“I haven’t had a freshman come in with the leadership qualities, the vocal-ness, the confidence that this freshman has come in with,” said Brenda Frese, Angel Reese’s former coach at Maryland before she had a gruesome foot injury. Popular for her unapologetic outspoken personality, Angel Reese always dons confidence on her face.

However, a few years back, she wasn’t who she is today. Rather, she was a heartbroken kid who had to make a hard choice between fulfilling her dream to play for the country and the painful reality of having fallen to a gruesome injury.

When injuries led Angel Reese to a big question mark

Rated as the highest-rated recruit in Maryland’s history Reese was a key player for the Terrapins. However, life was not all rainbows and sunshine for Reese before she moved to LSU. Rather, there came a day when all her hopes fell into a haze.

In December 2020, the Maryland Terrapins were to face off against the Towson Tigers. It was in the game’s opening minutes when Reese felt pain in her pinky toe after landing awkwardly during Maryland’s blowout win. “Freshman year [at the University of Maryland], I broke my foot,” Reese recalled the painful moment.

Later on, she was diagnosed with a Jones fracture in her foot and required to go under surgery. The medical procedure required a screw to be inserted into Reese’s foot along with 12 weeks of rest and recovery post-surgery.

But that didn’t stop there. Coming back from a 12-week recovery, Reese had a fracture in her shin. Hence, she had to have another procedure done.

She recalled the time on Brandon Marshall and Ashley Nicole Moss’ podcast I Am Athlete and said, “I have a rod in my leg. Many people don’t know that. Eight months after my first foot surgery, I had to get another surgery. So I had to get a rod put into my leg I had a rod going through my leg because I had a shin splint.” 

This drew out the last straw for Reese losing all of her confidence and questioning whether the game was worth this much pain. She grew self-conscious and admitted to wearing a sleeve on her left leg to hide the scars from the tibia surgery.

“My confidence completely dropped. I was like, do I wanna play basketball anymore? Like, I had high expectations. Everybody thinks I’m gonna do this. But I didn’t even believe I could do it anymore. Because I thought I gained my love for the game back and then I lose it again,” she described her mental situation at the time.

Amidst all this, there was one more thing Reese had to decide upon.

Reese stood at a crossroads

The summer before her sophomore season at Maryland, Angel Reese had already made it to the USA women’s amateur basketball team. But having to deal with the shin issue at hand she found herself standing at crossroads.

She had to choose between fulfilling her dream of playing for Team USA or undergoing surgery. Taking a wise yet one of the hardest decisions of her life, Reese chose surgery over the former. After returning from recovery, she put out a successful sophomore season and averaged 17.8 points and 10.6 rebounds per game.

After her second season, Reese finally said her goodbyes to Maryland. “This was my time to go. I think I’ve done everything I could do at Maryland, and I’ve grown mentally as a woman. Now where can I go?” she said.

Angel Reese then headed towards, what we came to know about, the life of a star athlete at LSU, and the rest is history.