Basketball Senior Emily Stephens: Faith and Perseverance
Reported By: Sam Erickson
Photographed By: Kelly North
“Injury prone” is a term often thrown around professional sports to refer to the players who never seem to be playing. The term comes with baggage, a negative connotation that implies the athlete in question simply doesn’t work hard enough. Emily Stephens proved to be an exception to that rule during her time playing for the George Fox University (GFU) women’s basketball team. Stephens suffered serious injury after serious injury but never failed to keep working. The senior noted that throughout each injury she sustained, her faith didn’t just keep her afloat, it actually “became stronger.”
Starting in 2018, Stephens suffered a compound dislocation in her right finger. Just a month later, she tore her right ACL and MCL. Then in October 2019, Stephens dislocated her jaw, needing surgery to repair it. Then, to round everything off, she tore her left ACL and MCL, and also tore her medical and lateral meniscus–requiring yet another surgery.
Most athletes would fear just one of those injuries happening at any point in their career; most couldn’t fathom having them happen like clockwork every year for four years.
Stephens credits her ability to get through such brutal injuries to “God and Perseverance.”
“Faith has always been a huge part of my life and throughout each injury I sustained, I leaned more and more on Jesus and my faith became stronger,” said Stephens. “I always knew that there was a purpose greater than I could ever see in the moment. Looking back, I have seen how God used each and every injury to strengthen a different part of me.”
Stephens said perseverance is the word that echoed throughout her multiple rehabilitation processes. She also noted she didn’t want to go through the process in a way that would produce future regrets: “I never wanted to look back and wish that I had trained a little harder in the rehab, or took it a little more seriously. I knew that putting in the work then, was going to pay off later.”
Working hard wasn’t exclusive to rehab or basketball for the senior, however. Stephens is a nursing major, who for much of her final season worked long hours at several clinics that included overnight shifts that kept her away from practice often. Her teammates noticed her hard work. Beth Parangan, a first-year teammate, said “she really was a witness to me, and my other teammates as well. . . . The amount of work she was putting in just to be there, she deserved all the playing time in the world.”
Stephens’s career ended with the senior playing fewer minutes than Parangan and her other teammates than they wanted. Stephens admitted it was difficult not to play meaningful minutes in her final game, but she said that “at the end of the day, those who I love and care about the most (my teammates) made me feel so incredibly special and I am thankful I had their love and support through it all.”
Stephens’s mark on the GFU women’s basketball team is immeasurable, but her hours spent on the court and in the classroom come close to showing just how special her time here has been.