Marissa Janning shoots a free throw in the season opener vs. Wichita State (Spomer/WBR) CLICK TO BUY
It’s one thing for an athlete to receive attention and praise when they are at their peak of athletic performance, but sometimes they don’t find out how people truly feel until that moment comes when they are at their lowest. It is when the light at the end of athletic tunnel is coming into view.
For Creighton senior guard Marissa Janning that moment came suddenly last Saturday night in the final minute of a game against Eastern Washington. She was trying to cut off a ball-handler near mid court when her leg buckled and she went down along the sideline.
Known for her energy and fast pace playing style, it wasn’t the first time in her 104-game Creighton career that Janning has hit the deck. Unfortunately, it was the first time that she couldn’t pick herself back up.
“I really tried to get back up. I tried,” Janning said, with tears streaming down the side of her face. “I looked up at my parents who were sitting just up to my right in the stands. My mom was obviously being a mother, freaking out and crying, and then I saw my dad and he kind of had tears in his eyes. I remember looking at him and I said, ‘I can’t get up.’ I mouthed it and they tried to help me up and I just said, ‘I can’t.'”
She was eventually helped off the court, overcome with pain and emotion as the fears of what the 22-year-old senior was going to be forced to miss out on began to roll around in her mind.
“I was crying because it still hurt, but I was crying because I knew something was actually wrong,” Janning said. “Aside from the pain I was crying because I can’t be out there with my teammates.”
Later at the hospital an X-ray revealed a broken fibula in her left leg. While that news was certainly better than many of the alternatives, the original timetable for her recovery of six-to-eight weeks meant that Janning was going to miss out on a lot of the things that may seem insignificant to others, but mean the world to the Minnesota native.
“I can’t run out at the beginning of the starting lineups and throw a shirt to a little kid in the crowd,” Janning said before pausing to try and compose herself.
“There are just so many things that you can’t do now,” she continued. “Even though it might only be two months, it might be one month, but just not being able to hear people cheer for you, giving an assist to Audrey for three, giving her a high five, saying good job, or running out and giving everybody high fives. I have to just sit there and say, ‘good job.’ I can’t even rebound for my teammates.”
Janning works closely with her teammates (Spomer/WBR) CLICK TO BUY
“Just thinking of everything that I can’t do. I know it’s only temporary — I know I’m going to come back because that’s just the type of person I am, and it’s not a serious enough injury that I can’t come back from — but there are just a lot of things that I want to do that I can’t.”
Even the long distance film sessions between her and her father, Jeff, were too difficult for Janning to get through knowing that she wouldn’t be able to execute any of his advice in the near future.
“My dad was sending me clips the other night just kind of watching film with me from far away, and I had to ask him, ‘Dad, can we not talk about basketball right now?’ Which is really strange, because that’s obviously a huge part of our relationship,” she said. “He just texted me back ‘How ’bout them Vikings? They’re doing pretty good this year,'” she said while laughing, appreciating her father’s mid-conversation adjustment.
“The emotional part is really tough, because it’s really hard to sit and watch the team practice or even watch film knowing that I’m not even going to play. It’s really tough,” Janning said. “I’ve sat out of practices before, but not games.”
If being injured was a shocking event towards the negative end of the emotional spectrum. A surprise of a different kind came along to even things out while Janning and her parents were in the hospital awaiting the results of the X-ray.
“When I was in the emergency room on Saturday I had gone in for my X-ray, got it done, came back, and my mom had my phone and she said, ‘you might want this,'” Janning recalled. “At first I just said, ‘I don’t need it, I’m going to wait. I don’t want to look at anything.’ I thought I was just going to be really emotional, and she was like, ‘no, you need to see this.'”
Listening to her mother, she took the phone and was overwhelmed by what she saw — over 50 text messages, 30 notifications, a bunch of Instagram, and stuff from Snap Chat, Facebook posts, and emails. They were sent by a wide range of people; family, friends, friends of friends, opposing players, coaches, media members, and so on. All expressing their support for her during the worst point of her athletic career.
Even her head coach, Jim Flanery, had numerous people reach out to him once news of the injury starting circulating.
“I can’t tell you how many coaches and people have reached out and called and said how bad they feel for her because of how much respect they have for the way she plays,” Flanery said. “She’s pretty fearless. I think that’s one thing that you respect a lot about Marissa is that she plays hard and she’s fearless.”
But now as the fear started to set in with the 5-foot, 8-inch point guard, her peers reached out to help combat it, and while she has always seen basketball’s impact on her life both on and off the court, the support she has received since Saturday night has somehow managed to enhance her appreciation for the position that she is in.
Janning has been a leader for the Bluejays in many ways on the court. She now will cheer from the sidelines for a while (Spomer/WBR) CLICK TO BUY
“I think I’m realizing how much this does mean to me,” Janning said. “It’s not even the feeling that basketball gives, it’s the feeling from the outpouring that people on social media or emails or whatever, it’s the impact that I have on them from playing basketball or the impact they have on me from this injury. It’s more than just basketball, it’s relationships you build.
“I described one time as being a point guard you kind of create your own masterpiece. You’re like Picasso. Someone on Twitter the other day called my brother “the Picasso of the court.” It’s funny and I was thinking about that today, it’s right, you get to create your own thing. This is your artwork. Off the court you treat it like that, you have respect for it, and people respect you for that reason.”
“It just impacts so many areas, it’s not just in the gym, it’s everywhere. It’s on the street — I had someone at a restaurant today, a guy just came up to me and said, ‘you’re going to be okay.’ I know I’m going to be okay, but to know that you can impact people by playing a game that you love just makes you love it even more for other reasons. Not the points, the rebounds, the assists, or the accolades. It just makes you love it for everything that comes with it. It’s a beautiful thing.”
While the basketball world outside of Creighton sympathizes with Janning and her situation, they won’t be sharing the same sentiment with the rest of her healthy teammates. The Bluejays, winners of four of six to begin the season, are also without junior center Brianna Rollerson who is sidelined for two months with a Jones fracture in her right foot, four of their next five games will be played away from the friendly confines of D.J. Sokol Arena.
Regardless, Janning isn’t concerned. Since the start of preseason workouts she’s been telling anyone who will listen about the quality of the depth on this team, and the upcoming stretch with her and Rollerson unavailable is just another chance to prove that.
“It’s going to be an adjustment, because you’re missing our leading rebounder and then a point guard that played usually over 30 minutes each game, but I’m confident in them,” Janning said of her teammates who will face the Kansas Jayhawks (3-2) on Wednesday night in Lawrence. “Sydney’s going to be fine. If she has to play the one, that’s fine. For Olivia, I think it’s going to come as a shock just because it’s her first game, being just thrown in out of a redshirt. That’s going to be a little shocking, but we have Audrey, Ali’s been playing really well, Kylie and Bailey have been playing well, Lauren and Myah have been shooting the crap out of the ball, and MC is used to having her roles switched around. You still have to guard everybody on the team, it’s still the same. There might not be as many focal points, but you still have to guard everybody. Syd can make plays, Jade can make plays, Audrey can make plays, anyone can make plays on our team.”
Listen to the full EXCLUSIVE interview with Marissa Janning