 60 minutes, then we'll be happy to have her for 60 minutes."
After an exhibition game against UTSA on Sunday, Gray and the Bears will open the season next Thursday, Aug. 15, at Mississippi State before returning home to host St. Bonaventure on Sunday, Aug. 18, at Betty Lou Mays Field.
"I think I get nervous, because I don't know what to expect," Gray said. "I feel pretty confident in myself and in the team, but there's one part of me that thinks, 'But what if?' Because that's been my experience here. It's a battle of my mind of, 'I'm scared,' but this is also something so new, which is so exciting and such an interesting journey to go on."
By Jerry Hill
Baylor Bear Insider
In an age when coaches can find quick fixes and fill voids by reaching into the transfer portal, Baylor soccer coach Michelle Lenard instead went back in time.
When senior center back Blythe Obar suffered a devastating torn ACL early in the spring semester, an otherwise experienced team was suddenly left with a significant hole in its back line, with nowhere to really turn.
"We do have an incoming freshman, Paisley Mabra, who we're really excited about, who we think is going to play and contribute significant minutes," Lenard said. "But she's a freshman. We felt like we really needed another player with some experience back there, but we didn't have too many options at the time."
It was about that time that Marissa Gray walked through the doors at the Williams Family Soccer Center just to say "Hello" to her former teammates and coaches while she was back in town for a Fellowship of Christian Athletes camp.
"I walk in the building, and everybody's frazzled," Gray said. "They were like, 'What are you doing? We weren't expecting you.'''
There's a reason why the team wasn't expecting her. Graduating in December of 2022 with a degree in kinesiology and pre-physical therapy, Gray hadn't been in school since the following spring and hadn't played in an actual in-season game since Nov. 3, 2019, at the end of her true freshman season.
"Michelle asked me if I had ever thought about coming back,'' Gray said. "I'm not going to lie to her and say, 'Oh, all the time,' because I have not thought about that in I don't know how long. And she said, 'Well, we really need a center back.' Honestly, I thought it was a joke and told her, 'Yeah, that's a funny idea. Ha-ha.' But she was actually serious. She said, 'No, I'll talk to some people and see what I can do.'''
Although she missed three full seasons with knee and ankle injuries and wasn't even in school last year, Gray is still eligible for the 2024 season because of the NCAA 10-semester clock from when she first started.
What at first seemed like a joke became reality when Gray decided to give it a shot and come back for one final year with the Bears.
"She gets an opportunity to kind of go out on her own terms, God willing," Lenard said, "and contribute to the program that she loves so much. . . . It's a win-win all the way around, and we're all very excited for it."
This is also a full-circle moment for Gray, an all-district and all-state defender at Carrollton (Texas) Creekview High School who signed with Baylor in November 2018.
"We would always pass it on the way to Austin or Houston, but I just knew it as that little school with the football stadium (by the river)," she said. "I was playing in a summer showcase with Kayley Ables (now Leckich), and Kayley's mom told the Baylor coaches, 'Hey, you should check out this girl, Marissa Gray.' I never really thought anything of it. . . . Never thought I would actually commit and spend the majority of my time there."
Although Gray was told that she wouldn't play that much as a freshman, Ables missed the start of the 2019 season with a concussion, opening the door for the talented freshman to start 10 of the 19 games and finish with the fifth-most minutes on the team (1,203).
"There was really nobody else," Gray said. "But it wasn't in the center back position that I was used to playing, it was outside back. That was an interesting transition of playing something completely new against the top players in the country."
Credited with her first-career assist on the last of fellow freshman Elizabeth Kooiman's three goals in a 4-2 win over West Virginia, Gray "felt a weird twinge in my knee" in the following game against Oklahoma.
"I remember going off to the side and telling (athletic trainer Kristen Bartiss), 'My knee kind of hurts,''' she said. "And it just kept getting worse and worse. They would do MRIs and said they couldn't really see anything. It was painful, but it wasn't like, 'Oh my gosh, I literally can't walk.' They told me that if I could just make it through the season, then we'll figure it out."
In a career highlight, Gray had a goal and an assist in a 2-0 win over Iowa State on Oct. 27, 2019. But the Bears lost their last two games and missed the NCAA Tournament after back-to-back Elite Eight appearances in 2017 and '18.
Two months later, she had a scope surgery to remove the plica (a band of thick, fibrotic tissue that serves as a cushion) in her left knee and "just a cleanup of some scar tissue in there. And that was it."
Although she was expected to miss maybe a month, Gray couldn't straighten or bend her knee and had a "prolonged pain that nobody knew how to address." Sent home during the COVID outbreak, she could "only go to rehab once a week, because that's what was allowed in the facility I was in back home."
"I could only do so much, because the world at the time was freaking out," she said.
In a follow-up consultation with Dallas Cowboys team physician, Dr. Daniel Cooper, Marissa first got the word that she should consider medically retiring.
"He was blunt, which to some extent I appreciated," she said. "But he said, 'If you don't get any better, this is where you're headed.'''With the atrophy in her left leg, it got to the point where it was less about playing soccer again than just being able to walk without being in pain and "living a normal life without being at a 10 pain all the time," Gray said.
It wasn't until February 2022 that Gray passed a function test and was cleared to play again. She was even able to play in some spring games under Lenard, the new head coach, but suffered a torn ligament in her left ankle in one of the last practices and had season-ending surgery that October.
"Everybody knew the surgery was coming, but it was just facing the reality of, 'Okay, that was my last hurrah in college soccer,''' she said. "Or, so I thought."
Working a full-time job back home while also applying to physical therapy schools, Gray said she had to hit hyperdrive on her training regimen in the spring, working with her former club team coach to get back in soccer shape.
"I had been doing some CrossFit workouts, so I was fit for your average 22-year-old, not your average college soccer player," she said. "That first practice, I was down for the count. My body was like, 'What are we doing?'''
While Lenard is not expecting Gray to be able to play a full 90-minute game, maybe the whole season, "when she's in, she's a difference-maker for us. If that's 60 minutes, then we'll be happy to have her for 60 minutes."
After an exhibition game against UTSA on Sunday, Gray and the Bears will open the season next Thursday, Aug. 15, at Mississippi State before returning home to host St. Bonaventure on Sunday, Aug. 18, at Betty Lou Mays Field.
"I think I get nervous, because I don't know what to expect," Gray said. "I feel pretty confident in myself and in the team, but there's one part of me that thinks, 'But what if?' Because that's been my experience here. It's a battle of my mind of, 'I'm scared,' but this is also something so new, which is so exciting and such an interesting journey to go on."
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