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She had walked away from a spot on the Womens National Team.
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Its just, you cant feel that way indefinitely, Hess says now.
Your body can only sustain so much pain.
It was like, Just fucking end it.
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I cant deal with this anymore.
ThepainHess endured extended beyond the physical, because she also had to grieve a life she was leaving behind.
Especially early on, there was a real feeling of loss, her husband, Jon Hess, says.
Its more than justplaying soccer.
You lose that sense of purpose.
An essential outlet came when she enrolled in a graduate psychology program at Fordham.
For one thing, she had to occupy her time with something other than mindless rehab on her knees.
But it was also the subject matter.
Hess recalls a guest speaker at Fordham.
He said, Thats exactly the stuff thats going to make you amazing at this job.
The mindset permeated elsewhere.
She wouldnt go back to rehab, and would instead implement her own regimen on the West Side Highway.
I was like, I can deal with pain for a minute, she says.
So I went out every day for a minute.
Then it became two minutes.
And eventually it was five minutes.
The pain was so severe that Hess would occasionally run in tears, but she persisted.
Five minutes became 10 minutes, then 20.
But there was no sense in stopping her.
It was in her head, her mother Linda Whalen says.
She said, I have to do this.
It was like she was making this dual statement that mentally and physically Im going to reset myself.
Another was in how she immersed herself in her new career.
Sara swiftly replied it wasn’t.
What well never know is what life would have been like for Hess if things had gone smoother.
I wonder what I would have learned had I not gone through all this stuff, she tells me.
Adapted fromWin at Losingby Sam Weinman with the permission of TarcherPerigee, an imprint of Penguin Random House.
Copyright 2016 by Sam Weinman.
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